The local government legislation was not originally part of the government's programme announced in the Queen's Speech of January 1897. It was also exceptional in that there was almost no popular demand for the reforms. It thus came as a complete surprise when Chief Secretary Balfour announced in May that he was preparing legislation. While he claimed that the extension to Ireland of the local government reforms already carried out in Great Britain had always been intended, the sudden conversion to the "alternative policy" was in fact a way of solving a political crisis at Westminster. Obstruction by Irish members of parliament and a number of English MPs was causing a legislative backlog. Landlords, already angered by the 1896 land act, were enraged by the refusal of the Treasury to extend the agricultural rating grant to Ireland. In fact, the failure to introduce the grant was largely due to there being no effective local government system to administer it. Instead, an equivalent sum had been given to the administration in Dublin Castle, who had decided to use the money to fund poor law reform and a new Agricultural Board. On 18 May the Irish Unionist MPs wrote to the government informing them that they would withdraw their support unless the rating grant was introduced.