HC Deb 10 April 1968 vol 762 cc1467-8
Mr. Buchan

I beg to move Amendment No. 24, in page 7, line 40, to leave out ' a person ' and to insert: 'the owner of any premises'. This is a drafting Amendment. Throughout the Bill reference is made to the owner of premises in contexts such as this, and it is clearly desirable that Clause 14 should be consistent in this respect, particularly since it refers back to Clauses 12 and 13, which refer to the owner in the context of carrying out works.

Amendment agreed to.

Mr. Buchan

I beg to move Amendment No. 25, in page 7, line 40, to leave out from 'drain' to 'authority' in line 41 and to insert: ' or sewer in respect of which notice has been given to the local authority by virtue of section 12(3) above or that subsection as applied by section 13 above, or sewage treatment works in respect of which notice has been given under subsection (2) below, the'.

Mr. Speaker

With this Amendment it would be convenient to discuss the three following Government Amendments, No. 26, No. 27 and No. 28.

Mr. Buchan

These Amendments give effect to a Government undertaking in Committee to examine the drafting of Clause 14 with particular reference to the possibility of incorporating a requirement that the local authority should receive notice of works to which the Clause relates. The effect of Amendment No. 25 is to provide that the powers of a local authority under Clause 14—under which they may direct that sewers and so forth are to be constructed in a different manner—are to be limited in the first place to private sewers and drains which are proposed to be connected to the public sewerage system, and, secondly, to private sewage treatment works.

These are the works in respect of which the local authority might wish to issue a direction under Clause 14, and this gets over the difficulty mentioned by the hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (Mr. Stodart) in Committee, of having to give notice to the local authority of minor drains which could never form part of the public system. In the case of sewage treatment works, notice is required by the proposed new subsection (2) which Amendment No. 27 provides.

Amendment agreed to.

Further Amendments made: No. 26, in page 7, line 44 after ' provide ', insert: 'within 28 days of the receipt by them of the notice'.

No. 27, in page 7, line 47 at end insert: (2) Where the owner of any premises proposes to construct sewage treatment works to serve those premises he shall give notice of his proposals to the local authority within whose area the works are to be situated.

No. 28, in page 8, line 2 leave out ' the foregoing subsection ' and insert ' subsection (1) above '.—[Mr. Buchan.]

Mr. Buchan

I beg to move Amendment No. 29, in page 8, line 6, at end to insert: () A person to whom a direction is issued under this section shall, before commencing any work in pursuance of that direction, give not less than 3 days' notice to the local authority who issued it so as to enable them to supervise the execution of the work, and shall afford them all reasonable facilities for so doing. In Committee, the Government accepted in principle an Amendment moved by the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Wylie) which would have required a person to whom the local authority had given a direction under Clause 14 to give three days' notice of undertaking the work and allow the local authorities facilities for supervision. This Amendment gives effect to what the hon. and learned Gentleman sought to achieve.

Amendment agreed to.

Forward to