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Private

bills reported, read third time, and

XXIX.

When a local or personal bill has been reported from a Chapter committee, and any amendments that may have been made are agreed to by the house, the bill is ordered to be sent to the read a third time on a future day.

Commons.

Lords'

In the Commons all local and personal bills when received private from the Lords are read the first time, and, unless they be Commons. name or divorce bills, are referred to the Examiners.1 In

bills in the

As to restitu

bills.

(a) how presented, &c., in Lords.

that house private bills brought from the Lords pass through
the same stages, and are subject to nearly the same rules,
as private bills that have originated in the Commons; and
the few points at which the procedure is not altogether
identical have all been already noticed (Chapter XXVII).

The procedure adopted in the case of the personal bills tion, &c., already described is not followed in the case of bills for reversing attainders; for the restoration of honours and lands; and for restitution in blood. These bills are first signed by the King, and are presented by a lord to the House of Peers, by command of the Crown; after which they pass through the ordinary stages of public bills, and and (b) con- are sent to the Commons. Here the King's consent is Commons. signified before the first reading (and if this form be overlooked, the proceedings will be null and void 2); and after the second reading, the bill is committed to a select committee consisting of several members specially nominated by the house and of "all the members of this house who are of his Majesty's most honourable privy council, and all the gentlemen of the long robe."

sidered in

1 See supra, p. 723.

See supra, p. 460. In 1853 Drummond's Restitution Bill, on being brought from the Lords, was read the first time without the Queen's consent having been signified. On the following day these proceedings were declared to be null and void; the Queen's consent was signified, and the bill was then read the first time and ordered to be read a second time. 108 C. J. 575, 576.

3108 C. J. 584; 109 ib. 371; 124 ib. 81.

"4

These words were not added, when the committee was nominated, in the case of the Earldom of Mar Restitution Bill, 1885. 140 C. J. 374.

These bills receive the royal assent in the usual form, as public bills. 56 L. J. 260. 425; and Report of Precedents, ib. 286; Maxwell's Restitution Bill, 1848, 80 ib. 270. 365; Lord Lovat's Restitution Bill, 1854; Earldom of Mar Restitution Bill, 1885. In 1869, Bruce's Restitution Bill received the royal assent as a personal bill.

Chapter
XXX.

Table of Contents, see Introduction.

CHAPTER XXX.

PROVISIONAL ORDERS, &C., AND THE ACTS (OTHER THAN THE
PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1899)
UNDER WHICH THEY ARE GRANTED. AND PROCEDURE
UPON PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS.

Orders.

THE system of legislation by Provisional Order, which has Provisional
of late years been greatly extended, enables government
departments, and, in some instances, a local authority, to
deal in detail with many undertakings with which Parlia-
ment would otherwise be asked to deal ab initio in a private
or public bill. These subjects of provisional legislation
are for the most part, but by no means always, of a local
character. Under various Acts of Parliament most of the
departments are now empowered: (1) to issue Provisional
Orders (usually upon the application of parties interested)
which in their scope and object are practically private
bills, or (2) to make Provisional Orders (in many cases
on their own initiative) for other purposes; in both cases
the objects obtainable by an order being specified by the
particular enabling Act.

Such orders are scheduled to a bill, which is brought
in by the government department and which declares the
expediency of their confirmation; and in this form they
are submitted to Parliament for consideration.

nary pro

local

Prior to their introduction in a confirming bill, Parlia- Prelimi ment takes no cognizance of Provisional Orders; and, ceedings, with one or two exceptions mentioned later (pp. 891-2), the inquiry, standing orders regulating the preliminary proceedings in &c., on a the promotion of a private bill are not applicable to a Order. Provisional Order. Those interests, however, which, in the case of a private bill are protected by the standing orders, do not suffer; for in this respect the government

Provisional

Proposed Summary, in this

&c., for

Provisional

and (2) procedure

XXX.

department takes the place of Parliament, and, in the Chapter
promotion of a Provisional Order secures the observance
of rules and regulations—similar in nature and effect to
the standing orders-as to notice by advertisement of the
objects of the Order, notice to owners and occupiers, con-
sents, and deposit of documents, and as to other matters
which are laid down by the provisions of the enabling Acts
or made by the department.

An important and very frequent feature in the depart-
mental procedure on Provisional Orders is the pre-
liminary local inquiry which, under many of the enabling
Acts, has to be held into the merits of an undertaking
proposed to be authorized through a Provisional Order.
In some cases this inquiry is obligatory, if it be
deemed advisable to proceed with the proposed under-
taking; while in others the inquiry is only held if
thought expedient. The inquiry is public, and held
in the locality affected by the proposed order, after due
notice, by an officer of the department, or other pro-
perly qualified person, who makes a report on the case to
the department.

