HC Deb 04 February 1913 vol 47 cc2157-66

Order for the Second Reading read.

Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. Birrell)

This is a very small and I think an agreed measure amending the Tuberculosis Prevention (Ireland) Act, 1908. The Bill as printed contains two Clauses which seek to make the notification of tuberculosis compulsory. Those Clauses excited opposition, and I have, not without some sorrow withdrawn them. I will not enlarge upon the matter except to say I am handing in Amendments which, if the measure is read a second time, will strike those two Clauses out of the Bill. The necessity for the other Clauses mainly arises in consequence of the Treasury grant which is now given towards this object. The Act of 1908 divided the cost of these sanatoria into two heads: the creation cost and the maintenance cost. It threw the creation cost upon the county at large, and the maintenance cost was thrown upon the local districts in proportion to the number of persons from them who availed themselves of the benefits of the sanatoria; but, as the Treasury now pays half of the whole of these expenses irrespective of whether they are maintenance or creation that is unnecessary, and we are able to throw the whole cost upon the county at large, which in itself is much better, and it therefore becomes a county charge.

Another provision is to enable county councils to provide a common hospital or dispensary and to arrange the proportions which each county is to contribute to the expenses. It also enables a joint hospital provided by the sanitary authorities under the Public Health Act to be transferred to the county council. This accomplishes an act of justice to the Cork Sanatorium and also to one in the neighbourhood of Dublin, not Peamount but another. It enables county councils now to take over these estimable institutions. Clause 6 removes a doubt as to the classes of persons who may be admitted to tuberculosis hospitals, and Clause 7 empowers the Local Government Board to facilitate the establishment of a tuberculosis dispensary by transferring to a county council for that purpose any land which may be vested in the Board. This is a useful provision for the purpose of giving effect to an Act which is already on the Statute Book. This is an agreed measure and therefore I cannot hold out any hope that I shall agree to any Amendment that may be moved from any part of the House. To do so would be to arouse controversy, which at this period of the Session would be obviously unfair and undesirable. I hope the House will now give the Bill a second reading.

Captain CRAIG

I do not intend in any way to obstruct the passage of this Bill which I understand from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman is an agreed Bill. At the same time, I really think that when a second reading is asked to be given to a measure of this character at this hour at the close of a very long Session, with only a few introductory remarks from the Minister in charge of it, it shows what a state our legislation has reached under the present arrangements. I make this protest also because the Bill goes much further than the Chief Secretary has just said. In 1908 there was legislation on the subject of tuberculosis in Ireland and the Act that was then passed was entirely voluntary. If anyone will care to look at Section 3 of that Act he will see that before it comes into operation in any part of Ireland it must be adopted by the local authority. It says that "any Sanitary Authority or Rural District may, subject to the approval of the council, by resolution passed at a meeting thereof, adopt this part of the Act."

In the Bill now proposed to be read a second time that Clause is cut out altogether. Clause 1 will in future make the whole of the Bill of 1908 compulsory, although it was got through this House because the right hon. Gentleman made it a necessary part that the rural council should have the option to adopt it or not. Now he comes down and asks us to pass this Bill which is a complete alteration of that promise, under which the Act of 1908 was got through, and without any explanation and without telling us how many of the rural districts in Ireland have adopted the Act of 1908. I must protest against that course, although I cannot very well take upon my own shoulders the responsibility of interfering with the progress of the Bill. Having got his Bill of 1908 as an agreed Bill he now asks us to-reverse it without adequate, or indeed any, explanation. I do not know what arrangements have been entered into. He ought at least to tell us how many of the local authorities have voluntarily adopted the Act of 1908, because on that hangs the question of the necessity for this House making the Act of 1908 compulsory throughout the whole of Ireland. The Bill of 1908 was so faulty that in the Session of 1912 a Bill is brought in to alter it radically from stem to stern, and even this Bill as brought in is all wrong, we are now told, and the right hon. Gentleman is going to put down Amendments to alter it. Where are we going to stop? The whole thing is the result of trying to do too much. The right hon. Gentleman will probably come to us again very soon to say that he got his Act of 1908 as an agreed Bill, that he got a Bill to amend it in the Session of 1912 in the small hours of the morning, and that in the Session of 1913 he must bring in another amending Bill to amend the Act of 1912, which amends the Act of 1908. Nothing could better show the farce to which we are reduced in legislating than this Bill, the Second Reading of which the Chief Secretary has just moved.

