§ [SECOND READING.]
§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
LORD DENMANMy Lords, this Bill and the two following Bills on the Paper are promoted by the Charity Commissioners, and, as the same principle 1205 is involved in each, I trust that at this late hour a very few words of explanation may suffice. Those of your Lordships who have read the Bills will have noticed that the most important part in each case is contained in the Schedules. The main object of the schemes in the Schedules is to authorise a variation in the trusts upon which the respective chapels are settled, so as to bring them in accordance with the doctrines generally held at the present time by the congregation or denomination to which the chapel belongs. In 1907 the Commissioners approved and certified, under the provisions of the Charitable Trusts Act, 1853, three schemes which require in each case an Act of Parliament to give effect to them. The three charities are the Buxton Congregational Chapel Charity, the Long Ashton Charity in the county of Somerset, and the Abbots Bromley Congregational Chapel Charity in the county of Stafford. I understand that it is not an unusual thing for the Charity Commissioners to come to Parliament as a matter of course for the ratification of these schemes. If your Lordships desire any further details with regard to any case I shall be happy to give them.
§ Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a"—(Lord Denman.)
§ On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.