POOR REMOVAL BILL. (Hansard, 28 June 1900)

§ *LORD AVEBURY
said he had been requested by the Association of Poor Law Unions of England and Wales to move what seemed a very reasonable Amendment to this clause. The clause provided that— A person who has resided continuously for five years in England shall not thereafter be removed to Ireland under the Acts relating to the relief of the poor. He proposed to insert after the word "England" the words "of which five years not less than one year shall have been continuously in the parish or union in which he applies for relief." He believed he was correct in saying that the restriction as he proposed to amend it was the law in regard to Scottish removals. The object of the Amendment was also to secure that there should be some evidence that the person in question had been for five years in England.

*LORD HARRIS
My instructions from the Local Government Board are to ask your Lordships not to accept this Amendment. The object of the Bill is to redress what is regarded as a grievance in Ireland. At present there is no law of settlement in Ireland, and a person who has been born in England but who obtains relief from the rates in Ireland is not removable to England, whereas the Irish born person if he comes upon the rates in England can, except under two circumstances, be removed back to Ireland. It has long been felt in Ireland that this is a serious grievance. The two circumstances under which an Irish born person living in England becomes what is called irremovable are where he has, in the first 1299 case, lived for three years continuously in a parish, in which case he obtains a settlement in that parish; and, secondly, where he has lived continuously for a year in the union in which he applies for relief, and that year has to be immediately antecedent to the date on which he applies for relief. In either of these cases he becomes irremovable, but unless he has resided three years continuously in a parish, or if he applies for relief outside the union in which he has lived continuously for a year, he is still removable back to Ireland, whereas under no circumstances is an English born person obtaining relief from the rates in Ireland removable back to England. The effect of the noble Lord's Amendment would, in the opinion of the Local Government Board, really be to stultify the Bill. If a person can be shown to have lived for five years in England, he then obtains a settlement in England, and cannot be removed back to Ireland; but the noble Lord proposes to cut down that advantage, as it is regarded in Ireland, by making it compulsory upon the person to have lived for a year in the parish or union in which he applies for relief. This Amendment would prevent the advantage being conferred which we have endeavoured to give to Ireland, by increasing the possibility of removability. That is the reason why I ask your Lordships to reject the Amendment.

LORD CLONBROCK
said that as an old Irish Poor Law Guardian he could testify to the fact that the grievance which this Bill proposed to remove had been actually felt for many years in Ireland. Any person who became destitute in Ireland had to be relieved, utterly irrespective of whether he was born in Ireland or had lived there any number of years. It might happen that a person who had only been in Ireland one day applied for relief, in which case the union would have to maintain him if necessary for the whole course of his life. On the other hand he had known cases of Irishmen being sent back from England after an absence from their own country of twenty years.

§ EARL SPENCER
I sincerely trust that the Bill will be carried in its present form. I have every reason to recollect, during the considerable number of years I was in Ireland, that continual cases of this kind were cropping up. It is a very 1300 great and serious complaint, and, as I understand it, the Bill as it is framed is a Bill of reciprocity. It puts Englishmen in Ireland on exactly the same footing as Irishmen in England with regard to removability under the poor law.

§ *LORD AVEBURY
said he did not oppose the Bill. The object of his Amendment simply was to secure that a person should have been living for a reasonable time in a union before he became chargeable to the union. To omit this was practically to abolish the law of settlement.

§ *LORD AVEBURY
then moved the insertion of a new clause, the object of which was to secure that proper evidence should be obtained in corroboration of the statement of the pauper. This provision was required as between one union in England and another union in England, and the safeguards which were considered necessary in England should be applicable in this case. Unless some such words were inserted there would be nothing on which the magistrates could act except the mere statement of the pauper himself. Surely it was reasonable that some evidence in corroboration of that statement should be allowed to be insisted upon.

*LORD HARRIS
I fear that I appear in a very unsympathetic attitude towards the noble Lord, but I am instructed to oppose the insertion of this new clause. The object of the noble Lord's Amendment is to throw the onus of proof upon the pauper. We will take 1301 the case of an Irish pauper whom the guardians wish to remove, and who objects to being removed. The noble Lord wished to throw upon the pauper the onus of proving that he has been resident in England for five years. Apart from the question whether the pauper is in a very good position to produce corroborative evidence before the justices, the guardians are not, as a matter of fact, by this Bill put in a different position from what they are under the present Act. Under the Act at present the onus of proof is thrown upon the guardians who wish to remove a pauper, and I think one is justified in assuming that, whoever has to produce the evidence, the justices will require sufficient proof before they consent to an order for removal. Of course it is obvious that the obtaining of evidence sufficient to satisfy the justices will be a matter of labour and of some expense. It is quite likely, if the noble Lord's Amendment was adopted, that the guardians would still be put to labour and expense, because they would have to satisfy themselves that the pauper's statement and such corroborative evidence as he managed to adduce, which might or might not be very credible, were in fact true. The Bill does not throw upon the guardians an onus which docs not rest upon them now. The Local Government Board, having given careful and sympathetic attention to the representations of the very important body the noble Lord represents, are of opinion that the Bill as it was introduced by your Lordships is, upon the whole, in the best form.

THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY
did not see that there could be any hardship under the Bill as it stood.

LORD CLONBROCK
ventured to think that it would be impossible for a pauper to prove that he had resided continuously in England for five years without receiving relief, unless he subpœnaed all the relieving officers in the country.

§ *LORD AVEBURY
said he had been informed that all that the Amendment asked was that the same precautions should be taken in the case of the removal of Irish paupers as were taken when English paupers were removed from one parish to another After what had been 1302 said, however, he could not press his Amendment, but he hoped Her Majesty's Government would look into the point raised.