HC Deb 05 August 1925 vol 187 cc1507-18

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn." —[Commander Eyres Monsell.]

Mr. J. JONES

I am sorry to trouble the House, but I should like to raise a question of some importance regarding my constituency. I would ask the Minister of Health if he can give us any information regarding the situation which is going to arise in view of the fact that the House will adjourn at the end of this week. I am speaking for a district which has the largest Poor Law area in Great Britain, where we are paying out every week £20,000 to unemployed men, their wives and families. We have borrowed up to the present time, through the slump that has taken place in trade. £1,800,000, on a flat rate of interest at (5 per cent. In addition to that, we have the ordinary responsibilities which a Poor Law authority has to meet. We are now nearly at the end of our tether.

I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that he helped us many years ago in heading deputations to the Presidents of the Local Government Board, and to his predecessors at the Ministry of Health, regarding the necessitous Poor Law areas. We in West Ham at the present time have levied a rate of 9s. in the pound for Poor Law purposes alone. Some of us, it will be admitted, have done our best to try to bring about a settlement of the dispute that has taken place between the guardians and the Government in this matter. We are not asking for money granted to us by the Government. We wish that we could get the £2,500,000 that Liverpool and Birkenhead have got. We do not object to Liverpool and Birkenhead petting that money, but what we want to know is, how are we going to be placed at the end of next month, when, practically, our financial resources will be exhausted, and we cannot find the necessary relief for the people who are coming before our relief committees in the various districts of the union?

We have £20,000 a week to pay out, and we have now got to the position that, practically speaking, we shall have no money at the end of September. By deputations to the Ministry we have been able to get them to come down to certain conditions, but I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the great charge that is made against the people who represent the poor in that part of East London is that our scale of relief is too high. What is that scale? A man and his wife and six children can get from us 59s. per week. Does any hon. Member suggest that 59s. per week in London is too much for that family to exist on, never mind to live on?

We are therefore in this position, that because the representatives of the public are not prepared to accept the conditions laid down by the Minister at the end of September we shall be bankrupt. Then the question of administration comes in. Who is going to administer the law? What will happen to the thousands of people who will be on their beam ends with nothing facing them but starvation? The Poor Law cannot maintain them. We have got to the breaking position. What suggestion can the right hon. Gentleman make? Will he stand by the declaration made that we can have nothing more than has already been offered? Is there any way out of the difficulty? We have done our best. Is the right hon. Gentleman prepared to give us some hope that this difficulty will be got over and that we shall be able to carry on? We know what the troubles are. The interest alone which we are paying on the money which we have been compelled to borrow is more than our rate was in 1913 for the relief of the poor. We cannot go on with that for ever. To-morrow we may be faced with the stoppage of our overdraft at the bank. What suggestions can the right hon. Gentleman make to meet the situation, because it involves the biggest administrative authority in connection with the Poor Law of Great Britain?

Mr. GROVES

Being a colleague of the hon. Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones) in this trouble I must associate myself with his appeal to the Minister of Health to do what is necessary in West Ham, but I am sure that my colleague will see the psychology of the position. I have put down a Private Notice question for to-morrow, and Mr. Speaker has agreed that it would be answered to-morrow. I am sure that the Minister of Health has not the information with him now, but I understand that to-morrow he is going to deal with the matter. If that is not the case I would like to continue the appeal to the Minister, but if he is going to deal with it to-morrow I think that that will probably be the best occasion.

Mr. JONES

You will not be able to discuss it to-morrow.

Mr. SPEAKER

Now that the matter has been raised, the hon. Member had better take advantage of his present opportunity.

Mr. GROVES

Then in a few words may I say that we find ourselves in a very perilous position in West Ham? This results from the fact that we have 61,000 people, including the children, depending on the Poor Law for sustenance. On an average there are 27,000 cases. There is no use in getting excited and talking about Conservatives and Socialists. What we have to endeavour to do in this House is to preserve the peace and get the people their food. Therefore we who represent the area did what we could in making overtures to the Minister to arrive at a settlement. I think that the Minister met us in a perfectly fair spirit and conceded certain of the points which we put to him. We want peace in our borough, and we ask that our appeal should be seriously considered. The right hon. Gentleman knows that West Ham's prosperity depends on the docks. As a result of the War and the breakdown of international trade, men who in the past were loading or unloading ships are now not only out of work, but have exhausted their benefit at the Employment Exchanges, and have been thrown on the mercy of the Poor Law. One of the most heart-rending spectacles is the degradation of men and women who in the past were able to maintain themselves, and are now compelled to depend on Poor Law relief. None the less our first duty as Members of this House, or as Ministers, is in a decent way to come to the succors of these men and women and children.

