§ Lord John HopeI beg to move, in page 6, line 31, to leave out "and" and to insert:
(2) Any agreement in pursuance of the last foregoing subsection shall, unless the Commission with the approval of the Secretary of State otherwise decided, provide.This Amendment gives effect to an undertaking which I gave in Committee. I hope that this time the hon. Member for Hamilton (Mr. T. Fraser) will be with me in my theory that I gave an acceptable undertaking on that occasion.The Clause provides for the provision of services and equipment by agreement between the Commission and any owner or occupier of land for the purpose of killing deer or disposing of the carcase. At present, the Clause provides that the Commission "may" recover expenses. In leaving the Commission this discretion it was intended that it should be able to bear the whole or part of the cost itself in cases where it would be unreasonable or unfair to charge the owner or occupier in full.
The Amendment obliges the Commission to recover its expenses, but leaves scope for discretion in cases of hardship. The only practical difference in the scope is that under the Amendment the Commission cannot exercise its discretion unless it obtains the approval of the Secretary of State. The result of the Amendment would be that the recovery of expenses under this Clause would be put on the same footing as recovery under the previous Clause, which dealt with charges for default work under a control scheme.
§ Mr. WillisI should like to thank the noble Lord for having met us on this point. I raised this matter on the Committee stage, and I am glad that he has seen his way clear at least to accept one suggestion that we made.
§ Amendment agreed to.