§ [SECOND READING.]
§ Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
§ THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (VISCOUNT MORLEY)My Lords, I ask your Lordships to read this Bill a second time. In the language of the distinguished man who is the president of the General Medical Council it is a simple but a necessary change. It is an amendment of Section 8 of the Medical 61 Act of 1886, for the purpose of diminishing the expense of elections of direct representatives. Under that Act the General Medical Council was constituted so as to contain various elements, and, among others, direct representatives of the medical profession—there are now four direct representatives for England, one for Scotland, and one for Ireland—to be elected respectively by the practitioners resident in the various parts of the United Kingdom. The case with which this Bill deals is a very simple one. Should a casual vacancy occur either by death or for any other reason amongst these six gentlemen, according to the Act as it now stands, the person elected to fill the casual vacancy is made to hold it, not for the unexpired residue of the term for which he succeeds, but for five years. What this Bill proposes, in deference to common-sense, I think, and also to experience, is that in future any practitioner who is elected in the way that I have described to fill a casual vacancy caused by the death or resignation of one of these direct representatives shalt hold office so long as the person in whose place he was elected would have held office, and no longer. There is another clause to the effect that where a casual vacancy is caused by the death or resignation of a direct representative within twelve months from the time when his term of office would have expired it shall not be necessary to fill the vacancy. That is the substance of the simple and necessary change effected by this Bill. The Bill further provides that the tenure of office of the present representatives shall come to an end on December 31, 191.6, so that they may start with a fresh period on January 1, 1917. I beg to move.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 2a.—(Viscount Morley.)
§ On Question, Bill read 2a, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Monday next.