NEW PARISHES MEASURE (Hansard, 27 January 1943)

§ Mr. Denman (Leeds, Central)

I beg to move, That the New Parishes Measure, passed by the National Assembly of the Church of England, be presented to His Majesty for His Royal Assent in the form in which the said Measure was laid before Parliament."—[King's Consent signified.] There are two Measures on the Order Paper; and they have this—and only this—in common. In each case the Ecclesiastical Committee recommends them strongly to the acceptance of the House. The New Parishes Measure is a consolidating Measure, and if you look at the Report of the Ecclesiastical Committee you will see that it is welcomed by the Statute Law Committee as "purging the Statute Book of one of the most tangled congeries of ill-digested enactments which disfigure it"—a somewhat acid comment on our past achievements. The Ecclesiastical Committee was shown a large volume of 226 pages, and all that has been compressed into the slight document which you see before you. That is the handiwork of Mr. Speaker's Counsel, and the Committee desired to record the debt of both Church and State to this remarkable and artistic achievement of draftsmanship. In modernising a set of Acts that begin in 1818, there is inevitably some slight change of the law; but nothing to which I should specially call attention except in regard to patronage. Under the old law, there were conditions in which the Crown shared with the Bishops the right of alternate patronage. In the Assembly information was given to us that His Majesty was willing to forego his rights in that respect, and that information has been given in this House also. The Measure gives effect to that change. One other Amendment is of academic interest only. The old Acts gave the Church powers of compulsory purchase: of land. Those powers have not been exercised for over 100 years, and they are dropped from the new Measure.