CLAUSE 6.—(Saving Provisions as to Marriages in Churches) (Hansard, 11 August 1919)

§ Mr. SHORTT

I beg to move, to leave out the words (a) the solemnisation of any marriage according to the rites of the Church of England 1061 in Wales after the publication of banns in the manner customary before the date of Disestablishment, and to insert instead thereof the words the law with respect to marriages in Wales and Monmouth shire. May I explain to the Committee exactly what the Amendment means? It merely means bringing back the provisions with regard to marriages in churches in Wales to those provisions which were first inserted in the draft Bill as it appeared in 1912. As the Bill was introduced in 1912 it was proposed to leave the law with regard to marriages in churches in Wales exactly as it stood. An Amendment was moved by, I think I am right in saying, my right hon. and Noble Friend Lord Cave, then Sir George Cave, in this House, to try to assimilate the provisions of the Welsh Church Bill to the provisions in the Irish Church Act. This was found to be impossible, and certain agreed Amendments were come to which were embodied in Section 23 of the Act of 1814. Then these provisions in Clause 6 of the Bill were brought in, as a purely domestic matter, at the request of the Church in Wales. But the Registrar-General has made it quite clear that these Amendments as they stand cannot be brought in after Section 23 of the Act of 1914. Therefore we think it better to suggest to the Committee that we should go back to the original proposals, the proposals of the Bill as brought in in 1912, and that is what these two Amendments are intended to do, and I would ask the Committee to accept them.