§ Mr. PETOasked the President of the Local Government Board if he will state the date that the Board addressed a communication to the Bristol Board of Guardians with regard to the loss of income sustained by their vaccination officer in consequence of the Vaccination Act and Order, 1907, and requesting them to pay him a gratuity in respect thereof and at the same time to revise the fees paid to him, intimating that the Local Government Board had the power to do so if the guardians neglected the matter; will he give the total amount of loss that this officer has suffered in consequence of the Vaccination Act and Order, 1907; and whether the Local Government Board will, when fixing the amount to be paid for compensation to this officer, fix it at the 1410 full amount of his loss since 1st January, 1908, and will so arrange a scale of remuneration that he will not receive less than he did for the average of the five years prior to the passing of the Vaccination Act and Order, 1907?
§ Mr. BURNSMore than one vaccination officer is concerned in this case, and correspondence has been proceeding for some time. The letter alluded to was sent on the 24th August, 1910. Having regard to the present condition of the case, it is, I think, undesirable to give any detailed answer to the latter part of the question.
§ Mr. PETOasked the President of the Local Government Board whether the guardians of the Hackney Union require their vaccination officers to send to each person making a statutory declaration of their conscientious objection to vaccination a form of receipt; whether the Local Government Board have at any time written to the guardians of the Hackney Union informing them that it was no part of the vaccination officer's duty to do this; whether the Hackney Board of Guardians, being of the opinion that it was desirable that persons making these statutory declarations of conscientious objection to vaccination should have a receipt for the same, still persist that their officers should send a form of receipt; whether the Hackney Board of Guardians have applied to the Local Government Board for permission to pay these officers a fee of 3d. for each receipt so sent; if so, the date of such application; and what decision, if any, the Local Government Board arrived at with regard thereto?
§ Mr. BURNSThe facts are generally as stated in the first part of the question. The practice of requiring the vaccination officer to give these receipts has apparently been in force for several years, and I understand that the guardians do not wish to abandon it. I have taken no action on the application made by the guardians in February last that a fee should now be paid in respect of these receipts. The case is not one in which a serious loss to the vaccination officer has been shown to be due to the increase in exemptions, and I do not think I could deal with this as one of the hard cases which requires special treatment.
§ Mr. PETOasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that the cases of vaccination officers on whose behalf he has intervened to get some compensation by gratuity or otherwise, to minimise their loss by the operation of the Vaccination Act and Order of 1907, are only those who have appealed to the Local Government Board past the guardians; and, seeing that these cases are consequently only a small fraction of the cases in which loss and hardship have been suffered, and that many of the officers have thought it wiser to suffer loss rather than run the risk of antagonising their employers, whether he will state what action he proposes to take?
§ Mr. BURNSI have had this subject before me for some time, but I do not at present consider that I should intervene unless I am appealed to. An officer with a genuine grievance need not in my opinion be deterred by the consideration suggested from making such an appeal.
§ Mr. PETOIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is a very large number of officers who are so deterred from making a direct appeal?
§ Mr. BURNSNo. I do not believe it. I do not think it is the case. It is not my duty to go about with a bell asking vaccination officers, "What do you lack?"
§ Mr. PETOasked the President of the Local Government Board whether he wrote to the guardians of the Croydon Union early in 1909 to the effect that the question of the deficiency in the ordinary remuneration of vaccination officers generally caused by the operation of the Vaccination Act and Order, 1907, was about to receive the consideration of the Local Government Board, and that the Local Government Board considered that any deficiency in the officer's remuneration for the half-year ending 31st December, 1908, should be met in the same manner as in the previous half-year, namely, by way of gratuity; whether the guardians refused to grant to their vaccination officer a further gratuity, and, in consequence of such refusal, this officer has lost altogether over £300; and whether, notwithstanding that the guardians did in June last increase the fee payable for each birth registered from 4d. to 6d. in consequence of the increase of the number of persons claiming exemption, this officer is still suffering a further loss of income; and, if so, what action does the Local Government Board propose to take?
§ Mr. BURNSThe facts are generally as stated in the first part of the question. I have no exact information as to the loss which the officer has suffered, but it would appear that his present income is now about £200 a year, and the case scarcely seems to be one in which I can intervene further.