HC Deb 22 July 1926 vol 198 cc1547-70

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—[Colonel Gibbs.]

Mr. RHYS DAVIES

I desire to call the attention of the House to what I regard as a very serious state of affairs, arising out of a decision of the Bolton Board of Guardians in reference to the relief of the dependants of miners connected with the mining dispute. The other day I put a question to the Minister of Health in the following terms: To ask the Minister of Health whether he has now made inquiries into the decision of the Bolton Board of Guardians declining to continue to relieve distress among miners' wives and dependants; and, if so, what action he proposes to take in the matter? The reply of the Minister was an astonishing one, and I must say that I have been very interested indeed to see the difference in attitude adopted by the Ministry of Health in relation to the several boards of guardians in this country—a subject upon which I will touch later on. The reply of the hon. Gentleman who answered for the Minister was: My right hon. Friend finds that the Bolton Board of Guardians have decided that the relief required by the wives and dependants of miners shall only be given in institutions. A number of orders for admission to institutions have been issued, but these have not been acted upon. My right hon. Friend does not propose to take any action in the matter."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 20th July, 1926; Vol. 198, col. 1026.] I would like the House to follow me for a moment or two into the actual terms of the decision of the Bolton Board of Guardians. I might here be allowed to explain that I am interested in this subject, because nearly half of the population in my constituency comes within the area of this board of guardians. On the 7th July the Bolton Guardians passed the following resolution: That the report of the clerk as to the cost of outdoor relief to dependants of coal-miners be received, showing that £5,731 10s. 2d. had been expended on this account since the commencement of the strike"— By the way, it is not a strike at all— the amount distributed during the week ending the 6th July being £1,256 17s. 5d. I want to say, in passing, that I fail to understand the attitude of this board when, in fact, the total amount paid away in, approximately, nine weeks of the mining dispute is only £5,731. The second resolution, however, is more astonishing than the first. It is: That the clerk be authorised to arrange for food tickets to be issued to the dependants of coalminers for one week, such ticket only to be given in necessitous cases with a view of preventing hardship, and on the understanding that all out-relief for strikers' dependants will then cease. I regard that as a very important decision; and if this decision be allowed to go unchallenged, the administration of the Poor Law in this country will be brought, into contempt, and deservedly so.

There are about 10,000 miners resident in the Bolton Poor Law area, and I understand that about 3,000 of them have applied for relief in respect of their wives and dependants. Since the decision was taken the situation has been clarified to this extent, that the Bolton Board of Guardians have taken the unusual step of singling out the dependants of miners for this treatment. This is the first occasion on which they have adopted the attitude of singling out any particular section or the community.

As hon. Members opposite and hon. Members behind me know, there have been many disputes in the Lancashire cotton industry and the engineering industry, too, but so far as my information goes this is the first time the Bolton Guardians have issued such an edict, based in my view upon malice and spite, against the miners in the surrounding areas of Bolton. A board of guardians, so far as I understand the matter, has a statutory duty to relieve destitution; but in effect the decision of the Bolton Board is, "We will relieve destitution and distress in respect of all other classes of the community, but in respect of miners' wives and children we will single them out, and the only relief they will get is inside the workhouse." Surely that takes us back at a stroke to the old idea of poor relief appertaining 50 years ago, and I protest against this reactionary attitude of guardians.

The clerk of the Bolton Board is well known to the Ministry of Health; he has done one or two doubtful jobs for the Ministry of Health before. He went down to Poplar on behalf of the Tory Government some time ago, and what does he say on the subject? If I am not mistaken the clerk has had a great deal to do with this decision at Bolton, and I would like hon. Members to follow his argument, which is a very strange and subtle one. He says that "The guardians in Bolton have not refused to give relief to miners' families; they have only refused to grant out-door relief; and destitute applicants for relief will be provided with food and shelter in the guardians' institutions." Previous experience has shown that although many people would apply for out-door relief, few would take advantage of the offer to go into Poor Law institutions, and out of 40 applicants who were given tickets of admission to Fishpool, not one had actually entered. What does that mean? It means that when the Bolton Board of Guardians decided that they would only deal with these cases inside their institutions, they knew full well that they were relieving themselves of any payment whatsoever. Their intention, their deliberate intention, was to get out of their responsibility to relieve distress amongst these people at all.

