§ 88. Mr. LAURENCE HARDYasked if the Secretary of State for the Home Department will state how many and which counties have adopted the Advertisements Regulation Act, 1907; whether such counties have applied the by-law to their whole area; whether any local inquiries have been held under Section 3, Sub-section (3), of the Act; whether, when sanctioning the adoption of the by-law proposed under the Act by the Kent County Council, he had received from the county council advice of the numerous objections taken by local authorities in the county against the by law; and why he did not take steps to ascertain the causes of these protests by a local inquiry as proposed in the Act?
§ The SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. McKenna)By-laws under the Act are in force in the following fourteen counties: Chester, 1488 Cumberland, East Suffolk, East Sussex, Gloucester, Hampshire, Kent, Lancaster, Lindsey (parts of), Monmouth, Somerset, Surrey, Westmorland, Worcester. Except in four cases, the by-laws apply to the whole area of the county. I have ordered local inquiries in the case of two boroughs, but not in the case of any county. Objections to the Kent by-laws were addressed to me by one urban and three rural district councils and received my careful consideration. I consulted the Kent County Council, who gave what appeared to me to be satisfactory answers to the points raised, and I came to the conclusion that the objections were not sufficiently numerous or weighty to justify my directing a local inquiry. I am satisfied that the by-law will be administered in a reasonable manner by the county council.