§ Mr. SITCHasked the President of the Local Government Board if his attention has been drawn to the forcible ejection from his home by the police, on 24th May last, of Mr. J. H. Lawrence, I, Lower High Street, Stourbridge, in order to provide accommodation for a. foreman of the owner, a coal dealer, notwithstanding the fact that exhaustive search of several weeks' duration and appeals to the local authorities for help in procuring another habitation had been unavailing; that the ejectment not only involved Mr. Lawrence in expenses incurred by the police in re-moving his furniture under their own supervision to licensed premises selected by themselves, but would have left the man and his family of eleven persons homeless in the streets had not sympathetic neighbours received them, and among whom they are now dispersed; whether he can see his way to advise the 1863W police authority to refund to Mr. Lawrence any charges they may have called upon him to meet which he neither desired nor incurred, and to ask the responsible officers of the town why they permitted the ejectment order to be enforced in view of his failure to secure other accommodation of any sort or kind, and to state what steps they took to meet the housing requirements of this large family; and whether, in order to prevent the infliction of similar hardships upon other families, he will consider the desirability of advising local authorities throughout the country to endeavour to suspend the enforcement of ejectment orders in all cases until suitable accommodation has either been found by the persons concerned or been provided by the local authorities themselves?
§ Major ASTORMy attention has been called to the case. Under the Increase of Rent, etc., Acts a landlord may obtain from the Court an order for possession of a house which is required for occupation by himself or someone in his employment. My Department have no administrative functions under the Acts, and I am not in a position to take steps suggested by the hon. Member.