CHILDREN (PROVISION OF FOOTWEAR). (Hansard, 4 December 1928)

§ Miss BONDFIELD

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide footwear for children in distressed areas. I ask the sympathetic support of the House for this small Bill, which is unique of its kind in that it is being brought forward by seven women Members irrespective of party. It can be properly described as a non-party Bill, it is of a temporary nature, it is in- 1030 tended, with a date fixed in the Bill, to meet the present emergency only, and it is limited in its scope. The Preamble would ask the House to meet a need arising from the long continued trade depression. Clauses 1 and 2 of the Bill would extend power to public health authorities and public education authorities with the consent of the Minister, in such way as they see fit, to provide footwear for necessitous children within those areas approved by the Minister. Clause 3 contains a proviso against imposition or fraud by giving local authorities power to recover as a civil debt. Clause 4 deals with the defraying of expenses, the ordinary provision to defray expenses incurred by the local authorities.

Clause 5 provides that the Treasury shall provide 90 per cent, of the cost of such services. I am aware that the Ten Minutes Rule hardly gives sufficient scope for dealing with a matter of such magnitude, but if there be any difference of opinion with regard to this Clause, after all it is a Committee point and one within Government control, and it is not a matter which should prevent permission being granted to introduce the Bill. This Rule also has the objection that the Minister does not get an opportunity of making a statement, but because of the desperate situation, we are going to use all the forms that the House permits in order to bring this question before Parliament. To-morrow night we propose on the Adjournment to raise the question of clothing for the express purpose of enabling the Minister to give us the Government point of view. In the matter of boots, we are aware that the voluntary funds, grateful as we are to the people who are contributing to the Society of Friends, to the Boot and Shoe Trades Unions and other societies, and to the Lord Mayor's Relief Fund, do not cover the present necessities. We are sure that if we could extract boots from the pool by means of this method, the money remaining could be spread over to cover other necessities.

Let me give some illustrations of the actual position, taking selected areas where boots are distributed to children whose fathers are unemployed miners. As far as we can prevent it, no child of a father who is under-employed, and no child whose parents are receiving Poor Law relief, get these boots at all. I 1031 have made a careful survey of what is taking place in my Division of Wallsend. Six districts in the Division—Dudley, Weetslade, West Moor and Forest Hall, Willington Quay and Howdon, Seaton Burn, and Coxbridge Ward, Newcastle—have been investigated, with the following results. The number of children away from school through lack of boots is 114, and the number at school with bad boots is 1,845. We have had some help from the Lord Mayor's Fund, and boots were given five months ago in one district. Not a trace of these boots is left now. Anybody who knows what school children are, or what any children are if they have any life in them at all, knows that a pair of boots, which they put on when they get out of bed in the morning and wear all day until they take them off at night, will not last very long. We have a district where 142 pairs of boots were distributed, and there are still in the district 70 children without boots. In a third district there was help from the Lord Mayor's Fund last August, which only touched the fringe of the need then, and they have had no help since. In the fourth district only 14 pairs of boots have been given by the Lord Mayor's Fund this month, and there are 365 children at school with bad boots. That is quite a small district. In the fifth district, where most families have not had a day's work since the lock-out of 1926, only a few pairs of boots have been received from the Lord Mayor's Fund; while in the sixth area there is no record of any charitable help having been received at all. In this area, 10 children are away from school through lack of boots, and 60 at school with bad boots.

I could, of course, take up a great deal of time in quoting cases, but I will mention only one other. We have information from a member of the Glamorgan County Council, who is a schoolmaster, showing that in Mountain Ash, 90 per cent. of the able-bodied men are out of employment, and there are 11,000 children on the school register. They have received this week 700 pairs of boots from the Lord Mayor's Fund, and that, together with what they have received, makes a total of 2,800. That means that of 11,000 children only 2,800 have been provided with boots from the Lord Mayor's Fund. We beg the House 1032 sympathetically to use every opportunity in order to bring some kind of relief in a systematic way to cover the needs of the children. At this time, when we are seeing the shops crowded with Christmas things, when the children of those who are comfortably off are looking forward with glee to the possibility of a merry time this Christmas, some of us who are right up against it cannot look at these shop windows without seeing behind them the ghosts of these little ones who will get no Christmas, and who have to go to school in rotten boots. On top of that, many of them who are of school age are the prisoners of poverty in their own homes. I feel so strongly on this matter, that I make no apology for asking the whole-hearted co-operation of the House and of all parties of the House to let us have this Bill. Let us call it a gesture if you like, but let us follow it up with some kind of action. We are not concerned so much with the action as with getting boots on to the feet of the school children, and on to the feet of those who are starving for lack of proper nutrition. I cannot trust myself to tell any more of the things which I know are going on, and I ask the House to give me leave to bring in the Bill.