MR. CARVELL WILLIAMS (Notts, Mansfield)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that the table of fees and charges of the Dalton-in-Furness Burial Board provides for the payment to ministers, in the unconsecrated part of their cemetery, of fees for interments, vaults, tombstones, &c. (varying from 2s. 1388 to £4 4s.), which are identical in amount with those legally payable to the Vicar in the consecrated part; whether this table of fees has received the sanction of the Home Office; and (3), whether, seeing that this is in contravention of Section 17 of 20 & 21 Vic., which provides that such fees shall not be payable in the unconsecrated parts of cemeteries, such steps will be taken as will lead to a revision by the Burial Board of their table of fees and charges for the purpose of making it conformable to law?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. ASQUITH,) Fife, E.(1) My attention had not been previously called to this table of fees, but it appears on inquiry that it contains a column of fees for payment to ministers in the consecrated portion of the cemetery. (2) Such heading is illegal, and does not appear in the print of the table of fees preserved in the Home Office and approved in 1873. (3) The attention of the Burial Board has been called to this irregularity, and the Board have professed their readiness to amend the scale in a manner that may be indicated to them by the Secretary of State.