 Individual parishes were keen to keep costs of poor relief as low as possible and there are examples of paupers in some cases being shunted back and forth between parishes.The Settlement Laws allowed strangers to a parish to be removed after 40 days if they were not working, but the cost of removing such people meant that they were often left until they tried to claim poor relief.In 1697 Settlement Laws were tightened when people could be barred from entering a parish unless they produced a Settlement certificate.