HC Deb 05 April 1910 vol 16 cc214-5
Mr. GOULDING

asked the President of the Local Government Board whether he has made an estimate of the number of aged recipients of Poor Law relief in the area of the metropolis who will be entitled to an old age pension in January next; whether he has ascertained how many of them have relatives or friends willing to receive them on their leaving the union; and what arrangements he is making or proposes to make for the number who may have no home to which they can go?

Mr. BURNS

With regard to the first part of the question it can only be stated that the number of persons over seventy years of age in receipt of indoor poor relief from Metropolitan Boards of Guardians on 1st January last was 16,065, and that, in the opinion of the medical officers of the workhouses and other institutions in which these persons were relieved, more than two-thirds of them could not satisfactorily take care of themselves owing to mental or physical infirmity. It may, perhaps, be assumed that the numbers will not be materially different at the end of the present year. It is not practicable to obtain the suggested information as to relatives or friends, and I have no authority to make.such arrangements as those indicated in the last part of the question.

Mr. GOULDING

May I ask the right hon. Gentlemen whether his attention has been called to Miss Sellars1 report, in which she states that after inquiry in London workhouses of 528 inmates entitled to old age pensions next January, only nine have relatives able and willing to give them shelter?

Mr. BURNS

I do not see that that fact in any way bears on the question my hon. Friend has put to me.

Mr. GOULDING

Does not the right hon. Gentleman propose to make any arrangements by which those people can get different treatment from that which they have at the present time, or in case any of them seek their liberty to go out and spend their money in one day?

Mr. BURNS

We estimate that of the 16,065 indoor people aged seventy or upwards, at the outside not more than 1,600 are likely to come out to receive pensions. In my judgment, which is confirmed by the figures of Miss Sellars, it will be considerably less than that number.