I am not going into the merits of the West Ham case; but if I understand the law in that connection it is, that a board of guardians must grant relief. I am not going to dispute the legal title of this Board to do what they are doing, but whilst administering the law they are taking up a very mean attitude, and what I complain of is that if it was right for the Minister of Health to intervene in the West Ham case because it was alleged they were too generous, surely on the same principle it is only fair to ask the right hon. Gentleman to intervene here when a board of guardians is acting too mean. The right hon. Gentleman ought to treat all these boards alike. I hope I am not mistaken in reading the law, but I think it is quite competent for even the Bolton Board of Guardians to grant out-door relief up to the amount of £3 per family if they like. There is nothing in law to prevent them from granting that large amount; but I venture to say that, if the Bolton Board of Guardians granted relief up to the amount of £3, the Minister of Health would at once deprive them of their powers because they would be too generous. I repeat, therefore, that, if it is right and proper for the Minister of Health to take their functions from the West Ham Board of Guardians because it is alleged that they have overstepped the mark in their generosity, then the powers of the Bolton Board of Guardians ought to be taken away too, because they have overstepped the mark in their meanness.

I am afraid of this decision, because what does it mean? If we have an industrial dispute at any time in future, what is going to happen? I venture to say that, if there were a dispute in the textile trade in Bolton, the guardians would not do this, and I will tell the hon. Gentleman the reason why. Bolton town depends almost entirely on textiles and engineering; but the miners within the Union all reside on the outskirts of Bolton town. That is the difference, and I want to say that what is good enough for the textile operatives in Bolton, as regards treatment by the board of guardians, is good enough for the coalminer and his family.

I want to challenge the decision of this board of guardians, in view of Circular No. 703. The Minister of Health, when. he issued that Circular, must have apprehended what was going to happen. He says, in Circular No. 703: In cases where, under the Merthyr Tydfil judgment, relief may not lawfully be given to a man"— I am not questioning the decision of the guardians on that score— it may be found necessary to increase the allowance to the women and children above the figures of unemployment benefit, but it is thought that such allowances should not exceed the sum of 12s. and 4s. respectively for the woman and child. If the Minister of Health, in his reply to me, was right in saying that he supports the Bolton Board of Guardians in declining to give outdoor relief in these cases, then this Circular cannot be right. Both cannot be right. The Circular, if it does anything at all, gives directions to the boards of guardians of this country to do what they ought to do in cases similar to the one which I am raising to-night.

I do not want to take up more of the time of the House, but I should like to put one question to the hon. Gentleman. What will the Bolton Board of Guardians do if the people in the Westhoughton and surrounding districts, as they might do, march in their thousands to the institution? The clerk to the board of guardians has a very subtle reply to that question. This is what he says: If we cannot house them, we will send them to the institutions of neighbouring unions. Surely that cannot be a proper thing to do. Let me repeat my question. Supposing 2,000 or 3,000 miners and their wives and children come down to the office of the Bolton Board of Guardians next Saturday, and ask for admission, can the hon. Gentleman who supports the guardians in this connection guarantee that there will be room for them, and, if there be no room for them in Bolton institutions, where are they to go?

I would put to the hon. Gentleman another question. The law has laid it down, so I understand, that a board of guardians according to the Merthyr Tydfil judgment, is not entitled to relieve an able-bodied man. I understand, on the other hand, that the Poor Law makes it clear that, in taking a family from their home into an institution, you cannot divide the family; you must take the whole of them. What happens, then, when you have an application from a miner, his wife and three or four children? The policy of the Bolton Board of Guardians would mean that you take the wife and children into the institution, but, under the Merthyr Tydfil judgment, they are not entitled to take the father or husband. I would like to ask the hon. Gentleman what he has to say to a proposal of that kind. The Bolton Board of Guardians cannot complain that they are in financial difficulties. They have not borrowed a penny piece, and they need not borrow a penny piece for this purpose. Bolton is regarded as one of the richest industrial towns in the country. Their finances in connection with poor relief have not been affected by the mining dispute at all. I protest against the action of this board of guardians, and I trust the hon. Gentleman will do one thing above all, and that in his attitude towards the guardians who it is alleged are too generous he will hold the scales even as between them and those who are too mean and teach all boards of guardians alike to do their duty when relief is required.

Mr. JAMES BROWN

My hon. Friend has spoken for Bolton, and I presume for other parts of England. I should like to say a word about Scotland. I believe there are some little differences in the law regarding relief as between Scotland and England, but I think the last Circular that was issued put us almost on an equality. What we have been troubled with for some considerable time past is that the parish councils are lowering the amount allowed to the women and children of the miners. I have had occasion more than once to wait on parish councils and try to get them to be a little more generous in their treatment, not always with success. In several instances the allowance to women was as low as 6s. It is much worse now because I received a telegram yesterday that in Ayr the parish councils absolutely refuse to give anything at all. They have given notice that the whole thing is to be withdrawn and that the women and children are not to have any more relief. I am afraid there is something in what my hon. Friend says regarding the class of people who are being refused relief. I should hate to be right in this because I do not think the men who are at the head of our affairs ought to differentiate as between miners and any others of our industrial population, but it would seem that as this is the first time it has been done, and because a great many people are getting very uneasy rgarding the amount of rates they may have to pay later on, interdicts have been handed in against relief being given. I was very glad to see that, although the issue is still to be tried, the interdict was not granted, and the children and women, in the meantime at least, are benefiting by that. I know the Secretary for Scotland could not be here to-night. I am not charging him with anything at all. I believe he and the Under-Secretary for Health would be anxious to assist us as far as they can.

