§ Lords Amendment: No. 160, In page 76, line 8, leave out Clause 107.
§ Mr. Graham PageI beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.
It may be convenient also to discuss Amendment No. 374. Amendment No. 160 proposes to delete the Clause and thereby drops as unnecessary a proposed power based on the existing law for the Secretary of State to confer on a district council any functions of a parish or community council. In its place, having dropped that Clause, all that is required is done by Lords Amedment No. 374 by empowering burial authorities, which include district councils, to contribute towards the expenses incurred by any other person in providing or maintaining a cemetery in which the authorities' inhabitants may be buried.
It is a quite extraordinary position that the existing law is only used for burial purposes. It has been found that for the last 15 years the 1933 Act power has only been used to confer on borough and urban district councils the power of a parish council under Section 10 of the Parish Councils Act, 1957, to contribute to the expenses of maintaining a burial place not owned by them. Now what we are doing is to give a direct power, not dependent upon any permission of the Secretary of State, to make a contribution.
We are improving that power to some extent. At present it is a power only to maintain or to contribute to the maintenance of burial places by other people. We have added to that the power to contribute to the expenses of providing a burial place as well as just maintaining it.
I think that this Lords Amendment will remove a number of doubts in the existing law, and it assists those authorities which want to exercise this kind of power.
§ Question put and agreed to.