CENSUS (GREAT BRITAIN) BILL. (Hansard, 26 March 1900)

§ LORD TWEEDMOUTH

My Lords, I desire to call attention to a small point on Clause 9. I apologise for not having raised it when the Bill was in Committee, but unfortunately I was not aware of it until Saturday morning, and as the Committee stage was taken on Friday I could not bring it before your Lordships until to-day. Clause 9 provides that the Registrar General may, at the request of certain local authorities, cause abstracts to be prepared giving statistical information with respect to the areas over which those local authorities have control. The local authorities named in the Bill are the councils of any county, borough, or urban district. I think it is desirable that the number of these authorities should be slightly increased, and that the privileges which are given to county, borough, and urban district councils should also be extended to school boards and school attendance committees. I think it will be evident to your Lordships that the information to be obtained from the census returns would be especially useful to such authorities as school boards and school attendance committees, who are concerned with the number of children within their district of school age or above it. The clause, as I would propose to amend it, would be as follows:— The Registrar General may, if he thinks fit, at the request and cost of the Council of any County, Borough, or Urban District, or of any School Board, or School Attendance Committee, cause abstracts to be prepared by the Superintendent Registrar of the District comprising such County, Borough, Urban District, School Board, or School Attendance Committee, containing statistical information which can be derived from the Census Returns, but is not supplied by the Census Report, and which, in his opinion, the Council, School Board, or School Attendance Committee may reasonably require. Your Lordships will see from the clause that the cost of preparing any such returns is thrown on the authority that asks for them, and also that the Registrar General is in no way obliged to give a return unless it is made out to his satisfaction that the return is a desirable one,, and one that should be given. Of course, I am entirely in the hands of the Government, but I thought the point was one of sufficient importance to bring forward. If the Government will accept my Amendment I will move it after the Bill has been read the third time.

§ THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY)

The noble Lord has pursued a course which, even in this House, is out of order. He has proposed an Amendment—I do not say it is a very vital Amendment—and he has done so without giving notice of it on the Paper. The only intimation I had of it was just before I came down to the House. Under ordinary circumstances I should not be prepared to allow that omission to interfere with the reasonable wish of the noble Lord, but, unluckily, the Bill has gone down to the Queen for Commission to-morrow, and therefore it is incapable of being altered without causing considerable delay. As the noble Lord is out of court in consequence of his neglect of a reasonable rule of the House, I do not think it is worth while to postpone the Bill. I should prefer that the Bill passed as it is.