We owe the Government £1,250,000. The West Ham Union has paid back £328,000, and we are still doing our best to meet the financial charges imposed upon us. It is an extremely difficult position. The guardians have met and, having considered the offer of the Minister, they have declined it. The last speaker referred to the maximum scale of relief for a man, woman and six children as 59s. per week. The Minister has suggested that in order to obtain loans from the Government the scale of relief should be reduced from a maximum of 59s. to 55s. That difference would save only £5,000 a year, or £5,000 on the last loan. Another point is that to-day, when the income exceeds 40s., the guardians take into consideration 50 per cent., and the Minister suggests 75 per cent. The four Members for West Ham saw the Minister, and negotiated. One of my colleagues suggested a bridge over which both sides could walk. The guardians cannot see their way to accept the suggestion of the Minister, and the Minister cannot accept the position of the guardians. That is where we stand. There is a dispute. Do not let us talk about either side giving way. If the Minister can suggest to us some means whereby we can get over the difficulty, the administration of relief would go on and peace would prevail. That is what we want. We are not using this question for mere propaganda in order to have civil strife. We want people to get their bread, and we want peace. I appeal to the Minister to visualise the position in West Ham, and to do what he can to ease the burden on the shoulders of the guardians.

Mr. STORRY DEANS

I sympathise with any hon. Member who represents a necessitous area, though I do not pretend to go as far as to suggest that the Minister of Health should accept the proposals of boards of guardians, who desire to accord recipients of out-door relief, sums vastly in excess of those usually given in other areas. I also represent a necessitous area, and our case in Sheffield is this, that we became a necessitous area by serving the country. During the War, when a great many of our people were at the front, it was necessary for the country that the Sheffield munition industries should be kept going at high speed and full pressure, and in order that this might be done, there were brought into the Sheffield area between 40,000 and 50,000 people. When there was no longer the necessity for munitions, the people who had been brought into Sheffield as munition workers remained there. The survivors of the men who had gone to the front came back, and we find ourselves confronted with what is, in effect, a surplus population which does not really belong to us of 24,000 or 25,000. These 24,000 or 25,000 men workers just about represent unemployment in Sheffield, the unemployment figures being something like 21,000.

Sheffield is in a bad way as far as its trade, its debt, and its rates are concerned. We do not pretend to go into the vast figure of £1,250,000 at which the plutocrats of West Ham have arrived. We are content with a modest £800,000 or thereabouts. The guardians, quite apart from the city council, are in debt to the tune of very nearly that sum. I ask the Minister can he give no relief in a special case of this kind? This is not merely a matter of bad trade. Trade would have to be not merely good, but abundantly good, to enable Sheffield to absorb into its industries this surplus population, which came into the area, not for the benefit of Sheffield trade as such, but for the benefit of the country and for the manufacture of munitions in a time of stress. I suggest that this is a case for special consideration. We know the stereotyped answer of the Department is "We cannot do more for you than for Bournemouth or any other place; we cannot do more for one municipality than for another." Yet I respectfully suggest that, to use a hackneyed expression, circumstances alter cases, and that in peculiar circumstances peculiar remedies should be applied. I suggest to the Minister that Sheffield, as a necessitous area, has done everything it can to administer its funds economically, and it has not transgressed the scale of relief which meets with the approval of the Ministry. It has done none of these things. The best business men in Sheffield have given to its administration their best time, attention and brains. They have been unable to prevent the city running into debt to an enormous extent, and I suggest that, as this necessity has arisen from a national cause, it is the duty of the nation through the Ministry of Health to come to our relief.

Major CRAWFURD

I want to add one or two words to what has been said by hon. Members above the Gangway on this side who represent areas contained in the district of the West Ham Board of Guardians. I regret rather that the discussion has been diverted to other parts of the country, and I want to pre-face what I have to say by saying at once that I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has had and notice, or what notice he has had, that this question will be raised. If he has not had notice, then, of course, I do not desire that he should say things that he is not prepared to say, or give a judgment at which he has not arrived after mature consideration. With regard to what has been said by the hon. Member for the Park Division of Sheffield (Mr. Storry Deans), I would like to say that the conditions which he has outlined as being peculiar to Sheffield are not peculiar to Sheffield at all, but that every division in the East End of London, I think I am right in saying, and certainly the division of Walthamstow which I represent, had a large surplus population drawn there by the War, doing very often skilled, highly necessary work, and I believe that that is true of almost every division you can name in the East End of London.