These preliminary proceedings, however, being distinctly departmental and apart from the practice of Parliament, chapter, of will not be noticed in detail. For the necessary procedure (1) existing powers, in each case, reference must be made to the special prothe issue of visions of the enabling Act, and to the instructions issued Orders; by the government department empowered to deal with the particular subject. What is proposed, in this chapter is (1) to mention the statutes under which each governOrder bills, ment department is enabled to issue Provisional Orders that are subsequently submitted to Parliament in a bill for confirmation, and to indicate very briefly the purposes for which these various Orders are granted; and (2) to describe the procedure in Parliament on the confirming bills.

on Provisional

Chapter

XXX.

The Departments Empowered to make Provisional Orders Depart

for Particular Purposes.

ments and Orders.

Govern

ment Board.

By the Local Government Board Act, 1871,1 the Local The Local Government Board was established, to which were transferred the powers and duties of the Poor Law Board, and of the Home Office and) Privy Council concerning the Poor Law, public health and local government. Under the Public Health Act, 1848, the Local Government Act, 1858, the Public Health Act, 1872, and the Sanitary Law Amendment Act, 1874, and other Acts amending the same (called the Sanitary Acts), large powers of provisional legislation were authorized. These Acts have been wholly or partially repealed, and their provisions consolidated in the Public Health Act, 1875.2 Beginning with this Act, which is the authority for some of its most important duties:

vernment

poses,

I. The Local Government Board is empowered to grant Local GoProvisional Orders under the Public Health Act, 1875: and Sani(1) For wholly or partially repealing, altering, or amend- tary Puring (a) Local Acts relating to the same subject-matter as the Public Health Act, 1875,8 (b) Acts for confirming Provisional Orders made in pursuance of any of the Sanitary Acts, or of the Public Health Act, and any Order in Council made in pursuance of the Sanitary Acts.4

(2) For enabling local authorities to put in force the powers of the Lands Clauses Acts for the compulsory purchase of lands, for the purposes of the Public Health Act.5

134 & 35 Vict. c. 70.

238 & 39 Vict. c. 55.

338 & 39 Vict. c. 55, s. 303.

Ib., s. 297, sub-s. 5.

Ib. s. 176. The purposes of the Act for which land is required are disposal of sewage, public necessaries, receptacles for rubbish, water supply, hospitals,mortuaries, burial-grounds (under the Public Health (Inter. ments) Act, 1879, construed as one with the Act), new streets or the

improvement of the same, public
parks and recreation-grounds, mar-
kets, slaughter-houses, and offices.
With regard to water supply, the
powers of a local authority are sub-
ject to an important limitation, for
they are prohibited by the Act from
constructing waterworks within the
limits of any water company autho
rized by Parliament who are "able
and willing" to provide a proper and
sufficient supply (sec. 52). Local

Local Govern

ment Board.

XXX.

(3) For the alteration of areas of local government; for Chapter dissolving a special drainage district in which a loan has been contracted for works; and for declaring a rural district, or any portion of such district, to be a local government district, and for dividing the same into wards or altering or abolishing such wards.1

(4) For uniting districts for the purposes of procuring a common water supply, of making main sewers, or of carrying into effect a system of sewerage, or for any other of the purposes of the Public Health Act; and for appointing the governing body of the united district.2

(5) For uniting districts for the purpose of appointing a medical officer of health-the order in this case being provisional if objected to by any of the districts proposed to be included in the union of districts."

(6) For permanently constituting a local authority or a joint board as the sanitary authority over a port or over two or more ports. But, by the provisions of the Public Health (Ships, etc.) Act, 1885,5 the Order for this purpose is only provisional if it is objected to by a riparian authority before a prescribed time.

(7) For dissolving a main sewerage district or a joint sewerage district (made respectively under the Public Health

authorities under the Public Health
(Scotland) Act, 1867, the Burgh
Police (Scotland) Act, 1892, and
under the Public Health (Ireland)
Act, 1878, are under similar limita-
tion. It has been held that water
rights cannot be compulsorily pur-
chased under Provisional Order
granted under the Public Health
Act, 1875. In the West Houghton
case, heard in a Lords' Committee
in 1877, a preliminary objection was
sustained that the Provisional Order
granted by the Local Government
Board for the acquisition of certain
water rights was ultra vires, on the
ground that the power under the
Act to purchase "land" did not

include "water."

138 & 39 Vict. c. 55, s. 270 (1), (2), and (3), and s. 271. The powers under these sections, though not repealed, are not now used, as similar powers are exercised by county councils, subject in some respects to the control of the Board under s. 57 of the Local Government Act, 1888, and confirmation by Act of Parliament is not required.

238 & 39 Vict. c. 55, ss. 279, 280.

3 Ib. s. 286.

• Ib. s. 287.

$ 48 & 49 Vict. c. 35.

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