Clause 10.—(INTERPRETATION.) (Hansard, 4 June 1951)

§ Mr. Lindgren
I beg to move, in page 11, line 23, at the end, to insert: 717 but any reference to a stream includes a reference to the channel or bed of a stream which is for the time being dry; This Amendment will put beyond doubt the point into which the Minister promised to look further during the Committee stage. It makes clear that the Bill covers putting polluting matter in the bed of a stream, though that bed may be dry at the time. When the stream begins to flow again there might be some very bad pollution caused to the main stream. I see the hon. and gallant Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) smiling, but we mention "channel" in the Amendment because this is a case where a channel is a channel and not a stream.

§ Lieut.-Colonel Elliot
We welcome this Amendment all the more because it is a sign of grace on the part of the Minister. He assured us, according to column 297 of Standing Committee A, that it was not necessary. However, he now finds it better to insert it, which shows it is often wise to press things on the attention of Ministers even though one is assured in the most concrete terms that they are not necessary. We are now all at one, and my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Ely (Major Legge Bourke) has at least a minnow out of the great shoal of fish in which he dipped his net during an earlier stage of the Bill.
I am sure that the ordinary man in the street, shown a dry channel along which nothing has flowed for the past 18 months, as is often the case on the Downs, for instance—a part of the country the Minister and I know very well—might feel a little uneasiness if he were told that that might be regarded by the Government as a stream or river. He might wonder if he could water any imaginary horses or cattle at this imaginary river.

§ Major Legge-Bourke (Isle of Ely)
So far from being able to congratulate the Minister on this Amendment I must say he has shown quite clearly that he has no idea of the true meaning of the word "channel." He has included in the definition of "stream" the word "channel," whereas I was trying to include in the definition of "channel" the word "stream." He has done precisely the opposite of what I wanted him to do. However, it is nice to feel that he now knows of the existence of channels, whether usual or unusual.
718 Since the Amendment was put down, another point has occurred to me and I ask the Minister to look into it. Now that he includes channels or beds of streams which happen to be dry, will he look carefully into the Bill to see how that applies to a case at which my hon. Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Renton) and I were looking at earlier? I think the Minister assumes that these beds and channels are normally full of water but happen to run dry, but wash-lands are normally dry and are occasionally flooded deliberately by catchment boards to ease the situation higher up the river.
It may be found—and this is what I ask the Minister to examine—that under Clauses 2 and 4 of the Bill that is placing an unwarrantable restriction on the ordinary conduct of affairs in those washlands when they are flooded. We want to make sure that we are not creating an unnecessary offence in those cases. The Minister may find it necessary to insert an Amendment when the Bill is considered in another place to exclude washlands from this category.

§ Mr. David Renton (Huntingdon)
I consider that my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Isle of Ely (Major Legge-Bourke) has raised a point of serious practical importance. I happened to go on an inspection of the Middle Level, which is mainly in the constituency of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Ise of Ely and is partly in mine, where there were numerous examples in these great stretches of smaller drains running parallel with the main ones. The smaller drains were temporarily dry for stretches of some miles and the flow perhaps controlled by floodgates with the intention of flooding at a later stage.
Unless very great clarity of thought is applied to this confusion might well arise. There is the further point about the old natural river beds which, so far as we can tell at the moment have been permanently diverted but, nevertheless, remain as old, natural courses, and which one day might be found useful as part of a flood protection scheme. I know it is very difficult to legislate for every detail in these matters, but it is desirable that the Department concerned should keep these possible difficulties in mind.

§ Colonel Clarke (East Grinstead)
Following on what has been said by my hon. 719 Friend the Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Renton) I should like a clear definition between washes, such as one finds in Huntingdonshire, deliberately intended to accommodate flood water and the old courses of rivers, now straightened out and shortened, which generally have some flow through them. I do not think they can be compared at all. Those old rivers may be natural or artificial, but they are quite different from the washes, and I think they definitely form parts of streams. From the point of view of amenity they are a very valuable part of the streams, and if they were excluded from the Bill great damage to fishing and depreciation of amenity would ensue.

§ Mr. Dalton
This illustrates the difficulty of trying to define these things more and more completely. I said in Committee that we were advised that this Amendment was not necessary. None the less, although the Amendment is not strictly necessary, we have moved it to remove any possible doubt. It now appears that the insertion of the Amendment may have created further possible doubt. However, we will look into it. It is a bit tricky to know where to stop the continuing cumulation of definition, at the end of which more doubts may have been created than if the matter had been left in its original simple form. However, we will look at this again.

§ Mr. Lindgren
I beg to move in page 11, line 28, at the end, to insert "land or."
During our discussion in Committee doubt was expressed as to whether or not the word "premises" was wide enough to cover all effluents from farms and horticulture. This Amendment is moved to remove any doubt and to make it quite clear that "trade effluent" covers all the discharges from agricultural establishments, both land and buildings.

§ Mr. Lindgren
I beg to move, in page 11, line 40, at the end, to insert: (4) Where under any provision of this Act an order of the Minister is to be subject to special parliamentary procedure if objected to by any authority specified in that provision, the Minister before making the order shall give the authorities so specified notice of his intention to do so, setting out a provisional draft of the order and stating the time, not being less than twenty-eight days, within which 720 objections may be made; and the order shall not be subject to special parliamentary procedure if—

(a) it is made in terms of the draft or with such modifications only as appear to the Minister to be immaterial for this purpose; and

(b) either no objections are made by any such authority within the time so stated or all objections so made are withdrawn;
but in any other case the order shall be subject to special parliamentary procedure. This is a drafting Amendment and also an interpretation Amendment with regard to the Parliamentary procedure for orders under Clause 9 (1, b).

§ Mr. Lindgren
I beg to move, in page 12, line 1, to leave out from the beginning, to "shall," in line 2, and to insert: Nothing contained in this Act. This is a drafting Amendment which makes clear beyond all doubt that the common law rights are not affected.

§ Mr. Nugent
This Amendment has been described as a drafting Amendment, but I think the Parliamentary Secretary will agree that the implications behind it really alter the whole complexion of the Bill. What it does is to give effect to what was omitted from the original Clause—Clause 4, if I recollect rightly—in the Bill as originally drafted with regard to the modification of the common law right of the individual. After very lengthy discussion in Committee the Minister eventually agreed that it was proper that the common law right of the riparian owner should stand without any condition or reduction in any way.
I think we are all grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for accepting the great weight of public opinion in this matter. Riparian owners interested both in amenity and in fisheries have felt that the common law right to receive the water at their point of the river in a clean and pure condition was fundamental to their right of ownership, and from a practical point of view it was essential in order to keep the fish alive. If this Bill, which is supposed to assist the prevention of pollution in rivers, were to take away this common law right of the individual, whatever it might do in giving power to the river boards, it would, on balance, have reduced the chances of keeping rivers clean and, indeed, of improving their condition.
721 I feel that this small Amendment should not pass without comment. The altered shape of the Bill is so much more acceptable to everybody, and, by allowing the common law right to stand as it did before, it will enable the river boards in criminal courts and in civil courts and the private individual in the civil courts to act in parallel. In the past they have often acted most effectively in parallel. They will, therefore, together be a most strong combination in bringing about the result for which we all hope. For that reason we very much welcome this final completion of the Bill.