BRISLINGTON PARISHES (TRANSFER) MEASURE. (Hansard, 18 March 1926)

THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF YORK
My Lords, I beg now to move to resolve, That in accordance with the Church of England Assembly (Powers) Act, 1919, 710 this House do direct that the Brislington Parishes (Transfer) Measure, 1926, be presented to His Majesty for the Royal Assent. This Motion, which was on the Paper in the name of the Lord Bishop of Bristol, will take even less time than the previous one. It is equally uncontroversial. There are two parishes forming a district of 20,000 people in the neighbourhood of Bristol which are technically within the Diocese of Bath and Wells. It is proposed that these parishes shall be transferred legally to the Diocese of Bristol. They have already for many years been worked by the Bishop of Bristol under an amicable arrangement.
I ought rather to apologise to your Lordships for bringing a matter apparently of such small detail before your Lordships' notice, but the fact is, as it appears, apart from certain provisions in the Union of Benefices Act recently passed, that it is impossible to transfer a parish, however small, from one diocese to another without legislation. I think the problem has suggested itself whether I or not as far as the Church Assembly is concerned, when it passes Measures of this kind, it ought not to see whether its experience will not enable it to bring a large number of possible inconveniences and anomalies within some general Measure in order to avoid the necessity which at present exists of dealing with two parishes in a separate Measure before Parliament. There is no dispute about this Measure. It commends itself to the consent of all concerned. It has passed in another place and if your Lordships also agree it will enable an arrangement, amicable but lacking in permanence, to become legal and permanent.

§ LORD MUIR MACKENZIE
My Lords, I have only one or two words to say upon this subject. When these Measures came before the Ecclesiastical Committee there arose nothing in the way of difficulty as to recommending that it was desirable that they should proceed, but it was felt that there was an indication, especially in the 711 Bishopric of Bristol Measure, that some distinction ought to be made between two classes of Measures, such as the distinction which exists between different classes of Bills in Parliament. Your Lordships are aware that when a Bill is introduced into Parliament which on the face of it appears to be of a limited and local character, it passes to those officials called the Examiners and they have to make a Report as to whether the Measure, being entirely of a local character or affecting local interests, ought to be subjected to certain procedure before it comes before the House at large. I am not prepared at present to give any indication of what it might be my duty, as Chairman of the Ecclesiastical Committee, to recommend on this subject, but I have some hopes that the Church Assembly may have been aware of the distinction that there is between these classes of Measure. Indeed, the most rev. Prelate has shown that the subject has not failed to receive some attention and probably is likely to receive further attention. I commend this point to his Grace's good will, and hope that we may have some communication together upon the subject and that some good scheme, which may perhaps receive the approval of the Chairman of Committees, may be the result.

THE EARL OF DONOUGHMORE
My Lords, may I say that I cannot imagine that any scheme agreed to by my noble friend who has just spoken and the most reverend Prelate would not be agreed to by me? My noble friend was good enough to mention this matter to me. I will not say that I have got to the bottom of it yet, but it is being inquired into. I see that there are difficulties for which possibly a remedy may have to be found, though I am not quite clear as to whether any remedy is possible without legislation.

§ LORD PHILLIMORE
My Lords, if your Lordships were to examine the Statutes of the last hundred years you would find that numbers of Church Acts quite as small as this Measure have been a matter of public, not private, legislation. I imagine that the precedents are really all the other way.