HC Deb 25 July 1963 vol 681 cc1940-4

Lords Amendment: In page 142, line 22, after "10(1)" insert: for the words '(including the County of London)'there shall be substituted the words 'with the Greater London Council' and".

Mr. Galbraith

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

The effect of this Amendment is to allow my right hon. Friend to delegate work on the maintenance of trunk roads to the G.L.C. as well as to the London boroughs. I should add that we do not intend to use this power as a matter of course. The London boroughs will be much better equipped than the G.L.C. for the ordinary run of maintenance on trunk roads, but there may be some occasions when it will be convenient and more efficient to delegate to the G.L.C. responsibility for instance for looking after a particularly complex structure such as a flyover or underpass. The Amendment will enable us to do this.

Question put and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 142, leave out lines 38 to 45.

Mr. Corfield

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

This Amendment follows from the powers given to the London borough councils, under Clause 59(1) which deals with the survey of footpaths under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949.

Question put and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 144, line 27, leave out from "road" to second "the" in line 28.

Mr. Galbraith

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

This Amendment makes a slight but necessary correction to an Amendment tabled by hon. Members opposite, which was accepted in Committee. Owing to the original wording it might have been implied that the G.L.C. could carry out improvement to any highway, which is not so. As a result of this Amendment the words which might mislead are deleted and therefore it makes it clear that the G.L.C. may alter the respective widths of carriageways and footways on metropolitan roads only.

Question put and agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 145, leave out lines 5 to 11 and insert: 31. In section 112(2), at the end there shall be added— '(d) as respects any part thereof in a London borough or in the City of London, except with the consent of the council of that borough or, as the case may be, of the Common Council.'

Mr. Corfield

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

This Amendment is related to the earlier one in Schedule 6. The London borough councils and the Common Council will have power to extinguish or divert public footpaths and bridleways by order under Sections 110 and 111 of the Highways Act, 1959. Under the paragraph to be omitted they would have exercised the power subject to the consent of the Greater London Council, which was originally expected to be responsible for the general survey of footpaths under the National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act, 1949. But as this function has now been given to the London borough councils, with powers in Clause 59(3) to transfer it by agreement to the G.L.C., reference to the Greater London Council is no longer necessary.

Question put and agreed to.

Subsequent Lords Amendment agreed to.

Lords Amendment: In page 147, line 34, leave out from "173(3)" to end of line 35 and insert: for the words 'boroughs and' there shall be substituted the words 'boroughs other than the inner London boroughs and in all'".

Mr. Corfield

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

This Amendment excepts the inner London borough from the operation of the advance payments code in Part IX of the Highways Act, 1959 which, where it applies, required a developer in a private street to give the street works authority a deposit or security for the cost of street works before he begins to erect a building. The extension of highways legislation relating to private street works, including the advance payments code, to inner London would require new machinery to take account of the fact that the special L.C.C. building control system continues to apply in the inner London boroughs.

The procedure for requiring payment is linked to the procedure for depositing and passing plans in accordance with building byelaws, but in inner London building control is not by byelaws and plans do not have to be deposited. In view of the fact that there is very little undeveloped land in Central London and therefore the advance payments code will be very seldom necessary, I do not think that this provision will make any practical difference and has clearly considerable advantages from a drafting point of view.

Question put and agreed to.

Mr. Reynolds

As I understand it, the code which is now not going to apply normally applies to a district council. This money for private development to a private road is paid to a district council which is usually the authority for looking after roads. I understand that this legislation is legislation which is operated by the L.C.C. and is dealt with under its general planning laws. Are we going to be in the ridiculous situation whereby in a London area it will be the Greater London Council which will deal with this but that in the outer London areas it will be the outer London authorities?

This seems a rather unsatisfactory situation to create in a new system of local government. I really do not think that we should work out legislation simply on the view of whether or not it is complicated to do something. This is so having regard to the fact that the Bill is extremely complicated and that these Lords Amendments are extremely complicated, so that it strikes me Ministers are having difficulty in understanding them and are having to read the explanations and sometimes not reading them very well either. Since we are dealing with the matter let us sort it out to do the job properly.

10.45 p.m.

Mr. Corfield

The code which I referred to is the 1951 code by which a planning authority can insist upon a builder making a deposit or individual purchasers of houses making a deposit against the cost of making up the road. I think the hon. Gentleman will at least agree that this is not an operation likely to be very frequent in central London. It is an operation confined almost entirely to development of undeveloped land.

Mr. Reynolds

And redevelopment.

Mr. Corfield

With respect, no, because in redevelopment the roads, having already been adopted—and this is the stage up to adoption—would in any case be the responsibility of the highway authority. So far as the advance payment code is concerned throughout the rest of the country, it applies automatically to urban authorities, to borough councils and county boroughs. It does not apply automatically to county councils or rural districts, and here we are making an exception which is not likely to be of practical significance, and it is not even a unique exception, because in many parts of the country it does not apply for the reason that it is thought to be insignificant. I do not think there is any real difficulty about this.

Question put and agreed to.

Subsequent Lords Amendment agreed to.