There was an enormous increase in the population, largely engaged in doing munition work, and when the hon. Member says that the people who are suffering in his area are suffering because they served the nation, may I point out that areas in London, particularly in the area represented by the hon. Member who raised this topic, not only served, but they suffered? In one case, I think, upwards of 200 of them were killed, serving their country, and therefore, though one does not wish to draw invidious comparisons between one part of the country and another, I do say that the people in the East End of London yield to nobody in the service which they rendered to the nation during the War. Also, I think I should be right in saying that, in comparison with any other area you choose to mention, the amount of distress in that area is largely due to the conditions and circumstances that arose out of the War and of the work which was then done.

The hon. Member for Silvertown (Mr. J. Jones) drew particular attention to the dispute, which is a matter of common knowledge, between the West Ham Board of Guardians and the Department of the right hon. Gentleman. It is a deplorable thing, from whatever angle you view it, that a great public body administering a great public service should for any reason find itself in a dispute with the Department of the Government which is concerned with its work, and, of course, it is a grave matter when that dispute arrives at the point, which I believe has been reached, where apparently you get absolute deadlock. We should be very glad indeed if the right hon. Gentleman —perhaps it is difficult for him to-night to indicate anything—could say that the matter is still being considered, and that there are hopes of that deadlock being removed and measures taken, by agreement, between the two bodies to carry out the ordinary work of relief. There is, in my view, at any rate, something even more important at this moment. Here we are, in two days, going to separate for some months, and I believe I am right in saying that many weeks before this House is due to meet again the point of deadlock will have been reached.

When that point is reached, so far as I am concerned, so far as the people whom I represent, whose interests I have at heart are concerned, the matter ceases to be one as between the West Ham Board of Guardians and the right hon. Gentleman's Department, and it becomes one of how so many thousands and tens of thousands are going to receive their food, shelter and clothing during the winter. And, if possible, I would like the right hon. Gentleman to say if he will, and if he can, that there is still some avenue of approach open, that there is still some possibility of conference and agreement. If he cannot do that, I would like him to give the House an assurance that this vast area, which contains an enormous amount of poverty —and, like all hon. Members, I have evidence of it every week, every day, and almost every hour of my life—that whatever may happen to the particular dispute, the interests of those people will not suffer, and that arrangements, in any case, will be made to see that there is not any unnecessary increase in poverty, want and suffering in those areas until this House meets again.

Mr. SCURR

As chairman of a board of guardians, quite close to that of the hon. Member who has spoken, I also want to join in the appeal which has been made to the Minister of Health, but I rise, not for the purpose of dealing with the particular point at issue between the West Ham Board of Guardians and the Ministry, but to raise what, I think, is really the fundamental question which ought to be raised on this occasion, and on occasions when there are disputes with authorities of this kind. When sometimes attention is drawn to the fact that the amount of the relief given has not been sufficient, and the attention of the Minister of Health is drawn to that point, he immediately replies, quite correctly, that it is within the discretion of the board of guardians to decide that question, and that is an important point laid down by the law of the land. We, who are elected as guardians to the poor, have the responsibility of giving adequate relief to those persons who are destitute, and, further than that, if the board itself refuses to give relief in a particular case, there is a statutory obligation upon the relieving officer, that if the person is destitute, he has to give relief. Now we have the Minister of Health coining along and trying to exercise a discretion, and laying down the law as to the amount of relief to be given by a board of guardians, in order to impose a policy which he may consider to be wise, but which the electors of these various areas have not considered to be wise at all.

