(1)The following amendments shall be made in section seventy-six of the Local Government Act, 1933 (which relates to the disability of members of local authorities who have a pecuniary interest, direct or indirect, in any contract or proposed contract or other matter, for voting on any question with respect thereto).
(2)After subsection (2) of the said section seventy-six there' shall be inserted the following subsection—
“(2A)Where a member of a local authority has indirectly a pecuniary interest in a contract or other matter and would not fall to be treated as having such an interest but for the fact that he has a beneficial interest in shares of a company or other body, then, if the total nominal value of those shares does not exceed two hundred pounds or one hundredth of the total nominal value of the issued share capital of the company or body, whichever is the less, so much of subsection (1) of this section as prohibits him from taking part in the consideration or discussion of, and from voting on any question with respect to, the contract or other matter shall not apply to him, without prejudice, however, to the duty of disclosure imposed by the said subsection (1) :
Provided that where the share capital of the company or other body is of more than one class, this subsection shall not apply if the total nominal value of all the shares of any one class in which he has a beneficial interest exceeds one hundredth part of the total issued share capital of that class of the company or other body”.
(3)In the proviso to subsection (2) of section seventy-six the words " or stock " shall be omitted, and at the end of the said section there shall be inserted the following subsection—
“(10)In this section, the expression ' shares ' includes stock and the expression ' share capital' shall be construed accordingly.”
(4)In the said section seventy-six and in section one hundred and twenty-three of the said Act of 1933 (which relates to the disclosure by officers of local authorities of interest in contracts), references to a local authority shall be construed as including references to a divisional executive constituted under the Education Acts, 1944 and 1946, or the National Health Service Act, 1946, and, for the purposes of the said section one hundred and twenty-three, an officer of a local authority who carries out any duties under the control of such an executive shall be deemed, in relation to those duties, to be an officer of that executive.
(5)The preceding provisions of this section shall apply in relation to London as if for references to section seventy-six of the Local Government Act, 1933, there were substituted references to section fifty-two of the London Government Act, 1939.
(6)The provisions of subsections (1) to (3) of this section shall apply to Scotland with the substitution for references to section seventy-six of the Local Government Act, 1933, of references to section seventy-three of the Local Government (Scotland) Act, 1947.