This action has been taken by this parish, at least, and I believe that it has been also taken in the Parish of Dailly during last week, and both are in my constituency. What we are afraid of is, that if this is not stopped at once it is bound to spread to other parishes. That we believe to be the intention. We do not think that there would have been anything done in these parishes, because there is no particular reason why it should be done in these parishes any more than any other parish, were it not that we fear this is beginning of a general onslaught on the miners' wives and children. The Solicitor-General for Scotland is present, and I hope that he will take the humane view and carry it to the Secretary for Scotland and the Under-Secretary of Health for Scotland, and that he and they will do everything they can to induce these parishes to resume payment to our women and children, so that, as one very high in the land has said, this miners' fight will not be decided on the starvation of our women and children. I wanted to identify Scotland with this protest against the effort which is being made against our people, an effort which has not been used in regard to any other industrial workers in any other industrial dispute which has taken place in the country.

Mr. GREENWOOD

This afternoon, by Private Notice, I raised the question of the action of the Lichfield Board of Guardians. It will be within the recollection of some hon. Members that last week I drew attention to the action which the Lichfield Board of Guardians proposed to take. On the 9th July, the Lichfield Board of Guardians decided that they would in the following week reduce the out-relief scale in respect of miners' wives and families to one-half, that in the following week, which is the present week, they would reduce it by one-half of what it was last week, and that next week they would cease to give out-relief. I referred to the improper speeches made by members of the board of guardians, dealing with the merits of the dispute, and the Parliamentary Secretary, in his reply, was good enough to read to the House a letter which his right hon. Friend had addressed to the Lichfield Board of Guardians on this question. In the course of the letter the following statement was made: It appears to the Minister that the maintenance of a general resolution such as is reported is incompatible with an intention on the part of the guardians to discharge the functions of their office, which exists for the necessary relief of destitution. This afternoon, having heard in the course of the day the subsequent developments in Lichfield, I asked the Minister of Health whether he had had any reply to his letter to the Lichfield Board of Guardians, whether he was aware that, notwithstanding his letter, the board were persisting in their determination to reduce the scale of outdoor relief, progressively, until it was wiped out, whether he was aware that the board is meeting to-morrow morning to take a final decision on this very important matter, and what steps he proposed to take. I gathered from the reply that he has had an answer, that he is aware that the guardians are persisting in pursuing this policy of starvation, that he knows that the guardians are meeting tomorrow to take the definite decision as from Monday next to pay no outdoor relief whatever to miners' wives and families, and the action he proposes to take is to wait until he gets a letter after to-morrow's meeting. I cannot think the Minister of Health realises the seriousness of the situation in Lichfield.

Lichfield is one of the black spots in this country. It pays a scale of relief which is a scandal to any board of guardians, and one on which no family can provide itself with the barest necessities for human existence. Before the reduction took place the scale was as follows—I am not raising the question of the strikers at all—a woman without children, 5s.; for a wife with one child, 7s. 6d., two children, 10s., three children 12s. 6d., four children 14s. 6d., and the maximum amount payable, irrespective of the size of the family, was 16s. 6d. per week. That means that last week the maximum out-relief given by this board of guardians was 8s. 6d., and there are cases of families being asked to exist on much smaller sums than that. But the relief given last week has this week been reduced to half. I have here cases in which families have been given 5s. and 6s. a week. Here is the case of a man who was receiving nothing himself because he is a miner, with a wife and two children, one of them an infant eight months old, nursed by its mother, who had had no food at all for three days and fainted in the presence of a lady I know; and all that that family had last week was 5s. from this board of guardians.

I suggest that this board is not carrying out its statutory duty. It has no business to starve nursing mothers so that they faint and lose consciousness for want of food. There is another case of a man and his wife with four children, one mentally defective, another a cripple, and two children of school age, who last week received 7s. 6d. Another miner through sheer desperation made efforts to obtain agricultural work, but without success. His wife made application for relief. The family consisted of two boys who worked in the pit, and these two boys and the father received nothing whatever from the board of guardians. There were five children at school, and another child below school age, and all that that family received last week was 8s. 6d. It is true that something is being done by means of school meals, but if the family is a large one they get meals only on alternate days, not regularly each day. The day on which relief is normally paid is Monday, and last Sunday there were scores of households in that area without any food, and there are scores of families who are now living on dry bread and tea because the miserable pittance allowed by this board of guardians is inadequate to provide anything else. This scale of relief is not the scale which is being applied to all applicants. It is only the scale that is being applied to the non-combatants in this industrial dispute.

