§ Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee rend.
§ Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Desborough.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.
§ House in Committee accordingly:
§ [The EARL of DONOUGHMORE in the Chair.]
§ Clause 1:
§ Alteration of number of councillors of boroughs.
§ 1. The powers of dividing boroughs into wards and altering wards conferred by Section thirty of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, as amended by the Municipal Corporations Act, 1893, shall be extended so as to include power to alter the number of councillors of a borough and in the case of a borough divided into wards, to apportion or alter the apportionment of the councillors among the wards, and accordingly a petition may be presented by the council of a borough under that section as so amended praying for an alteration of the number of councillors of the borough, either with or without a division of the borough into wards or an alteration of the number or boundaries of the wards; and for the purposes of any such petition and the proceedings thereon, the provisions of the said section shall apply with the necessary modifications, and in particular with the modification that in the case of a borough not divided into wards, the Order in Council fixing the number of councillors of the borough shall take effect from such date as may be specified therein, and subsections (3) to (15) of the said section shall not apply
§ LORD DESBOROTJGH moved to omit the words: "and in particular with the modification that in the case of a borough not divided into wards", and insert "save that in the case of a petition presented by the council of a borough not divided into wards praying only for an 600 alteration of the number of councillors in the borough". The noble Lord said: This Amendment is moved in pursuance of an undertaking I gave on the Second Reading of the Bill. It is merely a drafting Amendment and is put down to carry out a promise given in another place that this Amendment would be inserted here when the Bill reached your Lordships' House.
§
Amendment moved—
Clause 1, page 1, line 21, leave out from ("modifications") to the first ("the") in line 23, and insert the said words.—(Lord Desborough.)
§ LORD BANBURY OF SOUTHAMThis Amendment was, as the noble Lord has said, put down in another place but, by mistake, was not moved there. I think it is a little more important than the noble Lord has indicated, because it preserves to the ratepayers the right of saying whether or not a borough is to be divided into wards. It is not left to a Government Department to arrange the matter. I am much obliged to the Government and to the noble Lord for bringing forward the Amendment, which, as he says, was an agreed Amendment in another place.
§ On Question, Amendment agreed to.
§ Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
§ Remaining Clauses agreed to.