HC Deb 25 October 1960 vol 627 c2241

Lords Amendment: In page 4, line 33, at end insert: Provided that in the case of a provision of a local Act which appears to the Minister to be unnecessary having regard to the provisions of the last foregoing section, the power of repeal conferred by this subsection shall not be exercised without the consent of the local authorities for the area to which the proposed repeal extends.

Mr. Speir

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

The object of the Amendment is to safeguard the position of a very limited number of local authorities which have already done what the hon. Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) would like many other local authorities to do, and that is to ban altogether the amplified chimes of ice cream merchants and others. As the Bill was originally drafted, under Clause 3 the Minister could exercise his power of repeal in spite of the views of and against the wishes of those local authorities. The Amendment will enable the powers in Clause 3 to be exercised by the Minister only with the agreement of the local authorities for the area to which the proposed repeal extends.

Mr. MacColl

When we were discussing the Bill in the House earlier, we dealt with the other side of this, which is the byelaw-making provisions in the public Act. I hope that we have safeguarded that and the noisy hawking byelaw and similar things. I gather that his Amendment deals with the analogous case of the private Act which might be subject to repeal. Therefore, as it is fully in principle with what we said in our previous discussion in the House, I think that we should accept the Amendment with thankfulness.

Question put and agreed to.