BURIAL-GROUNDS BILL. (Hansard, 3 June 1853)

§ The EARL of SHAFTESBURY

said, it was hardly necessary to detain their Lordships by statements of the necessity of this measure; it was as great, if not greater, 1091 in the country than in town. The present Bill was to provide a remedy for acknowledged evils, and he brought it forward as an official measure with the concurrence of the President of the Board of Health. The difference between the Metropolitan Act and this was, that this extended to all towns under the Public Health Act, and was merely an enabling Bill, giving to local hoards the requisite powers to form new cemeteries where they were needed within their respective jurisdictions. The Metropolitan Act was confined to London, and embodied a scheme for effecting extramural interment by a commission. It failed, however, because the powers given by Parliament were not sufficient. At present local boards under the Public Health Act were in the anomalous position that they were wholly unable to form a new cemetery, whatever might be the condition of the burial grounds within the district; while places not under the Act had the power to form a new cemetery under the Diseases Prevention Act. Now no new power was claimed by the general Board, though new means and powers were given to local boards. The first clause contained the pith of the Bill, which prescribed that, on a certificate of the Board of Health, the provision of burying grounds should be one of the purposes of the Public Health Act. The sole power the Board would exercise, was one which it already exercised on all permanent works, drainage, water, & c.—that of giving or withholding permission to mortgage rates for the purpose. This was the supplement or completion of local boards, the very reverse of centralisation, as it separated and localised authority; the want of it, indeed, had been an obstacle to the reception of it by many places.