Sir EDWARD ILIFFE

Where are the trade union funds to help the miners?

Mr. GREENWOOD

The hon. Member ought to know that those funds are practically exhausted, and where they are being paid it is only on a low scale. I do not believe there is a miners' lodge in the country that has paid out more than 5s. a week for weeks. Even then in the case of single young men the rate would be halved. Some of the lodges have distributed nothing. Many boards of guardians have taken into account even what is received from the trade unions and have deducted the sum from the amount paid in relief. I do not think that the hon. Member for Bolton (Mr. Hilton) realises how much it costs to keep a million miners when there is an industrial dispute. This decision of the Lichfield Guardians applies only to miners' wives and their families, and if it be right to pay 16s. 6d. as a maximum to the families of those who are engaged in an industrial dispute, it is clearly utterly inadequate to pay miners' families a half and then a quarter of that very small sum. The Minister of Health, in his letter to the Lichfield Guardians, has admitted that the action which they have taken is incompatible with the exercise of their functions. The guardians have a statutory duty to perform, and that duty is to relieve destitution. They may do so by means of out-door relief or by means of indoor relief, but nothing that they can do can absolve them from their responsibility.

It is a monstrous thing that within a day of a final decision being taken by a board of guardians to throw over all its statutory duties and deliberately to starve the miners' families in that area, the Minister of Health should be waiting for a letter after to-morrow's meeting of the Board. It is very difficult to confine oneself to Parliamentary language on an issue of this kind. This is a board of guardians with a majority of farmers, who in their speeches at the board meetings have declared their intention of starving the miners into submission. The board is a statutory body with statutory duties to perform, and it ought to be suspended if it will not carry out its duties. The words which were used in the Board of Guardians (Default) Bill were that if a board of guardians were in default or likely to be in default it could be suspended. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health believes that that means financial default. Financial default seems to me to be a small misdemeanour compared with a default of this kind, which means that the board of guardians are not doing that which they were elected to do. The case against the West Ham Board of Guardians was that it was doing its duty too well. If the Minister of Health thinks it is his duty, in the public interest, to supersede a board of guardians which is too generous or, as he says, too extravagant, it is clearly his duty to take some disciplinary action with regard to a board like that at Lichfield.

I hope that to-night we shall have from the Parliamentary Secretary a more specific statement as to the intentions of the Minister in this matter. I have no intention of allowing this question to rest. If this board is going to defy the law and the Minister, it will be our duty to keep the agitation going. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will realise that he has a grave responsibility in this matter. I hope the resources of his Department are not exhausted, and that he will find some way of coercing this reactionary, this inhuman, this unfeeling board of guardians into doing its mere duty by large numbers of miners' wives and children who have no lot nor part in this dispute and who are entitled to be relieved from their sad necessity by the board of guardians. I hope we will hear to-night that the Minister intends to take steps either to supersede this body or compel it to carry out the law of the land.

Mr. MARDY JONES

I only intervene to show that the instances which have been cited to-night from Bolton, Lichfield and Scotland can be repeated all over the country in every mining area, and this goes to show that the policy of the Ministry and the Government is to use ruthlessly the whole of the administrative machinery in order to crush the miners. In the case of Bolton, with only 10,000 miners out of a huge population, the niggardly relief afforded is a scandal, and I hope the miners and the workers generally in that area will see to it that this matter is put right. The Ministry are not playing the game with the Poor Law authorities who are seeking to carry out Circular 703 and to obey the law to the best of their ability with the funds at their disposal. We have been told repeatedly by the Ministry that there is a general relief arrangement in the mining areas for the payment of 10s. to the wife of a miner and 2s. for a child. I have found that this is not true. We are being deliberately misled by the Ministry in this matter. I have here the scales of relief given in every Poor Law union in the County of Durham, and, out of 14 unions, only two are paying the rate of 10s. In every other case the rate is 12s. and 4s. for a child, while in some cases it is even higher. In South Wales there are several unions paying similar rates, but some of them have been forced down to the 10s, by the Ministry, in contradiction of the suggestion of Circular 703 that they ought to aim at the 12s. and 4s. scale. The reason why this is being done is that a number of these unions were necessitous union areas before the stoppage occurred.

