Clause 10 (Hansard, 17 July 1972)

§ The Under-Secretary of State for the Environment (Mr. Keith Speed)
I beg to move Amendment No. 166, in page 5, line 40, leave out 'is 300 or more' and insert: includes 200 or more local government electors'.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Robert Grant-Ferris)
With this Amendment it will be convenient for the House to discuss also Government Amendments Nos. 167, 168 and 171.

§ Mr. Speed
Clause 10 provides for the establishment of parish councils in parishes in certain circumstances, it being compulsory for councils to be established in the more populous parishes and permissive in the less popular ones. The provision follows closely the precedent of the Local Government Act, 1933, Section 43.
In Committee my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Charles Morrison) tabled a number of Amendments and argued cogently that it would be sensible to relate the parish size for this purpose to the electorate rather than the total population. The purpose of those Amendments was, first, to relate the criterion to the number of adults in the parish as a better measure of the need of the parish for a parish council and, second, to the practical advantage of having a number which is precisely defined each year in the electoral register, whereas the total population is precisely defined only at censuses which occur every 10 years. My hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Sir Richard Sharpies) promised to consider this in Committee and these Government Amendments have been introduced accordingly. They give a very practical and precise definition and I commend them to the House.