On the Local Government Board Vote the debate (June 18) dealt mainly with the housing problem, and Sir A. Griffith Boscawen (U., _Dudley_) moved a reduction of 100_l._ in order to call attention to the administration of the Housing Act. He complained that the Government omitted to house their own employees (_e.g._ postal servants and navvies at Rosyth) and that Mr. John Burns, when President of the Board, had neglected to remedy administrative difficulties, and that local authorities had been incited to close houses while provision was not made for rehousing. This latter charge was endorsed by Lord Henry Cavendish Bentinck (U., _Nottingham, S._) and Mr. H. W. Forster (U., _Kent, Sevenoaks_). The latter said that one cause in rural districts of the deficiency in housing was the permission given, very properly, for the retention of cottages by occupants past work. The new President of the Board said that under the Act of 1909 the local authorities had compelled owners to repair 130,000 houses unfit for habitation, and in the current year to the end of May loans had been sanctioned amounting to 979,000_l._ for building new houses, while in four years (1910-13) the loans sanctioned amounted to 1,400,000_l._ During the Unionist rule of 1886-1905 only 2,000,000_l._ in all had been spent on building new houses, and in the rural districts 47,000_l._ on 233 new cottages. He promised a Housing Bill sanctioning larger loans to local authorities for rehousing. Of town planning, which was equally important, about ninety schemes, dealing with 200 square miles, had come before the Board, and 142 other schemes had not yet reached it. He touched also on health administration, nursing, new Poor Law circulars, one requiring that children over three years old should not be kept in the workhouse, another contemplating relief to widows with children, and advising that the relief should be adequate and the unity of the family respected, and he foreshadowed an increase in the number of women inspectors. He mentioned also the clearance effected of houseless poor from the Thames Embankment by directing them to charitable agencies, and successful efforts for the diminution of vagrancy. An Intelligence Department was to be established by the Department to report periodically on housing, land, tuberculosis, and health questions. Mr. Long (U., _Strand_) while commending this statement generally, regarded the part of it relating to housing as wholly unsatisfactory, and held that demolition had gone too fast under the Act of 1909. After other speeches, and a reply by the Secretary of the Board, the reduction was negatived by 233 to 106.