HC Deb 10 June 1969 vol 784 cc1411-2

Lords Amendment No. 1: In page 2, line 21, at end insert— () The Minister shall not make an order under the foregoing subsection with respect to the transfer of premises appearing to him to form part of premises held by a local authority for the purposes of relevant and other functions unless he has given notice to the authority of his proposal to make the order and has specified in the notice the time within which the authority may request that the order shall be in accordance with the following provisions of this subsection; and where the authority does so request and the Minister decides to make the order, then—

  1. (a) the order shall secure that the transfer is for such period only as the Minister may determine, being a period ending not later than the end of the period of seven years beginning with the transfer date; and
  2. (b) without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing subsection, the other terms of the transfer shall be such as may be specified in the order."

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport (Mr. Neil Carmichael)

I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said Amendment.

Mr. Michael Heseltine (Tavistock)

In welcoming the Amendment I suggest that it is distressing that it has taken the Government so long to accept a point advanced first in Committee in this House, then on Report and again in Committee in another place. Finally the Government saw fit to accept the arguments which had been put forward—and they did so on Report in the House of Lords.

This is a classic example of the success of the Opposition in the face of an immense amount of obstruction from the Government, who have taken so long to realise the rightness of the reasonable arguments which my hon. Friends adduced. We are naturally glad to support the Amendment, but it would have been more helpful had the Government accepted our case in the first place.

Question put and agreed to.

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