§ 12. Mr. McKEAGasked the Home Secretary if, in view of the desirability of minimising the perils to young girls who leave the North of England for domestic service in London, numbering about 20,000 annually, he will consider if any steps can be taken to ensure that the agencies dealing with these girls are of genuine and bona fide character?
§ Sir H. SAMUELThe London County Council is responsible for the licensing of employment agencies in the administrative county of London, and if an agency is unsuitable, has power to refuse or revoke a licence. I have no information as to the number of girls who come to London for domestic service, but it is of course very considerable. In 1928 a conference of the representatives of bodies, official and unofficial, specially interested in girls' welfare, was convened at the Home Office by my predecessor, Lord Brentford. As a result, a Central Information Bureau, under the auspices of the Central Council for the Social Welfare of Girls and Women in London, was established to deal with such matters as that to which the question relates, and this bureau and its district branches have it under their constant attention.