§ Order for Second Reading read.
THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNMy Lords, I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill. Its provisions are few and simple, and I hope to be able to justify them to your Lordships in a very few words. It happens on rare occasions that individuals render service to the State, or attain eminence either in Parliament or in the learned professions, or in the intellectual or artistic world, which in the opinion of the Crown and of Parliament are deserving of a national memorial. My Lords, such a memorial generally takes the form of a statue or other monument in one of our national churches or cathedrals, which is erected almost always out of money furnished by Parliament, and after a faculty duly obtained from the dean or chapter or other body or person charged with the custody and care and maintenance of the sacred building. My Lords, as the law now stands the altering of everything within our cathedrals and within our national churches is absolutely at the discretion of the dean or chapter or other person charged with the care of the same for the time being; and it may happen that what one dean has approved of his successor may see fit to alter. My Lords, this Bill only proposes to alter the present law to this extent, that when a national monument as defined in the Bill has been erected, such national monument shall not be removed or altered without the permission of the Crown, duly obtained, and without the matter having been brought under the notice of Parliament in the manner provided in the Bill. I hope your Lordships will be of opinion that this is no more than is due in the first place to the family of 895 the deceased, to whom the monument is a most honoured and valuable possession; and also that it is no more than is due to the Crown and to Parliament, who had found the money for erecting the memorial, and who had previously obtained the permission of the then dean and chapter for that purpose. This is the whole effect of the Bill, and I venture to hope that your Lordships will give it a Second Reading.
§ LORD BELPERMy Lords, on behalf of the Home Office I beg to say that they have no objection to this Bill being read a second time. The Bill appears practically only to do for the State in the case of State monuments precisely what the law at present does in regard to monuments erected by a private individual. In the latter case the monument cannot be removed without the consent of the heir-at-law, or somebody representing the people who contributed towards the cost of putting it up. It seems reasonable, in the case of a national monument, that it should not be removed without, at all events, the State, who have contributed to the cost of erecting, or who have erected, the monument being consulted. I have, therefore, no objection to the Bill being read a second time.
§ Question put.
§ Bill read a second time.