§ Mr. KaufmanI beg to move Amendment No. 17, in page 6, line 7, at end insert:
'(7) For the purposes of subsection (5) above "local authority", in relation to England and Wales, means—I do so deeply chastened by what the hon. Member for Derbyshire, South-East (Mr. Rost) has said to me, and I shall therefore speak to this technical amendment in a subdued voice.
- (a) the council of a district or, in the case of an acquisition before 1st April 1974, the council of a county borough or county district; and
- (b) the council of a London borough or the Common Council of the City of London.'
The amendment corrects a slight omission in the Bill. Subsection (5) of the clause permits disposal by the corporation of land not required for purposes for which it was acquired, subsection (5)(a) refers to a local authority which may have acquired land compulsorily on behalf of the corporation, and since the term "local authority' can refer to different bodies in different contexts it is desirable to define what is meant by the term in this context.
1325 The Housing Act 1964 defined, in Section 12, local authorities in relation to, and in terms of, local authorities existing before 1st April 1974. This was the date when new local authorities under the Local Government Act 1972 came into being. That definition is repealed by Clause 112 and Schedule 13 of the Bill, and the amendment replaces it with a definition which covers both old and new descriptions of local authorities.
It is necessary to continue to refer to the authorities which were in existence before 1st April 1974 because some of the corporation's land may have been acquired compulsorily and transferred to the corporation by a local authority before that date.
I trust that the House will agree to the amendment, even though it, too, is based on a brief supplied to me before I entered the Chamber and not carried to me by a messenger running along the Front Bench.
§ Amendment agreed to.