§ Mr. OnslowI beg to move Amendment No. 30, in page 19, line 16, at end insert:
'and they shall include in their respective annual reports a statement indicating how often and in what circumstances they have exercised these powers'.The Clause as it stands gives wide powers to the British Airports Authority, to B.E.A. and to B.O.A.C. to deal with matters at present not within their jurisdiction, but the merits or demerits of this have already been argued so I shall not rehearse them. This Amendment seeks to ensure that when these bodies make use of the powers, perhaps at the behest of the Board of Trade but most probably at that of the Ministry of Overseas Development or some other Department, they shall be obliged to publish that fact in their reports. I hope that we shall not be told that this is an appropriate matter for Ministerial direction. It could well be brought within the ambit of Statute, and this would be a convenient and necessary way of doing so.
§ Mr. William RodgersAs I explained on Amendment No. 13, powers exist for making a directive, but we are confident that the Corporations will use their commonsense and refer in their future reports to important cases of this kind. In practice, the burden of the hon. Gentleman's wish will be well met.
§ Amendment negatived.