MR. BALLANTLNE (Coventry)I beg to ask the Parliamentary Charity Commissioner, in the event of the Local Government Board conferring upon the Council of the City of Coventry the powers of a Parish Council, what number of additional members of the Governing Body of the general charities of Coventry would the Charity Commissioners empower the Council to appoint in accordance with Sub-section 3, of Section 14, of The Local Government Act, 1894; and whether, if the number of elected Trustees which the Charity Commissioners would allow under the Act would be greater than under the proposed Scheme, measures will be taken by the Charity Commissioners to prevent the representative bodies of Coventry named in the Scheme losing the rights they would have under the Act?
§ THE PARLIAMENTARY CHARITY COMMISSIONER (Mr. F. S. STEVENSON,) Suffolk, EyeThe question anticipates both the action of the Local Government Board under Section 33 of The Local Government Act, 1894, and the decision of important questions of construction which arise on other sections of the Act. In these circumstances, the Commissioners are not in a position to say how their discretion would be exercised; but any representation made by the Council of the city, in the result of the publication of the Scheme, will be carefully considered before it is established.
§ In answer to a further question by Mr. BALLANTINE,
§ MR. F. S. STEVENSONsaid: It is undoubtedly the wish of the Commissioners that there should, if practicable, be a majority of representative Trustees. That wish, however, cannot be carried out in the present instances without the consent of the existing Trustees. With regard to the action which the Commissioners may take in the future, that depends upon a series of hypothetical contingencies and upon the legal interpretation of Clause 33 of the Act.