Mr. FARRELL

If the statement made by the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Captain Craig) were true, I should find it necessary to move the rejection of this Bill, but as I understand the position, the Chief Secretary is prepared in Committee to move the omission of Clauses 1 and 2.

Mr. BIRRELL

Hear, hear.

Mr. FARRELL

Therefore the statement of the hon. and gallant Gentleman that this Bill is going to reverse the decision come to in 1908 is not correct.

Captain CRAIG

May I say that I was dealing with the Bill as it is. I concluded by saying that it was an agreed Bill.

Mr. BIRRELL

I said in my opening; statement that I was going to move that Clauses 1 and 2 should be omitted in order to meet the very objection the hon. and gallant Gentleman raised.

Captain CRAIG

It is a very slipshod way of doing things.

Mr. FARRELL

My recollection of the settlement of 1908 is that it was pressed for from the Benches above the Gangway. I believe the hon. Member for Londonderry protested against the action of the Chief Secretary in accepting our Amendments then. The Amendments we moved to that Act, and which were incorporated in it, left it optional to the county councils and district councils to apply the compulsory notifications sections. I understand from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that that settlement is to stand.

Mr. BIRRELL

Hear, hear.

Mr. FARRELL

If that is so, my friends on these Benches see no objection to the other Clauses of this Bill, which are not compulsory. If they were, I should certainly have a strong objection to them. They are, however, merely enabling Clauses, and not compulsory in the sense the hon. and gallant Gentleman declares them to be. Personally, I should have preferred that the right hon. Gentleman should have left this matter to the new Irish Parliament. I think we might then have come nearer to a settlement of this question. While opposed to the compulsory notification of tuberculosis, I am not opposed to it on principle, but because I think it might lead to very gross abuse and the imposition of unnecessary cost upon the ratepayers of the country. Although this is a matter we might safely have left to an Irish Parliament, I do not wish to obstruct the right hon. Gentleman's beneficent intentions. We believe that so far as the stamping out of this disease is concerned the right hon. Gentleman is beneficent in his intentions. On the distinct understanding that we are to have the objectionable and, as I think, disastrous Clauses struck out of the Bill, I offer no objection to it.

Mr. BARRIE

I have listened to the Chief Secretary's announcement that under certain pressure—he did not tell us from what quarter that pressure came— he has decided to drop the two Clauses providing for the compulsory notification of this disease in Ireland. Speaking for myself, I exceedingly regret to have heard that statement. We have made in Ireland a very considerable advance in the treatment of this disease since the Act of 1908 was passed in this House. Speaking as a county councillor, there will be general regret that under pressure, from where I know not that the Chief Secretary has decided to drop these two Clauses, which to me were the very essence of the Bill. I consider that the Bill minus these two Clauses, is one which no one need waste any time over. The remainder of the Bill is of the most minor importance. It only removes some ambiguity in the law as it now exists and gives a little extra power to county councils in regard to dispensaries. I hope the right hon. Gentleman's announcement may be reconsidered, because I think Ireland would gladly embrace the compulsory powers proposed to be given. As regards the remainder of the Bill the position has been very considerably altered since the Insurance Act was passed, and we really owe the Bill to some requirements under the Insurance Act which the Government now find it necessary to empower county councils to be able to deal with. We shall have an opportunity of discussing that on the Supplementary Estimates, and I reserve my reference to that till that occasion. I can only again express my regret that the^ two really important Clauses have been dropped under pressure which I must presume has come from below the Gangway. It has not come from any Ulster Unionist Member.

Mr. T. M. HEALY

It ought to be said, as far as hon. Members from Ireland with whom I am connected are concerned, that we have no sympathy whatever with the pressure which has been put on the Chief Secretary, and I regret the tone which has been adopted towards the right hon. Gentleman by the hon. Member (Mr. Farrell) and the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Captain Craig). There was no occasion for it. Anyone who apart from the field of politics looks into the question of social reform must thank any Minister who undertakes the task of looking into these questions for which he gets no credit and will, certainly have some blame. I remember very well thirty years ago when Mr. Dwyer Gray adopted the same tone on the notification of disease which the hon. Member has adopted. He was the great engine of the "Freeman's Journal" and frightened the whole country. It turned out that there, was no occasion whatever for this alarm, and I am sure those who come later in the field of politics are needlessly alarmed on the subject of notification. I feel that it is to some extent due to the jealousy of the medical gentlemen who it is supposed have something to gain by notification. But I think you will find on consulting the Supplementary Estimates that the very gentlemen who show this jealousy of the medical profession have forced the Government to give no less than 59,000 golden sovereigns to these doctors in order that they may certify on behalf of certain friendly societies under the Insurance Act. I believe the doctors as a whole are animated by the very highest motives, and I do not believe there is one black sheep in the entire flock who would subject any family on the question of notification to the smallest inconvenience or discomfort, and who would not if he could find some way to enable them to avoid notification. Therefore I regret that the right hon. Gentleman has, under pressure and not I am sure due to any spirit on his own part, given way to misinformed opinion on this question. I thank him heartily for having brought in the Bill.

