HC Deb 25 October 1967 vol 751 cc1644-6
Mr. Graham Page

I beg to move, in page 18, line 29, after "order", insert "and a summary thereof".

This provision in Schedule 1 arises out of a recommendation of the Law Commission concerning the publication of Orders. Paragraph 7 of Schedule 1 provides: Where the appropriate Minister makes an order under section 1 of this Act, the applicants for the order shall cause notice of the making of the order to be published in such manner as that Minister thinks sufficient … The Amendment would require not only notice of the making of the Order to be published, but a summary of that Order as well.

The recommendation of the Law Commission, which was the tenth recommendation that it made, was: Where an order under Part III of the Act of 1868 is made, Section 35 requires the applicants for the order to cause it to be published and circulated in such manner as the appropriate Minister thinks sufficient for giving information to all parties interested. Then it points out: By virtue of Section 34(3) of the Act of 1962 the order is now made by statutory instrument and is printed and published by the Stationery Office and section 35 is in practice construed as requiring the applicants to publish only notice of the making of the order. We recommend that section 35 be amended to conform with modern practice. Then it points out: Effect is given to this recommendation in paragraph 7 of Schedule 1 to the Bill. There is a substantial change in the law here, albeit to conform with existing practice. The Law Commission's further recommendation repealing the relevant Section of the previous Acts said that although it used to be necessary to keep a copy of this Order available to those concerned and publish it and so on, There is no difficulty now, as there may have been in 1868, for any of those persons to obtain a copy of the order from the Stationery Office. This is very naive. It is often difficult to obtain Orders from the Stationery Office, and, in the case of an Order for fisheries in the North of Scotland or somewhere like that, there would be the utmost difficulty in obtaining the information.

If there is to be a change in practice here, it should provide for persons concerned with an Order of this sort to know at least a summary of what it is about, the area it covers, and who will be affected by it. Often under these Orders there is power to the grantee to make certain charges, and this is very important to the public who are concerned with such an Order. The public should be informed not only that an Order has been made but about the effect of it. To inform the public, it would be simple to publish not only the date of the Order but also the explanatory note to it saying what it is about. Merely to see that an Order conferring the right of several fishery has been made on such and such a date gives no information at all to the public.

The Solicitor-General

In moving his Amendment, I am glad that the hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Graham Page) forbore from anything in the character of general and unfounded strictures upon the Government for our attitude to the kind of point that he raises.

Orders conferring a right of several fishery or the right of regulating a fishery are usually fairly lengthy and detailed. As an example of the kind of detail that goes into them, one has in mind the area of sea over which the right is to be exercisable, which has to be defined precisely. That can be done only at considerable length. It would not be easy to produce an accurate summary which would be really informative, and an inaccurate summary would have great disadvantages and risks attaching to it.

I suggest that it is unnecessary to require the applicants to incur the extra expense which would result if the Amendment were accepted. The Amendment proposes that the applicants should provide the summary and, of course, the applicants are the persons who desire and hope to become grantees of the rights conferred. In the ordinary way, they will not be people who will find it easy to prepare, compose and provide a summary of a document of this kind, and I think that there ought to be reasonable consideration for them in dealing with the practicalities of the matter.

Under normal practice, applicants are required to publish notice of the making of an Order in a local newspaper, and that is a comparatively easy action to perform. To impose heavier burdens upon them would be undesirable, I submit, and anything in the nature of a fairly lengthy summary would involve a not negligible increase in cost.

10.45 a.m.

The Committee will observe that, under paragraph 2 of Schedule 1, the applicants are required to publish a copy of the draft order. Those affected by the Order will, therefore, become aware of its contents and its provisions at that stage. It is true that, when the Order is made, it may differ from the draft, but it is unlikely to do so in practice unless an inquiry is held under paragraphs 4 or 5 of the Schedule. Notice of the inquiry has to be published. It is believed that persons affected by the Order will obtain a copy from the Stationery Office and will not rely on a summary in the Press.

The Order and its contents are available to those concerned and, as I have endeavoured to indicate, in the case of a person sufficiently interested in the content of the Order, it is more likely than not that he will want to see the whole Order and will not be satisfied with a mere summary.

In those circumstances, to require publication of a summary would really be balancing one thing with another to serve no useful purpose.

Amendment negatived.

Schedule agreed to.

Schedules 2 and 3 agreed to.

Bill reported without Amendment; read the Third time and passed, without Amendment.