NOTICE FOR SAME PURPOSES AS S. 164, BUT GIVEN BY STATUTORY UNDERTAKERS (Hansard, 23 October 1968)

§ Mr. Graham Page
I beg to move, as an Amendment to the proposed Amendment, in line 7, leave out 'technical or other' and insert 'any'.

§ Mr. Speaker
I suggest that we take, at the same time, the hon. Member's Amendments in lines 9, 13, 38, 42 and 56, if that suits the convenience of the Opposition.

§ Mr. Graham Page
I am obliged, Mr. Speaker.
The new Clause contained in Lords Amendment No. 129 is supplementary to the Clause which we have just discussed where statutory undertakers have acquired property in which another undertaker has supply apparatus. Looking at the matter from the point of view of the public, these Amendments are intended to ensure that the supply undertaker should not be forced to do something which may interrupt the supply to the public. It seemed to me to be restrictive on the freedom of the supply undertaker to require, in subsection (1)(b), that the grounds on which he could claim to enter and carry out work, remove and resite his apparatus, should be "technical or other grounds".
It is true that the reference is to "other grounds", but following the word "technical" and applying the ejusdem generis rule, it would have to be something connected with "technical" and, therefore, unnecessarily restrictive. Surely, if the undertaker could show any grounds connected with the carrying on of the undertaking, that would be sufficient.
The Amendments to lines 9, 13, 38, 42 and 56 deal with the same point. It may not be necessary for the supply undertaker to remove or resite his apparatus if he can enter on the land and protect the apparatus in some way. It may be that the statutory undertaker who has acquired the land will build a road which, when placed over the supply apparatus, would fracture it. It may be quite unnecessary to remove that supply apparatus. All that may be necessary for its protection might be to protect it against 1492 the sort of development required by the acquiring statutory undertaker. Therefore, I thought it wise to insert protection before removal or resiting to give the supply undertaker the power to enter and carry out that work.

§ Mr. Greenwood
I shall have to ask the House to reject the Amendment. Section 164 of the 1962 Act, which the new Clause contained in Lords Amendment No. 128 amended, empowers a Minister, local authority or statutory undertakers who have acquired or appropriated land for planning purposes to serve notice on the statutory undertakers extinguishing their rights to have apparatus on or under the land and requiring removal of such apparatus. Subsequent provisions of the 1962 Act provided for the statutory undertakers to be reimbursed for the cost of this removal.
I think that the House will appreciate that this is an important power in the context of urban renewal. Redevelopment will frequently involve very substantial changes in the existing street pattern, and that will mean alterations in the pattern of mains and pipes belonging to the statutory undertakers.
The main point of the Clause is to empower the statutory undertakers themselves to serve notice on the acquiring or appropriating authority of the need to remove the apparatus where the undertakers think that the development to be carried out on the land makes it necessary for the purpose of their undertaking that there should be such removal. Section 164 of the Act, and the previous new Clause, have nothing to do with major development by statutory undertakers on land which they own. These provisions are concerned with items of apparatus which are generally small and often underground, such as junction boxes and meters, small apparatus of that kind, and with the mains which connect them.
Turning to the Amendments which the hon. Gentleman proposes to the Lords Amendment, the effect of the first would 1493 be to enable statutory undertakers to serve a notice claiming that development necessitates removal of their pipes or other apparatus on "any" grounds rather than on "technical or other" grounds. The proposed wording might widen the grounds on which a notice might be served, since the word "other" is, in this context, coloured by the word "technical". "Any grounds connected with the carrying on of their undertaking" would be so wide as to embrace considerations which had no connection with the development which occasioned the service of the notice.
Turning to the five other Amendments, which introduce the word "protection", they are undesirable for three reasons. First, the purpose of the Clause is to give a like power to statutory undertakers as is given to local authorities under the Clause in Lords Amendment No. 128. In the past, statutory undertakers had no power to serve a notice and therefore had no access to compensation provisions when an authority did not serve a notice. This Clause rights that position, but it is undesirable to put the statutory undertakers in a better position than the local authority in similar circumstances.
Secondly, I do not think that the Amendment to the Lords Amendment is necessary as a practical issue. Previous difficulties have arisen because of the question of access. Thirdly, the Amendment to the Lords Amendment would certainly open the way to dispute and could lead to argument whether removal, resiting, or protection of apparatus were the proper course to adopt. So, in the light of the previous new Clause, I think that the Amendment to this Lords Amendment is undesirable in fairness as between the authority and the undertaker, and that, in practice, it is unnecessary.