§ MR. JAMES PENDER (Northants, Mid)I beg to ask the hon. Member for Thirsk, as representing the Charity Commissioners, if he could state to the House 1506 upon what grounds the Charity Commissioners decline to sanction the handing over of the parochial charities of the village of Harleston, Northamptonshire, to the management of the parish council, seeing that the said charities appear to come under the terms of the Local Government Act 1894, Clause 14.
MR. GRANT LAWSON (York, N. R., Thirsk)The only provisions of the Local Government Act 1894, which permit trustees of a parochial charity to hand over their trust to the management of the parish council are contained in Section 14, Sub-section 1. That subsection does not apply to all parochial charities, an Amendment designed to make it so apply having been rejected in this House. The Commissioners have decided that the sub-section deals only with cases in which trustees hold real property which is enjoyed in specie—i.e., as land or houses—by the inhabitants of a parish, and that it does not apply to cases like that at Harleston, in which the property is let and the benefit of the rents enjoyed by such inhabitants. Later sub-sections enable the parish council to obtain representation in the trusteeship of the latter class of parochial charities, but not to take over the management of the trust as a whole. The Commissioners therefore have no power to sanction the proposal of the Harleston trustees.