Durham and South Wales are in a very similar position. They are the two export coalfields of this country, and they have been going through a similar experience for four years past. In 12 out of the 14 unions in Durham the Ministry have not interfered, and have not sought to bring pressure on the unions to reduce the relief below 12s. I hope they will not do so, and that if the attempt is made the unions will fight against it. In the Union of Pontypridd, the second largest in the country, represented by five Members of Parliament, the Ministry have been putting on the screw. Sanction has been given to loans amounting to £230,000, all of which has been spent on this relief. The union, to meet their expenses, now require £63,000, and have no money in sight. They have approached the Ministry for loans or for assistance to get it from the bank, but have had no such assistance up to now.

It is very unfair of the Ministry to take sides as they are doing, with the coal-owners against the miners, because that, in simple English, is their policy. It is a deliberate Government policy to use all the means in their power to force the miners into need and induce them to settle on any terms that will cause a resumption of work. I assure the House that policy will not make the miners give in but will make them still more determined to fight to the bitter end. The attitude which is being taken throughout the country is a serious reflection on the so-called impartiality of the Government in this dispute, and I know of no case in the history of disputes in the coal industry where any Government has so openly and unashamedly used its powers in that direction. If the Government are going to continue this and is going to prevent guardians getting those loans to meet this necessitous relief for the wives and children of the miners, then they are going to bring about a civil revolution in this country before this year is out.

Mr. ROY WILSON

I will only detain the House for a few minutes, but as Member for the Lichfield Division of Staffordshire I should like to say a few words on the subject raised by the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne (Mr. A. Greenwood). As to the action of the Lichfield Board of Guardians, I want to make my position perfectly clear. It is this. If the board of guardians have broken the law in the attitude they have adopted of refusing relief, I sincerely trust that the Minister of Health will bring them to book. Some of my supporters are on the Lichfield Board of Guardians, but I conceive it to be my duty to make my position perfectly clear on this subject. I should regret, as much as any Member in this House, if the miners in England, and particularly the miners in my part of the country, were brought to end this dispute by a policy of starvation. I am not afraid to say that I have said it inside and outside this House. I wish to assure hon. Members opposite that there is nobody in this House more sincerely concerned about the welfare of the miners in the Lichfield Division than their member.

So far as this scale of relief is concerned, which I do not in any way defend, I would like to tell the House, in defence of my own people in Lichfield, what I endeavoured to get the people in the division to do from the very moment the general strike started. I made an appeal to all my supporters to get committees together in all the mining dis- tricts—not party committees, but committees consisting of Labour men, Conservatives, Liberals, or whatever they might be—with the one object of endeavouring to feed the children and give them a decent meal every day to ensure, at any rate, that they would not suffer. I am glad to be able to assure the hon. Member for Nelson and Colne that that is being done in the Lichfield Division. I cannot speak for the whole of the Cannock area. Everybody, so far as I am aware, in this district, is contributing money, goods and articles of food. In our small way, all of us connected with that division, even though some of us cannot afford it, are doing what we can to keep the children from starvation and suffering. I do not claim any credit for anything my people are doing except to say that I think it is common humanity to see that the miners do not starve, and that their children do not starve, and I hope the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health will be able to tell this House that if the Lichfield Board of Guardians are wrong in their action he will see to it that they are put right.

Mr. GREENALL

The Division I have the honour to represent is in the Bolton area. The position there created by the decision of the guardians is causing consternation throughout the whole district, including the Division which the hon. Member for Bolton (Mr. Hilton) represents. I was rather surprised to hear what he said with regard to the trade union funds. If he has been taking an interest in the miners who live in his Division he would know that for some two or three years past most of those miners have only worked two or three days a week. There have been two collieries closed in that district, and the trade union to which they belong have been compelled to exempt them during all this time from paying contributions because of the small amount of wages which they have been earning there. If the hon. Member will only reflect upon the situation of those in his own Division and consider his own attitude with regard to money matters, I think he will regret having said what he has said to-night. This House ought to remember that the miners are locked out, that this is not the same position as that in which many workpeople have been in the past in the Bolton Union, when they have been on strike. The miners are prevented from going down into the pits to earn their living because the pits are closed against them, and that is a situation which ought to commend itself not only to this House, but to the public at large. Indeed, I think the community at large are showing that they realise the position by the way in which they are acting.

