HC Deb 04 August 1885 vol 300 cc1044-5
MR. JESSE COLLINGS

asked the Vice President of the Committee of Council, Whether the Charity Commissioners prepared and circulated, in August 1884, a draft scheme relating to Lady Isabella Dodd's Charity, in Ellesborough, Bucks., which omitted provisions for allotments, and whether the Charity Commissioners have since inserted provisions for allotments therein in accordance with section fourteen of "The Allotments Extension Act, 1882;" whether the Charity Commissioners have inserted provisions for allotments, as required by section fourteen of "The Allotments Extension Act, 1882," in all schemes made by them after the passing of that Act in relation to any Charity, part of the endowment of which consisted of land (other than buildings and the appurtenances of buildings); whether, if they have omitted to insert such provisions in any such schemes, they will repair the omission by issuing amended schemes which will contain provisions for allotments according to the intention of the Act; and, whether the Charity Commissioners will publish a lift of the schemes made by them since the passing of the said Act in which such provisions are inserted, and a list of those which contain no such provisions?

THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Mr. E. STANHOPE)

To the first part of the Question of the hon. Member I have to say that the facts are correctly stated. To the second, the Charity Commissioners inform me that these provisions have in some cases been omitted, partly from inadvertence (chiefly in the case of schemes drafted previously to and established shortly after the passing of the Allotments Act, 1882), and partly because it was for some time doubted whether these provisions should not be inserted only in schemes in which provision is made for the management of the lands of the charity. They are now always inserted in such cases. To the third part, the answer is that schemes can be made only on application to the Commissioners, who have no power to act on their own motion. They authorize me to say that if application is made in any of these cases they will be quite ready to insert these provisions. For this reason, and because the Return would be costly and practically useless, I have to answer the hon. Member's fourth paragraph in the negative.