§ Commons' Amendments considered (according to order).
LORD MONKSWELL,who was in charge of the Bill, said that, as the Bill left their Lordships' House, Clause 5 provided that no crematorium should be constructed nearer to a dwelling-house than 200 yards, but the Commons had altered this distance to 500 yards. He had received a communication from the Home Office that the Home Secretary preferred that the distance should stand at 200 yards. He moved to disagree with the Commons' Amendment.
§ LORD BELPERexplained that the Home Secretary regarded the Commons' Amendment as likely to cause a very serious difficulty in some cases in the way of securing a suitable site.
§ On question, Motion agreed to.
LORD MONKSWELLcalled attention to the fact that in Clause 7, after the word "Act" in line 33, the Commons had inserted an Amendment providing that all statutory provisions relating to the keeping and destruction and 1249 falsification of registers of burials should apply to a register under this Act as if it were a register of burials. It had been pointed out to him by the Home Office that the word "keeping" ought to be omitted from the Amendment, because the mode in which registers of burials were kept was not applicable to cremations. For instance, in the register of burials one of the matters that had to be entered was the place of burial, and it would be absurd to insist on that being inserted in a cremation register. He therefore moved to omit the words "keeping and" from the Commons' Amendment.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
§ A Committee appointed to prepare a reason to be offered to the Commons for the disagreement to the Commons' Amendment to Clause 5; the Committee to meet forthwith; Report from Committee of reason prepared by them; read, and agreed to; and a message sent to the Commons to return the said Bill with the Amendments and reason.