Further, the miners and the other workers in that Division are realising that they are the people who very largely provide this Poor Law relief. The miners have been providing, through the rates which they have paid, an insurance fund, as they look upon it, to make provision for the time when they might be in poverty and distress, and they hold that at a time like this they are, therefore, entitled to some relief. Hon. Members opposite and members of the Government not very long ago were telling the country at large, and, indeed, the whole world, that we did not need any Russian "Red gold" in this country to provide food for those who required it in connection with this lock-out, but that there was machinery provided by Acts of Parliament to secure that no one in Great Britain, and least of all women and children, should go short of food. They gave the whole country to understand that they would see to it that those women and children were provided for. What a different attitude they are now taking up. Whether or not it is the fact that the Government are really taking up this attitude with a view to taking sides with the coalowners to defeat the miners by the starvation of their wives and children, the country at large are coming to the conclusion that that is what they are doing.

It being Eleven of the Clock, the Motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."— [Mr. F. C. Thomson.]

Mr. GREENALL

I do not want to get in the way of the Adjournment, but I hope in the administration of this the Government will really look into the question from the real standpoint, and that is that in the dispute between the owners and the workers generally the women and children who are suffering are not to blame in any way whatever. I hope at least they will see to it that the guardians of the district administer the law in the way they ought to do.

Mr. WILLIAM ADAMSON

I, like my hon. Friend the Member for South Ayr (Mr. Brown), regret the unavoidable absence of the Secretary for Scotland—

Mr. F. C. THOMSON (Lord of the Treasury)

No notice whatever was given to the Secretary of State for Scotland that this question was going to be raised.

Mr. ADAMSON

I am not complaining particularly, but I endeavoured to get word to the Secretary for Scotland that my hon. Friend and myself were likely to raise certain aspects of this question. Perhaps in the absence of the Secretary for Scotland the hon. Gentleman opposite will give an answer. I shall not stand between the House and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health for more than a few moments, but there is. an aspect of this question that we have been discussing for the last hour in respect to Scotland to which I should like to call the attention of the Government. Up to the present there have been three authorities who have been responsible for feeding, or providing the means for the feeding, of the wives and children of the miners. These are the education authorities, the local authority for child welfare, and the parish councils. The education authority has been responsible for the feeding of the children of school age. The local authorities have been responsible for those under five from infancy, and the parish councils—at least a certain number of them—have been providing for the wives of the idle miners. Our school holiday began a week or ten days ago. In some of our areas, particularly in the county of Clackmannan, the education authorities have intimated that they are not going to be responsible for the feeding of the school children during the holidays.

In the parish of Clackmannan, in the same county, the parish council has been doing nothing towards feeding the school children. One can imagine the dire necessity that has arisen in that area. The school children were fed up to the time of the school holidays by the education authority, but now the parish council are doing nothing for them. In Circular 67, issued in 1924, the duty was laid upon education authorities and parish councils of acting conjointly in order to ensure that necessitous children were provided for. I hope the hon. Member for South Aberdeen (Mr. F. C. Thomson) will draw the attention of the Scottish Office to what has happened in this area. We have had difficulties in many areas, but this particular difficulty has only recently arisen, and I hope the Scottish Office will see to it that if the education authorities do not do their duty the parish council will do it.

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of HEALTH (Sir Kingsley Wood)

In the few moments that are left to me I would like to make one or two observations on some of the criticisms passed on the Government in this Debate before dealing with the specific cases which two hon. Members have brought to the special attention of the House. Various boards of guardians have been accused of what is called "taking sides" in the present coal dispute, and it is only right that I should inform the House of the exact directions which the Minister of Health has given to the guardians of the country, so far as that aspect of the matter is concerned. In the Circular which has been the subject of so much criticism hon. Members will find that the Minister told the guardians of the country that this was their duty: The function of the Guardians is to relieve destitution within the limits prescribed by law, and they are in no way concerned with the merits of an industrial dispute, even though it results in applications for relief. They cannot, therefore, properly give any weight to their views in dealing with applications made. That is a very specific direction that, so far as they may have views one way or the other regarding the merits of this dispute, those views are not to enter into their discharge of their functions as laid down by law.

Another criticism, made in severe and somewhat extreme language by two hon. Members opposite, concerns the attitude of the Government generally in relation to the feeding of the wives and dependants of the miners. Statements have been made that attempts are being made, in one direction or another, to crush the miners, that guardians are not playing the game, that they have taken the side of the coalowners, that the Government are engaged in a policy of starvation, and things of that sort. Hon. Members who have made these observations cannot realise the extent of the relief which is at present being given by the various boards of guardians of the country. I find—this is very material, having regard to the charges which have been made—that on the last date for which figures were available a week or two ago, no fewer than 2,315,400 were in receipt of relief in this country, representing an increase of 1,193,000 on the figure for the 1st May. So far from having no consideration for the distress which undoubtedly exists in certain quarters, since 1st May overdrafts have been sanctioned for no less an amount than £4,270,000, in view of the additional cost forced on boards of guardians by the general strike and the stoppage in the coal trade. If we compare these figures with the position in 1921 when there was a similar dispute we find that the amount of the overdraft then was £880,000 and the number of persons relieved increased during the period of the last strike by 643,000 only, and I do not think anyone can say, having regard to those facts that either the Government or the guardians are unmindful of the obligations on them at the present time. When I tell the House that in one union at the present moment there is actually more than one in every two of the population in receipt of relief and that there are several unions in which the number is more than two in every five—

Mr. MARDY JONES

Will the hon. Gentleman give the name of the place?

