HC Deb 06 June 1924 vol 174 cc1609-10W
Mr. MacKENZIE LIVINGSTONE

asked the Secretary for Scotland whether, in view of the fact that Barra parish council recently applied to the Goschen Committee for a loan of £1,500 to be expended on an approved road scheme under a scheme detailed by a Board of Health official at a special meeting of the parish council, when it was pointed out that in order to provide potatoes at the lowest possible price for the men to be employed on this road scheme the Board of Health would purchase as cheaply as possible and authorise the parish council to sell at cost price a quantity of potatoes, and that as soon as a loan of £850 was sanctioned the Board assumed control of the grant and expended the entire amount on potatoes, with the result that no relief work could he provided for the destitute; and, seeing that in the regulations governing the distribution of these potatoes at cost price, £8 10s. per ton, it was stipulated that any person failing to pay the full cost price was to be registered as a pauper and the application treated as an ordinary application for relief, will he cause an immediate inquiry into the whole circumstances, and ascertain the reason why the district committee were not allowed or asked to expend the money loaned on an approved road scheme, as was intended in the original application by the parish council?

Mr. ADAMSON

I have made inquiry into the matter and find that the facts are as follows: On 17th December last the parish council of Barra applied for sanction of the Board of Health to a loan of £1,500 to be expended in giving work to the able-bodied unemployed in the parish in need of help. From the correspondence which ensued, it was obvious that, although the position had been fully explained to the parish council at a meeting between them and an officer of the Board, the council were under a misapprehension as to the various measures that might be adopted in order to secure for the parish assistance from Government funds. Accordingly, the position was again explained at considerable length to the parish council in a letter from the Board dated 26th January. No application in regard to the provision of relief works has yet been received by the Unemployment Grants Committee either from the parish council or from the district committee. Any such proposals would be carefully considered. One of the measures for the relief of distress adopted by the parish council was the supply of potatoes for food for distribution as relief in kind, and in certain cases for sale, to persons who, in the opinion of the council, were regarded as necessitous. Some of the potatoes might also have been used in part payment of wages to men employed on relief works, but, as already indicated, no such works appear to have been started. Meanwhile the parish council had asked the Board of Health to purchase on their behalf 100 tons of potatoes for the purposes above indicated, and in order to meet the expenditure thereon at the then current price the Board obtained for the parish council, through the Goschen Committee, a preliminary loan of £850. A first instalment of 50 tons of potatoes was shipped to Barra early in January. The parish council were informed that a further consignment would be forwarded on being requisitioned by the council. No further requisition was, however, received. The money was retained by the Board to meet the accounts in connection with the supply of the potatoes, which, so far, have amounted approximately to £443, leaving an unexpended balance of about £407. With regard to the statement as to the entry on the poor roll of persons who received such potatoes with remission of the whole or part of the cost, I would point out that this course was necessary, looking to the terms of the Poor Law Acts.