§ MR. CHANNING (Northamptonshire, E.)To ask the hon. Member for West Salford, as Church Estates Commissioner, what is approximately the present annual value (as defined in the fifth section of the Incumbents Resignation Act (1871) Amendment Act, 1887), of the benefice of St. Botolph, Bishopsgate, in the City of London; what communications (if any) have passed between the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and the Bishop of London, as patron of the living, with regard to the surrender by the next presentee of a portion of the income of the benefice, and to what purpose or purposes it is proposed that the amount so surrendered should be applied; and whether the Ecclesiastical Commissioners will consider the question of applying to Parliament for further powers to enable them to enforce a re-adjustment of endowments in such cases for the benefit of poor benefices.
(Answered by Mr. Lees Knowles.) In a Return (No. 78, of 1902), made by the Bishop of London pursuant to an Order of the House of Lords, the annual value of this benefice is stated as £2,300. There has been no communication between the Ecclesiastical Commissioners and the Bishop of London as to the surrender by the next incumbent of any portion of the income. The Ecclesiastical Commissioners have already power, with consent of the patron and Bishop, to frame schemes for ratification by His Majesty in Council for apportioning the income of a benefice between it and other benefices in the same patronage.