Commentary on Sections Schedule 2
72.Schedule 2 (which is introduced by section 30) makes consequential amendments to the 1965 Act by updating definitions in that Act to reflect the new system set out in the Act and allowing doctors to sign a replacement medical certificate of cause of death. Section 21(5) and section 27(2) and (3) of the 1965 Act are repealed. Sections 21(5) and 27(3) require a person having charge of a burial ground to give notice to the registrar where a still-born child is buried without a still-birth certificate or a body is buried without a death certificate. In addition, section 27(2) requires a person to transmit the certificate of registration to the person in charge of the place of interment or cremation. These sections are replaced with a new section 27A in the 1965 Act inserted by section 24.
73.The Cremation Act 1902 is also amended to prevent an overlap of offence provisions between section 8 of that Act and the new section 27A(1) of the 1965 Act. The regulation making power in the Cremation Act 1902 is amended (section 7) to remove aspects of the power which will become redundant on the coming into force of the Act. It also makes the power to prescribe the form of notices, certificates and applications discretionary rather than mandatory, and this power is introduced as a new section. Section 2(2) of the Cremation Act 1952 currently provides that regulations made under section 7 of the 1902 Act are subject to negative Parliamentary procedure; the relevant part of section 2(2) is repealed, and a provision has instead been added to the 1902 Act to confirm that regulations made under sections 7 and 7A are subject to negative procedure.