§ (1) The council of any county or county borough, or of any district, and the common council of the City of London and the council of any metropolitan borough and any joint committee or joint board appointed jointly by two or more such councils as aforesaid shall make to the Minister such reports and returns and give him such information with respect to their functions as he may require.
§ (2) This section shall extend to the county of London."
Mr. CHAMBERLAINI beg to move, "That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment."
There is a provision in the Poor Law Act which requires returns of this kind to be made, but there is no such pro- 2014 vision in the Public Health Act or in the Local Government Act of 1888. If, as is likely, work which was hitherto done under the Poor Law Act should in future be done under these other Acts, there would be no power to require a local authority to make the necessary returns. I do not suggest that there will be any reluctance on the part of local authorities to make these returns, but, if there were, it might seriously affect the continuity of statistics which will be of value.
§ Question put, and agreed to.