How can the Minister of Health take this responsibility upon his own shoulders, when the responsibility has already been placed by Parliament upon the shoulders of boards of guardians? This is an undue interference with local authorities. It is an interference which is creeping and growing all the way through. It is being exercised now by the Minister, on one hand, and sometimes by the auditor, on the other, all the time an attempt being made on the part of the central authorities to destroy our local government, which I consider is absolutely wrong and absolutely against everything which is necessary for the benefit of this community. I trust the Minister of Health, who is a member of the Constitutional party, will be a Constitutionalist, and will allow the electors to have their say in the way they have expressed it on more than one occasion, and will gracefully surrender, recognising that the local people know what is required, and that he has no power really, and is usurping power in acting in the way he is doing.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I am not going to say whether the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough (Mr. T. Thomson) ought to be protected against my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Storry Deans) taking advantage of his absence to raise the question of necessitous areas. It is certainly touching on ground which has been specially covered by the hon. Member for West Middlesbrough. The suggestion of my hon. and learned Friend is that Sheffield should receive a special grant from the Exchequer, not to be given to any other area in the country, on the ground that the circumstances are quite exceptional and peculiar. I am afraid I cannot give way to that. I am quite certain that if some such grant were made every hon. Member in this House would find that in his constituency also there was a situation that ought to receive similar treatment. The difficulty about the necessitous areas—I do not deny that there is a good deal to be said on behalf of them— is that nobody up to the present has been able to find any scheme or any formula which will work out fairly in practice as between one area and another. It is not so long ago that a deputation was received by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, and he promised that he would set up a Departmental Committee that should carefully examine the various suggestions that have been made for dealing with this subject. As that promise has been made, that is as far as I am able to go.

I turn to the other matter that has been raised, and as to which I must say that I did not know until I came and sat on this bench one and a-half hours ago that it was going to be raised.

Mr. LANSBURY

We did send word.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I am only explaining, not complaining. I have not the details here with me and I should not like to commit myself. Of course, I know the facts of the case. The hon. Member for Stratford (Mr. Groves) has already given me notice of a Private Notice question for to-morrow and I have prepared a reply, and I think I am quite sufficiently armed with information to be able to give an answer to the question that has been put to me. Before I come to that, I must refer to the last speech to which we have listened. The hon. Member for Mile End (Mr. Scurr) complained that I have acted unconstitutionally because I am declining to allow money not raised by the rates in the area of the Union, but coming from the Public Exchequer, to be used exactly how a board of guardians pleases. It is quite true that, as long as guardians are getting money from the ratepayers, they are the rating authority, and I have no legal power to interfere with them. That is perfectly true, and I have observed always that constitutional position. What is happening here? They come and ask me to lend them money. I have to consider what prospect there will be of getting it back again. Certainly, I put it this way: that the more extravagant they are and the more they go on piling up the debt, the less is the likelihood that I ever will get it back. Therefore, I think it is my duty, as a constitutionalist and as the trustee for the taxpayers of the country, to see that if money is lent, it shall be lent in a way which will insure that it shall be expended in a reasonable manner. That is the constitutional position.

With regard to the facts of this particular case, I have endeavoured to deal with it in such a way as to give every possible opportunity to the guardians of the West Ham Union to come forward and to conform to the very moderate restrictions which it was thought proper to place upon their expenditure of further loans. I have endeavoured to make it quite possible for them to effect what they wanted. I gladly accepted the good offices of the hon. Members for Plaistow (Mr. W. Thorne) and Silvertown who came to see me in the hope of finding some compromise by which we could settle this matter peaceably. What happened? Certain conditions have been arranged by the Goschen Committee, precedent to the making of a further loan to the board of guardians. The guardians had these conditions placed before them, but they flatly refused to accept them. I will not say what else was said, because it might be thought I had a prejudice in the matter. Did they make any advance whatever? After talking the matter over with me I asked the hon. Members to whom I have referred to go and see the Goschen Committee themselves. They did so, and by their eloquence they persuaded the Goschen Committee to abate some of the conditions. When these conditions were placed before the board of guardians they absolutely refused to budge from the attitude they had taken up. I think they are entirely unreasonable. What do hon. Members say here? "Well, now, if this board of guardians will not give way, surely you might give way yourself."

Mr. JONES

On a point of Order. I do not want to interrupt my right hon. Friend at this late hour, but I would like to ask if he will lay down now, definitely, what is the minimum of these conditions, so that we may be able to tell the people in West Ham, apart from the Board of Guardians.

Mr. CHAMBERLAIN

I am afraid the hon. Member has robbed me of one of the minutes I was intending to devote to giving a complete answer to what he has asked me. I say that would be an easy way, if I were simply to lie down, "to surrender," I think was the phrase used by one of the hon. Members opposite. If I were to surrender and accept the position of the board of guardians, that would be an easy way, but that is not my way. I say at once to the hon. Member that I am not going to amend those conditions in any particular whatever. That is quite clear and plain. I am asked, what is going to be the position when they come to the end of their money? I say the guardians will have taken a very grave responsibility upon their shoulders if they are going to refuse to function, because they have only got to accept those conditions, which hon. Members thought reasonable enough to go and ask them to accept—they have only got to accept those conditions, and they can have the loan to-morrow.

Adjourned accordingly at One Minute before Eleven o'clock.