SOUND-PROOFING OF BUILDINGS AFFECTED BY PUBLIC WORKS (Hansard, 22 February 1973)

§ Mr. Eldon Griffiths
I beg to move Amendment No. 30, in page 16, line 38, leave out from 'instrument' to end of line 40 and insert: '(8) A draft of any regulations under this section shall be laid before Parliament and the first regulations shall not be made unless the draft has been approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament'. When in Committee we were discussing what was then Clause 17 and what is now Clause 18, the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Park (Mr. Mulley) said that he thought that the regulations under the clause should come under the affirmative procedure, at least in the early stages. As the regulations will be novel, my right hon. Friend and I have considered the matter, and I undertook to raise it with the Leader of the House.
My right hon. Friend wrote to the right hon. Gentleman following consultations, and the net effect is the amendment to make the necessary adaptations to provide that the first set of regulations, which are all-important, which establish the precedents and which set out the nature of the contours in this new area of policy, should be subject to the affirmative procedure of both Houses, and the motion to approve the regulations will have to be accepted by both Houses.
As my right hon. Friend made clear in his letter, subsequent regulations will be subject to the negative resolution procedure. The point that is accepted by both sides of the House is that the first regulations will be creating a new precedent, so it is right that there should 877 be a separate negative resolution procedure.

§ Mr. Mulley
I am sure that the House is obliged to the Government for making this amendment. We were in the difficulty in Committee, as we are tonight, that we could not discuss this clause with any sense because the whole content of it depends on regulations still to be made. Naturally, we do not know to this day what those regulations will be. Therefore, it seems right—I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has agreed—that the House should have the opportunity to discuss the regulations when they are available. However, this matter is open to the drawback that we cannot amend draft regulations requiring the affirmative resolution procedure. Nevertheless, the House will have the opportunity to discuss them and I am sure that if a strong view were expressed the Government would take it into account.
The need for the affirmative resolution procedure gets daily more necessary because the negative procedure is valueless. It is almost impossible to get a debate on a prayer under the negative procedure. Therefore, unless there is provision for the affirmative procedure it is doubtful whether hon. Members who have direct and present airport and highway noise problems—in particular, the hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) fears that he may have such problems in future—will have the opportunity to express the fears and views of their constituents in the House.
I am glad, therefore, that the first of these sets of regulations will be under the affirmative resolution procedure. I understand from what the Under-Secretary said that it would not just be a formality of issuing a set of regulations to get over the affirmative resolution procedure and then putting the guts of the regulations into a subsequent set. I understand that the first set of regulations to be tabled will embody the principles and will, in effect, be the regulations which everyone will want to discuss before they come into force.

§ Mr. Eldon Griffiths
I formally confirm that that is so. The right hon. Gentleman will have received the letter which I wrote on behalf of my right hon. Friend to all Members of the Committee outlining the approach that we were in- 878 tending to adopt. He will understand that, although we may have to modify some aspects, the first set of regulations will follow broadly the outline which was given to Members of the Committee.

§ Mr. Mulley
We are indebted to the hon. Gentleman for carrying out that undertaking and for letting us have this information today. I thought it right not to refer to that, because, as he rightly pointed out, it is still in the consultative process and may in the end not follow that form exactly.

§ Mr. Moate
If I had scrutinised the Order Paper more carefully I should have realised that this was a more convenient time to put the question that I put earlier. We are concerned still about the type of noise contour line which is likely to be selected. It used to be and still is a noise contour line of 55 at Heathrow. However, my hon. Friend has given hope to the people living near Heathrow that this might soon be changed. I think that it is 45 NNI in other areas. This obviously would not help my constituents. However, I should like to know when we may expect these new draft regulations to come before the House in the broadest possible sense.

§ Mr. Eldon Griffiths
The first set of regulations will be concerned primarily with highway and road traffic noise, which is by far the most pressing problem with which we have to deal, because it affects large numbers of people. But we shall have regard to the problem of aircraft noise as well at a subsequent time. I cannot give my hon. Friend any timetable at present, but we have this very much in mind and will do it as soon as we can.

§ Mr. Eldon Griffiths
I beg to move Amendment No. 31, in page 17, line 7, at end insert 'and except that "responsible authority", in relation to a highway, includes any authority having power to make an order in respect of that highway under section 1 or 6 of the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1967 (traffic regulation orders)'. This picks up a point which arose in Committee when my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Mr. Goodhart) was anxious that those who suffer from noise resulting from traffic management schemes should be entitled to receive 879 sound insulation. Hon. Members who were on the Committee will recall that we could not agree that compensation should be payable where traffic management schemes came in, because they did not involve any material alteration of the road. Nevertheless, people suffering from noise as a result of such schemes will be entitled to receive sound insulation in many respects.
The Greater London Council in particular has been concerned that powers should be available. The Minister for Housing and Construction has already told officials of the GLC that the Bill will not exclude the possibility of such schemes being covered in future regulations. The GLC has undertaken to make a case as to which type of scheme should be included. It is plainly impossible to include them all. For example, it cannot be the intention of the House to cover traffic regulation restricting right turns or those schemes which do not result in any change of the noise climate.
The essential point is that the term of art in the Bill, "responsible authority", here means the highway authority. However, traffic management schemes are made by traffic authorities, and although the two will usually be the same, especially after the local government reorganisation, in London, for example, the GLC is the traffic authority for Greater London but is only the highway authority for the metropolitan roads and major roads other than trunk roads. But traffic management schemes can cover principal and non-principal roads, and it is desirable that the traffic authority, which is the authority responsible for management schemes, should also be able to provide sound insulation necessitated by its own schemes. I believe that this goes a long way to meet the point so eloquently made in Committee by my hon. Friend.

§ Mr. Philip Goodhart (Beckenham)
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for having gone so far to meet the point.