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207
TRANSFERENCE OF CONTROL OF COMMON
LODGING HOUSES TO THE COUNTY COUNCIL
In the month of November, 1892, a deputation from the
Public Health Committee of the London County Council
waited upon the Home Secretary, to urge the desirability of
transferring from the police to the Council, the control of the
Common Lodging Houses in the Metropolis within the jurisdiction
of the Council. The Chairman of the Committee
stated that the Council desired reform in the registration of
Common Lodging Houses, and that the Council should be
the authority for making and enforcing regulations and byelaws
for the management of these houses. The Home
Secretary expressed sympathy with the object of the deputation,
admitting, nevertheless, that the police had performed
their duty, in looking after the lodging houses, with great
discretion, and in a thoroughly efficient manner. Nevertheless
the suggested transfer is shortly to be effected, by provisional
order under section 10 of the Local Government Act,
1888, and at the present writing the Council are about making
arrangements with a view to the appointment of a staff of
Inspectors (all males), to take over such part of the duties
of the police in regard to these places as they can discharge.
The police will still have the right of visitation, a very
necessary provision, and one which to some extent removes
the objection to the change of jurisdiction, the grounds
of which were set out in my last annual report: I
need do no more now, therefore, than re-iterate my
protest against a duty of this kind being relegated to or
assumed by the Council. The duty of making bye-laws with
regard to common lodging-houses is one that the Council in
any case should perform, but the duty of enforcing any byelaws
which the Council may be authorised to make, should
have been imposed upon the local sanitary authorities. Of late
years there has been a considerable reduction in the number
of common lodging houses and a concurrent great increase