HC Deb 19 May 1908 vol 189 cc63-4
Mr. ROBINSON (Brecknock)

To ask the hon. Member for the Crewe Division, as representing the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, whether the capital sum of £34,000 raised by royalties on minerals in virtue of leases granted by certain Queen Anne's Bounty farms, such farms being the endowment of the perpetual curacy of Capel Nantddu, County of Brecon, and now held by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, are being in whole or in part, or are intended to be, applied to provide a salary for the bishop suffragan of Swansea, who is now rector of Cantriff, the mother church of Capel Nantddu; whether such sum could be utilised for increasing the income of many of the poor beneficed clergy in the County of Brecon who have now much less than £200 a year, and to benefit whom Queen Anne's Bounty was first formed; and whether he is aware that Queen Anne's Bounty farms, lands, and money are by law intended for the use of the poor clergy or benefices, and not for the establishment of bishops, suffragan or otherwise.

(Answered by Mr. Tomkinson.) The fund mentioned in the Question has arisen from leases of minerals under lands formerly belonging to the perpetual curacy of Nantddu, and now to the united benefice of Cantreff with Nantddu, the perpetual curacy having been legally united to the rectory of Cantreff in 1867. The lands were bought with moneys allotted by Queen Anne's Bounty for the augmentation of Nantddu before its union with Cantreff, but from the date of such allotment the Bounty Board retained no interest present or reversionary in the property to the purchase of which the moneys had been appropriated. The fund is held by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners on behalf of the united benefice subject to the provisions of the Ecclesiastical Leasing Acts, under the authority of which the leases were granted. No part of the fund has been or could be applied for the endowment of a bishop suffragan or otherwise, but, the living being in private patronage, the private patrons have recently presented thereto the clergyman who since 1890 has been the Suffragan Bishop of Swansea, and he has been duly instituted. By a scheme of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, ratified by His Majesty in Council, so much of the fund as produces an income of £300 per annum has been diverted from the united benefice for the purpose of augmenting necessitous benefices, particularly in the district where the lands and minerals are situate, and further portions of the income may hereafter from time to time be appropriated to the like purposes under the same authority.