§ 6.45 p.m.
§ Mr. BuchanI beg to move Amendment No. 12, in page 3, line 37, leave out 'either authority' and insert 'those authorities'.
§ Mr. SpeakerWe can also take with this Amendment No. 11, in page 3, line 36, after second 'the', insert 'joint'.
§ Mr. BuchanIn Committee we undertook to consider the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Mr. Maclennan) and also by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie). They both suggested that under Clause 5(2) the 1462 Secretary of State could force a local authority into an agreement with another against its will. The intention as we explained at the time, is that the Secretary of State should arbitrate only on the conditions of an agreement, where the local authorities agree in principle that they wish to enter into one, but cannot agree on the actual conditions.
We have examined this again in the light of the debate in Committee, and to make sure that there is no possibility of doubt, this Amendment would have the effect that the Secretary of State will arbitrate only on the application of both of the local authorities concerned, or all of them if there are more than two. This will ensure that the necessary measure of agreement must exist before he is asked to intervene and that one local authority cannot force another into an agreement.
§ Mr. WylieThis Amendment radically changes the whole provisions of subsection (2), and meets the criticisms made of it. As it stood, either authority could apply to the Secretary of State and the other authority was bound by that application, which seemed contrary to the whole spirit of the Clause. These words undoubtedly rectify that defect. The purpose of inserting the word "joint" before "application" is to make it perfectly clear—I will accept it is not strictly necessary as a matter of interpretation—that it is a joint application of two or more authorities where two or more authorities are involved. I would like to think that the Minister would be willing to accept this short addition to the Amendment.
§ Mr. BuchanThe Amendment as we have it covers the point. The difficulty about providing for a joint application is that it would suggest that both authorities should sign the same piece of paper, and would thus be unduly restrictive.
In any case, the Amendment is defective in that it would insert a reference to the "joint application of either authority" which, by its nature, is absurd. I hope that the hon. and learned Gentleman will withdraw the Amendment in favour of ours.
§ Mr. WylieI am assuming that the Government Amendment would be in as well as ours, so that the wording would 1463 be "joint application of those authorities", not "of either authority".
§ Mr. BuchanIt seems to me that the Government Amendment is correct and Amendment 11 brings in a restrictive aspect. My comment at the end was to explain why we could not substitute the Opposition's Amendment for the Government Amendment.
§ Amendment agreed to.