HC Deb 17 December 1919 vol 123 cc624-6

(1) This Act may be cited as the Union of Benefices Act, 1919, and shall extend to the Channel Islands.

(2) Nothing in this Act shall affect or apply to any benefice or sinecure situate in the metropolis within the meaning of the Union of Benefices Act, 1860.

Amendment made: Leave out the words "and shall extend to the Channel Islands"—[Major Baird].

Mr. E. WOOD

I beg to move, at the end of the Clause, to insert (3) No commission shall be issued under this Act after the thirty-first day of December, nineteen hundred and twenty-one. The object is to limit the duration of this Act to two years. That should be inserted because the date when the Bill was introduced was before the National Assembly had been set up under the Church Enabling Bill, and it was felt that this Act should be for a limited period to enable the National Assembly to review it. The Amendment is drafted so that if there was any scheme in progress on the 31st of December that scheme would not be interfered with. It provides for any new scheme launched after the expiration of two years.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule agreed to.

Bill reported; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

The remaining Government Orders were read, and postponed.

It being after half-past Eleven o'clock on Wednesday evening, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER adjourned the House, without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at Nineteen Minutes before Two o'clock.