HL Deb 20 May 1887 vol 315 cc634-5

(The Marquess of Lothian.)

(NO. 82.) SECOND READING.

Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.

THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (The Marquess of LOTHIAN)

, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that it had not been circulated, and that if their Lordships objected, he would postpone the Motion till Monday. The object of the Bill was simply to rectify a state of matters called into existence when the Prisons Act of 1887 was passed. By the Lunacy Act of 1857, powers were given to the General Board of Lunacy sitting in Edinburgh to alter lunacy districts; but the initiative rested in the General Prisons Board, which General Prisons Board was done away with by Section 69 of the Prisons Act of 1877. Consequently, there was now no authority to take the initiative in altering or varying, however desirable it might be, a lunacy district in any part of Scotland. This Act was simply to give to another Body, or, rather, to other Bodies—to the Commissioners of Supply of counties, to magistrates of burghs, and to Parochial Boards—power to apply to the General Board of Lunacy to alter or vary existing lunacy districts. Under the Act of 1857, the General Board had only power to make the districts areas consisting of not less than of counties, or of burghs; and it was now proposed, where the population was greatly increasing, to enable the Lunacy Board to make less districts than those allowed by the Act of 1857. The Bill did not propose any alteration of the existing law, and although it had not yet been printed and circulated, he hoped that their Lordships would now assent to the second reading.

Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a"—(The Marquess of Lothian.)

THE EARL OF WEMYSS

said, he thought it would be establishing a bad precedent to allow a Bill which their Lordships had not seen to be read a second time.

THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN

said, he would remind the noble Earl that when he (the Marquess of Lothian) got up to move the second reading, he put himself in their Lordships' hands, and offered, if the course he proposed was inconvenient, to postpone the second reading until Monday. Receiving no answer, he concluded he had the consent of the House to proceed.

In reply to The Earl of WEMYSS,

THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIAN

said, the Bill had been presented 10 days ago.

Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a.