§ Sir ARTHUR FELLasked the Pensions Minister if there are any homes in connection with his Department where the five orphan children of a soldier who died on service, and who vary in age from two years to ten years, can be received for the pensions to which such children are entitled, their father and mother being dead and there being no other relatives but an old grandfather too infirm to assist in taking charge of them?
§ Mr. HODGEI have at present no statutory and therefore no financial powers to make provision for the charge of the motherless children of deceased soldiers, otherwise than by the payment of pensions under the Royal Warrant, but I propose at the beginning of next Session to ask Parliament to give me such powers. It is my intention to exercise them by providing for the boarding out of children as much as possible under the conditions of normal family life rather than by placing them in institutions, though I foresee the need of a certain number of clearing-homes being established in different parts of the country, where children such as those referred to in the question can be looked after pending other arrangements being made. If the the hon. Member will send me the particulars of the family he has now in view, I will endeavour, with the assistance of the war pensions committee of the place where they reside, to make arrangements for their being looked after in anticipation of any general scheme being set up.