HC Deb 25 July 1957 vol 574 cc737-8

Lords Amendment: In page 12, line 32, leave out from "Minister" to "an" in line 35 and insert:

  1. "(a)shall, if so requested, give to any person who appears to him to have an interest in the land concerned or to whom the relevant grant would be payable, a written notification of the reasons for the proposed revocation; and
  2. (b)shall afford to every such person".

Mr. Godber

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

For this Amendment we are indebted to the other side of the House, in that they initiated it, and we are glad to accept it. The point of the Amendment is that it requires the Minister, before using his power to revoke his approval to a proposed improvement for grant upon any of the grounds specified in subsection (1)and on request of any person who claims to have an interest in the land or is the person to whom the grant would be payable, to provide a written notification of the reasons for the proposed revocation.

We discussed some aspects of this matter in Committee. We were unable to do what hon. Members opposite wished on that occasion, but in accepting the Amendment we have gone some part of the way to meeting them, and I hope that they will think that this is an improvement to the Bill.

Mr. Willey

We are also indebted to the Joint Parliamentary Secretary for his partial acceptance of the case that we made in Committee. We were anxious that in a case such as this, if representations were made to an inspector and, in turn, reported to the Minister, that that report should be available to the person whose grant had been revoked. The Joint Parliamentary Secretary explained that he was not willing to go as far as we wished him to go, and we appreciated the difficulty of doing that whilst we were awaiting the Franks Report.

We accept the Amendment as going part of the way. At any rate the applicant will be advised as to the grounds upon which the application has been revoked. I understand from the discussion upon the Amendment in another place that the Government were in fact prepared to go further, and that if the Minister revokes a grant he will give reasons for the revocation. This again helps generally in providing the person concerned at any rate with the consolation of knowing the grounds upon which the right hon. Gentleman has revoked the grant. We accept the Amendment.

Mr. Godber

The hon. Gentleman is quite right. My noble Friend did say that, administratively, we would go even further.

Question put and agreed to.