Sir K. WOOD

I do not think it is desirable. Whatever the name of the union, I think it shows—

Mr. MARDY JONES

Is it competent for a member of the Government to make a statement in this House and not give the full details, which this House has the right to have?

Mr. SPEAKER

That is not a point of Order.

Sir K. WOOD

If the hon. Gentleman likes to put a question to me on the matter, I may be able to give him the, information. All that I am now doing is to give a general indication to the House, having regard to the statements which have been made, as to what is in fact being done at the present time, in view of the very grave position in which undoubtedly the boards of guardians find themselves at the present time. Then I want to deal with one further general charge which has been made in the course of the Debate, and particularly by the hon. Gentleman who was my predecessor in the office I now hold. He gave a number of instances of people whom he says are suffering destitution and hardship, and I hope he will forward them either to the board of guardians or to my Department so that they can be checked and verified because they do not at all agree with the reports we are receiving at the Ministry of Health from our inspectors, who have been asked particularly to report to us whether there are any cases of hardship or difficulty at the moment.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Does the hon. Gentleman challenge the figures I gave?

Sir K. WOOD

If I may respectfully say so, we do not want to get into a discussion whether one rate of relief is good or not. The question I am answering is, whatever the rate of relief may be, is there any hardship or suffering at the present time? [HON. MEMBERS "Yes!"] Hon. Members say "Yes." Then, perhaps, they will allow me to make a reply. The information that we have at the Ministry of Health is exactly the opposite. I will take reports which we have received from two areas to which reference has been made. We have heard about the Bolton Guardians this evening. Reports from Bolton show that children are now better in the matter of food than they were before the strike. This curious contrast is traced to the fact that numerous private persons have come forward with supplies without acquainting the guardians of the fact and the guardians are relieving the families simultaneously.

Mr. DAVIES

Surely you will see the point I am trying to raise. I am speaking of cases outside the town in purely mining areas.

Sir K. WOOD

This report I have from the inspectors covers the whole of the areas, and is not limited to the town of Bolton alone.

I have one or two extracts from the reports furnished in June and July. On the 19th June it was reported: There is nothing to show that the present scales of relief are in any way inadequate or that there is any distress whatever even amongst the single men. On the 28th June, it is reported: Not the slightest evidence has come to my notice that the children are suffering in any way. On the 5th and 12th July, there was substantially no change in the situation and no reason to suppose that the children were suffering in any way. With regard to the three allegations generally made in the debate this evening. In the first place, there is the allegation of political bias on the part of my Department; that is absolutely unfounded. Secondly, with regard to the relief given, no one would have imagined such huge figures in the way of assistance which has been given at the present time. Thirdly, when we have regard to the reports from independent people who have no part or lot in the dispute at all, I venture to say that so far as these three charges are concerned, they are quite unfounded and have no regard to the facts of the case.

There are two cases which have been put by hon. Members opposite. The first is the case of Bolton, and there the issue is whether the Bolton Board of Guardians are acting within the law and within their discretion. Hon. Members will agree that, if the Bolton Guardians are acting within their discretion, it is no part or duty of my right hon. Friend to intervene in such a case. I want to state what I understand is the legal position so that hon. Members can consider it and challenge it on a later occasion. As I understand the matter, it is the duty of the board of guardians to relieve destitution. They are the judges whether destitution exists and in what form and to what extent relief should be granted.

So far as this statutory duty is concerned, in my opinion they have completely discharged it when they have met the physical needs of the applicant for relief, or placed in the hands of the applicant the means for meeting those needs. The Bolton Board of Guardians decided that relief to miners' dependents should only be given in institutions, and I think—and I doubt whether any one will seriously challenge this—that when they place in the hands of the applicant complete means of meeting his physical needs, they have discharged their duties so far as the law is concerned. That is the exact position so far as this board is concerned.

