§ Mr. HoyI beg to move Amendment No. 35, in page 31, line 40, at end insert:
(4) The Minister may, with the approval of the Treasury, make to a river authority grants in respect of the cost of any works executed by the authority in pursuance of section 35 of the said Act of 1961 (under which a drainage board may execute by agreement with and at the expense of any other person any drainage works which that person is entitled to execute); and the reference to expense in that section shall be construed as excluding the amount of any grant paid under this subsection in respect of the works in question.Under the Ministry's farm ditching scheme, grants are available to farmers towards the cost of improvement works on ordinary farm ditches, and grants are also made to river authorities and in- 572 ternal drainage boards for improvements to arterial watercourses. Between these two categories, however, there is the watercourse which is too large to be classified as a farm ditch but which is neither a main river of a river authority nor a watercourse maintained by an internal drainage board. Difficulties arise where. in order to drain their land officially, farmers require work to be done on these intermediate channels.A measure to remedy this situation was included in the 1961 Land Drainage Act, under which county and county borough councils were enabled to sponsor schemes on behalf of the riparian owners and occupiers, and to receive grant towards the cost. In some parts of the country, however, a difficulty still persists for the farmer where a council is not in a position to handle land drainage schemes, and in order to fill this awkward gap between the farm ditch and the arterial channel more effectively we propose to supplement the existing machinery so that river authorities. as well as county and county borough councils, can do this agency work on behalf of farmers, and receive grant.
The Amendment will thus ensure that facilities are available to farmers in any part of England and Wales to secure drainage improvements with the aid of Exchequer grant. For this reason I hope that it will be approved by the House.
§ Mr. GodberWe on this side of the House think that this is probably a useful Amendment. It seeks to fill a gap, and will probably help in the cases to which the hon. Gentleman has referred. I hope that the river authorities will make use of the provision where the need arises.
I am not quite clear about the amount of grant that is envisaged, and perhaps, before we part with the Amendment, the Parliamentary Secretary will explain what it is likely to be so that we may know whether the point the hon. Gentleman has in mind has been adequately covered.
§ Amendment agreed to