Mr. LYNCH

I have been somewhat impressed by the last two speeches in favour of notification, because they have simply reinforced the argument which commended itself to me during the time that the Bill has been before us. I think that in regard to a very serious disease like tuberculosis, which is probably one of the few diseases affecting the modern civilised world that is progressive, no cost would be too great if we could succeed in the end in stamping it out. Even if public opinion may be contrary to such action, I believe we as legislators ought at times to be prepared to resist the current of public opinion and to say that our duty demands that we should take such and such a course, although contrary to the general opinion even of our own Constituents. While saying this and giving the greatest sympathy to the views expressed by those in favour of notification, I am yet inclined to think it would be wise for the Chief Secretary to delete the first two Clauses because I believe if they were allowed to remain, so much opposition would be caused that the Bill would probably be lost altogether, whereas if these Clauses are omitted in Committee, I think that subsequently when the pulse of public opinion has been felt it might be possible to introduce some form of notification Clause which would do the work these two Clauses were intended to do. I wish to obtain from the Chief Secretary information on one point. He said he would not allow any kind of Amendment to this Bill. I wish to know whether it is on the Second Reading or in the Committee stage that he will allow no kind of Amendment? In the Committee stage will he refuse to have the Clauses discussed separately, point by point, and to allow any Amendment which might be suggested after consultation with the county councils to be introduced in the Bill?

Captain O'NEILL

We have had a very short discussion at this late hour on a subject which I think is of extreme importance. I do think the House is entitled to ask the Chief Secretary to tell us definitely what are his reasons for wishing to strike out Clauses 1 and 2. I quite agree with my hon. Friend that these are by faith e most important Clauses in the Bill. I happen to represent a Constituency which did quite early adopt the principle of notification under the Act, and therefore I speak not only on my own behalf, but on behalf of my Constituents, when I say that it would be their wish that this Bill should contain some compulsory powers. It is for that reason, and also for the other reasons stated by hon. Members below the Gangway, that I think we are entitled to a very full and adequate explanation from the Chief Secretary why these Clauses are to be omitted. It does seem startling that the Clauses should be suddenly removed from the Bill, although up to five minutes ago we believed they would be retained. I do ask some Member of the Government to give an adequate reason for this important change in the Bill.

Mr. BIRRELL

I should not have thought that, at this time of the Session, the proposed change required any explanation. The reason why I was compelled, reluctantly I admit, to delete these two Clauses, was that I could not have got the Bill through if they had been retained, because we have not got adequate time now for the discussion of a very vexed and delicate question. Although I am strongly in favour of compulsory notification, I am not sure that it would help the beneficent work if it had to be carried out in the face of an unwilling public. That is the only reason why I have deleted these Clauses. We have not got time to debate a question which we have seen from the Debate that has already taken place excites strong differences of opinion, and if the Clauses had not been deleted the Bill must have been withdrawn and postponed to another Session, although it contains very useful businesslike Clauses which would be most beneficent to the very cause that all of us have at heart. These can now be carried out while the important question of compulsory notification stands over. If everybody said he was in favour of compulsory notification it would be in, the Bill, but I am handing in the Amendment to-night simply because I know that if I did not do so the other Clauses of the Bill would not pass. It is really a choice of having the Bill as it is or withdrawing it altogether. The general sense is in favour of it. The Local Government Board, of which I am President, thought the other Clauses not only as machinery but otherwise most beneficent, and therefore advise a second reading of the Bill. If you want to discuss the other important subjects you must discuss them in your own minds and then perhaps next Session if there is time a Bill can be introduced with these Clauses, but I do ask the House to give the Bill a second reading now.

The Orders for remaining Government business were read, and postponed.

Whereupon, Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of 14th October, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."

Adjourned accordingly at Three minutes before Twelve o'clock.