CONSEQUENTIAL AND SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISION (Hansard, 25 October 1972)

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

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this Amendment we can take Lords Amendment No. 450.

§ Mr. Page
I would refer also to Lords Amendments Nos. 452 to 454. These ensure that Clause 243—

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
Order. I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but I understand that we are now discussing Lords Amendments Nos. 449 and 450.

§ Mr. Page
I was going a little too fast, but I will mention only Lords Amendments 449 and 450 now.
However, what I was saying was relevant to those two Amendments, and that is that we are endeavouring to ensure that Clause 243 has sufficient powers in it to carry out the transitional matters which will have to be carried out by order. There is a host of transitional matters to be sorted out either too detailed or too minor to be dealt with in the Bill itself. The transfer of property from the existing authorities to the new authorities will require an enormous amount of detail, and there is, I fear, a considerable amount of work for the new authorities to undertake—the co-ordinating committees, and the shadow councils 1279 to be elected in the spring in 1973. We want to make certain, and we do make certain by these Lords Amendments, that Clause 243 does contain sufficient powers for those matters to be sorted out by order.

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

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this Lords Amendment we can also take Lords Amendments Nos. 455, 456 and 468 to 472.

§ Mr. Page
I will refer to those other Lords Amendments now also.
Lords Amendment No. 451 ensures that the order-making power in Clause 243 will permit application of local Acts or instruments with or without modifications. This is merely a tidying up of powers given in Clause 243.
Lords Amendment No. 455 also relates to Clause 243 and its purpose is to alter the parliamentary procedure applying to ministerial orders made under Clause 243 which have the effect of extending the area of operation of a local Act in force on 1st April, 1974. I think I ought to deal with these slightly more extensively. They really relate to local Acts and instruments, and the local Acts are dealt with in more detail in Clause 249. These two Lords Amendments deal specifically with them.
The purpose of the Amendments is quite simply that the later Clause provides for continuation in force after 1st April, 1974, of local Acts and instruments. The local Acts will remain in operation in these areas where they apply at that date, subject to appropriate substitution of the new local authorities for the existing ones and in some cases this will mean that local Acts will remain 1280 in force in one part of a new area but will not apply in the remainder of that area where different local Acts can operate.
Obviously, this would be inconvenient in the long run, and the Bill provides two ways in which local Acts can or will be rationalised in the long run. Local Acts in force in April, 1974, will expire after a given period. They will expire unless provisions are made specifically to exempt them from that arrangement. The new authorities will need to promote fresh local Bills, if they are not thus exempt, to save or to re-enact for their area such local Act provisions as are still necessary and justifiable, and that is what Clause 249 does. In the short term, the Secretary of State may make an order under the general order-making powers under Clause 247 amending or repealing or extending a local Act where such action is needed consequentially upon reorganisation.
As the Bill stands, any such order would be subject to a negative Resolution, but on reflection I consider that in one type of case a more elaborate procedure would be appropriate; that is to say, where a local Act extends in application to an area where it does not apply at present. Some local Acts include provisions which affect individuals and private interests who should have the opportunity to petition against the extension of any such local Act if it is to apply to them for the first time and if they consider themselves to be prejudically affected.
The purpose of the two Amendments is therefore to enable this type of order, that is to say, one extending the application of a local Act, to be subject to the provisional order procedure instead of the negative Resolution procedure. As the House knows, the provisional order procedure is comparable in many ways with the Private Bill procedure in that it requires local advertisement of the provisions and affords persons affected the opportunity to petition to Parliament. The final order is then given effect by being annexed to a provisional order confirmation Bill. I believe that this is the right procedure where individuals' rights are affected for the first time.
I apologise to the House if my enthusiasm for the forms of delegated 1281 legislation has carried me away on this occasion to explain it in some detail.

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

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this we are to take Lords Amendments Nos. 453 and 454.

§ Mr. Page
These Amendments, again, make certain that Clause 243 covers all the transitional matters that will have to be dealt with and which are far too detailed to be dealt with in the Bill itself —the members of various bodies and issues which arise from changes of boundaries, which all need to be dealt with in some considerable detail, but which are quite inappropriate to be included in that detail in the Bill. The Opposition have complained bitterly about the length of the Bill, but if we included all these transitional matters, instead of providing for them by order, I do not know where we should finish.