Clause 15.—(TREES SUBJECT TO PRESERVATION ORDER UNDER PLANNING ACTS.) (Hansard, 22 February 1967)

§ The Chairman
I call the Solicitor-General to move Amendment No. 3.

§ Mr. J. E. B. Hill (Norfolk, South)
On a point of order. Sir Eric, I am not quite clear how the Long Title of the Bill entitles us to consider an Amendment in Committee of the whole House. May I draw your attention to page 553 of Erskine May, where it says: Where the title of the bill is to consolidate with corrections and improvements made under the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act, 1949, amendments in Committee of the whole House are precluded by the terms of the Act (s. 1(7)). The only Amendments which can be considered are those in the Joint Committee.
The next paragraph, on page 554, says: Where the title of the bill is to consolidate and amend, or to consolidate with amendments, the law, amendments may be moved to the statutes which are to be considered. The Long Title of the Bill is: An Act to consolidate the Forestry Acts 1919 to 1963 with corrections and improvements made under the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act, 1949. I cannot see anything about Amendments, and I should like your guidance.

§ The Chairman
The hon. Gentleman is entitled to raise this point of order. As he said, this Bill, unlike the Plant Health Bill which we have just been discussing, is made pursuant to the Consolidation of Enactments (Procedure) Act, 1949, and it is therefore not merely a consolidation but a consolidation with Amendments.
In the ordinary way the passage which the hon. Member has quoted from Erskine May is quite correct, but it must be understood subject to this qualification, that if as a result of subsequent legislation certain technical Amendments are required in the Bill, then in my 1910 opinion they can be made, and I think, as the Solicitor-General will explain, it is essential that the Amendment which he is proposing should be made.

§ Mr. Hill
I am grateful to you, Sir Eric. I accept that the Amendments ought to be made, because they flow from changes. All I am saying is that before they can be made, is it not necessary to have an amended Title to the Bill so that we can take an Amendment to it?

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
I think not. I have considered this point. I do not think that any Amendment to the Title of the Bill is required or would be appropriate, because the Bill is introduced under the 1949 Act.

§ The Solicitor-General (Sir Dingle Foot)
I beg to move Amendment No. 3, in page 13, line 11, at the end to add: (8) In this section 'the Minister', in relation to England, means the Minister of Housing and Local Government and not the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Perhaps it would be convenient also to take Amendments Nos. 4, 6, 7 and 8 in the name of my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General, which are all directed to the same point.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
If that be the wish of the House. so be it.

§ The Solicitor-General
All five Amendments raise a very short point, which I tried to explain on Second Reading. I said that, since the Report of the Joint Committee, the House has passed the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources (Dissolution) Order, 1967, by which we transferred to the Minister of Agriculture the functions of the Minister of Land. That Minister had powers in England under the various Forestry Acts which the Bill seeks to consolidate. Most of these functions were transferred to the Minister of Agriculture.
However, there are certain functions under Section 13 of the Forestry Act, 1951, connected with applications for a licence to fell trees subject to tree preservation orders under the Planning Acts. Each year until 1965, these were exercisable by the Minister of Housing, but were transferred to the Minister of Land and must now revert to the Minister of Housing. The Amendments relating to 1911 those functions are to Clauses 15 and 19 and Schedule 3.
The only remaining Amendment is to Clause 49, which includes the functions of the Minister operative for the Bill as a whole. The sole purpose of the Amendments is to give effect to the decision of the House when it passed the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources (Dissolution) Order.

§ Mr. Simon Wingfield Digby (Dorset, West)
It is strange that the Government should be moving Amendments to their own consolidation Measure. I am not sure that I like the effect of the Amendments any better. We are talking about the Forestry Commission giving licences to fell trees which are subject to tree preservation orders, and the Commission is probably best entitled to judge. Any appeal from its decision raises the question of which Minister should hear it.
If the Amendment is carried, it will be the Minister of Housing rather than the Minister of Agriculture, but the latter is surely better able to judge the merits of a case than the Minister of Housing, who has little to do with trees and their growth or the point at which they become dangerous. I am, therefore, a little surprised at the Government moving this Amendment.

§ Mr. Graham Page (Crosby)
These Amendments to a Government consolidation Measure raise an important principle. I have often tried to find some way of amending such Bills and have not been successful. The Solicitor-General has undoubtedly discovered how to do this in order: I see the point and appreciate it. This was law created subsequent to the consideration of the Bill by the Joint Committee.
If I understand this set of Amendments correctly, they deal with tree preservation orders, felling directions arising out of these orders, certain land acquired by the Ministry, and the definition Clause, and it is perhaps the definition Clause which clears up the whole business.
12.45 a.m.
The Statutory Instruments concerned I believe to be about four. One is S.I. 1900 of 1951, which was entitled The Minister of Local Government and Plan- 1912 ning (Change of Style and Title) Order, 1951. Then there was the further change by S.I. 143 of 1965, the Minister of Land and Natural Resources Order, 1965, and also the Secretary of State for Wales and Minister of Land and Natural Resources Order, 1965, S.I. 319 of 1965, and finally the Dissolution Order which the right hon. Gentleman the Solicitor-General mentioned, whereby the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources was dissolved.
I will refrain from the temptation to raise party political issues concerning the Minister of Land and Natural Resources, an animal who is dead but won't lie down, for I should be out of order if I did so.
I would like to ask the Solicitor-General this. These Orders are, to the extent they are being embodied in this consolidation Bill, surely ripe for repeal. Ought we not to have not only the amendments in the text of the Bill which are now tabled, but also a Schedule repealing the whole or part of these Orders so that we do not have Orders still in existence when their purpose has been embodied in the Statute itself?
Frequently we do consolidate not only Acts of Parliament but Statutory Instruments as well, and it did seem to me, reading through these Amendments against the Statutory Instruments themselves, that we ought to repeal not the whole of the Statutory Instruments but certainly the paragraphs of them which now will be embodied within this consolidation Measure.
In the same way as it would be wrong to leave an Act of Parliament on the Statute Book when it has been included in a consolidation Measure, it would be wrong to leave on the Statute Book a Statutory Instrument as delegated legislation when it has been embodied in a consolidation Measure.
I would be grateful if the Solicitor-General could inform the House why he did not think it right to put down a repealing Schedule.

§ Sir D. Foot
I think two points have been raised. Firstly the hon. Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Wingfield Digby) put the point to me that it would have been more appropriate under Section 15 if these functions were transferred to 1913 the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food rather than to the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
There are two answers to that. Firstly, these powers are reverting to where they were before. The particular functions of the Minister of Land and Natural Resources had always been exercised by the Minister of Housing and Local Government and his predecessors. Secondly, we are dealing here with the Town and Country Planning Acts, and these Acts are really a matter for the Minister of Housing and Local Government.
So far as the point raised by the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) is concerned, I think the instruments to which he referred were instruments made under the Transfer of Functions Act, 1946. But in any case we are only concerned here with one single instrument, that is the instrument to which I referred, the Ministry of Land and Natural Resources Dissolution Order, 1967. It is not necessary that we should deal with anything else.
As the hon. Gentleman said, what has happened is that, since the Report of the Committee, Parliament has approved the dissolution Orders, the functions formerly exercised by the Minister of Land and Natural Resources have devolved upon other Ministers, and, therefore, if we are to make sense of this legislation, we have to give effect to that Order and amend this Bill accordingly. That is all that we have to do, and, in this connection, we do not have to have regard to any other Statutory Instruments.