§ Mr. PETOasked the President of the Local Government Board whether, as under the provisions of the Local Government Act, 1894, Section 46 (c), a person may continue to act as a member of a parish council or district council who has been charged before a magistrate with theft and has pleaded guilty, he will consider the advisability of amending the Act, so that in future such persons shall be disqualified; whether the clerk of the Bromham Parish Council wrote to the Secretary to the Local Government Board calling his attention to the fact that a person was continuing to sit on the parish ocouncil who had been so charged and who had pleaded guilty; whether his Department gave the questioner no information as to the law, and wrote that the Local Government Board had no jurisdiction in the matter; and, if so, whether he will see that guidance in these matters shall be afforded to parish councils in future?
§ Mr. HERBERT SAMUELIn the case referred to in the question no conviction was recorded and no penalty was imposed. Any proposal to bring such cases within the law relating to disqualification, while not including other cases where disqualification would be improper, would be a task of much difficulty. In answer to the latter1434W part of the question, attention was called to the case, but the Board have found it necessary to make a rule not to advise on questions of this kind, which can only be determined authoritatively in a Court of Law.