I only want to make one further reference to this matter—an allusion to it. Allusion has been made to the clerk to the board of guardians. I am sorry that the hon. Member made that reference because, as he knows, the clerk to the board of guardians is a public officer and stands outside general criticism of this kind. I should like to tell the House—and I think it is fair to Mr. Cooper, the clerk to the guardians of this division, to do so—that we at the Ministry of Health regard him as a capable and efficient officer. He has certainly been called upon by my Department in days gone by to hold an inquiry, and I do not think the people who were themselves the subject of the inquiry questioned the conclusions to which he came. Therefore, I think the House will accept from me my belief, at any rate, that the clerk to this board of guardians has acted quite properly and without any desire to interfere in the merits of the present coal dispute.

I want to tell the House finally, so far as Bolton is concerned, that they need have no anxiety with reference to the children, because special notice has been taken of the children of Bolton. A special staff has been organised to watch the cases and keep in close touch with the education committee and the officers of another society. The education committee give a midday meal to school children, and, if necessary, breakfast also, and in future they will send lists of the children to the guardians. My right hon Friend does not consider that he has any right or duty to criticise or interfere with the discretion of the board of guardians in matters of this kind, and I think hon. Gentlemen, whether they agree with that view or not, will see the very dangerous realm which any Minister of the Crown would enter if he once began to interfere with the discretion of boards of guardians in matters of this kind.

That brings me to the last case, namely, that of Lichfield. There there was a very different state of affairs. As was put before the House on the last occasion when we discussed it, the Lichfield Board of Guardians adopted, so far as we knew at the Ministry of Health, a resolution which was in no sense in our judgment a compliance with their duties so far as the relief of destitution was concerned, and my right hon. Friend took immediate steps to communicate with the board. So far from showing, as has been stated this afternoon, any bias on the side of the employers in this dispute, within a day of the statement appearing in the newspaper that this board of guardians had passed a resolution which seemed to indicate a view altogether outside the law, my right hon. Friend, as the House may remember, sent a communication to this board of guardians directing their attention to what he considered to be their duties and to be the law on the matter. The attitude my right hon. Friend has always adopted is simply that, so far as discretion is concerned, where the law gives a discretion to the board of guardians it is not right and it is not his duty to interfere with that discretion so long as they are complying with the law and relieving destitution. But where, on the one hand, you have a case like West Ham, or, on the other hand, a case like Lichfield, both at opposite ends, as it were, of the matter which we are discussing, then it is properly, as I think the House will agree, the duty of the Minister of Health to intervene and see that the law is complied with. He has done so, as I think fairly and justly, and in an endeavour to hold the balance even on both sides, and he took action, as far as West Ham is concerned, that necessitated coming to the House and obtaining an Act of Parliament. Secondly, so far as the Lichfield Guardians are concerned, he took action.

Mr. GREENWOOD

Has the action had any effect?

Sir K. WOOD

The hon. Member has put before the House the position so far as the Lichfield Board of Guardians are concerned. On receipt of my right hon. Friend's letter, they passed a resolution deciding to deal with it to-morrow. As a matter of fact, I think the date was chosen because to-morrow is the first day on which the resolution begins to operate. I do not think anyone would expect my right hon. Friend, having before him a resolution saying the board of guardians were going to consider the matter on the day on which their resolution becomes operative, should do something—I do not understand what it is suggested that he should do.

As has been expressed in this letter to the Lichfield Board of Guardians, my right hon. Friend considers that they must, the same as any other board of guardians, carry out their statutory functions and relieve destitution. They may decide to relieve destitution in the same way as the Bolton Guardians have done. That is a matter for their discretion, but in any event that is my right hon. Friend's view, and when he learns to-morrow the position which the board of guardians adopt, the House will agree that that is the proper time for him to come to a decision. Obviously, we have sufficient troubles and difficulties in the administration of poor relief in troublesome times like these without meeting troubles before they actually arise.

Major CRAWFURD

Will the hon. Gentleman give the House his opinion as to whether if the issue comes to this, of a board of guardians being in the position he has described, the Lichfield Board of Guardians would come within the pro- visions of the Defaulting Guardians Act which has just been passed?

Sir K. WOOD

I am very reluctant to give an opinion on that, because, being unskilled in the law and not wanting to answer a hypothetical question of this kind, I think it is far better, having regard to the difficulties of boards of guardians at this time, not to anticipate dfficulties. I hope and believe that this particular board of guardians will have regard to the duties devolving upon them and I hope the House will feel assured, from the statements I have made, that under very difficult circumstances my right hon. Friend is doing his best to see that the law is evenly and fairly administered, and that no deserving person goes without relief at this time.

Mr. MARDY JONES

Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that the two periods prior to the stoppage in 1921 and the present stoppage are comparable? Is it not a fact that the people prior to the 1921 stoppage had enjoyed a long period following the War of comparative prosperity and that the period prior to the present stoppage has been one of low wages.

Sir K. WOOD

That is another matter.

It being Half-past Eleven, of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.