THE APPOINTED DAYS, ETC. (Hansard, 11 November 1975)

§ Mr. Oakes
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
The amendment is not highly significant. It precludes the first appointed day, when the transitional arrangements for the scheme come into force, from being appointed before a draft of relevant development regulations made under Clause 3 has been approved by Parliament. The relevant development regulations are an essential feature of the scheme, as they will define the categories of development which will be permanently outside the duties under Clauses 17 and 18. Moreover, until the regulations are in force, there will be nothing in Clause 21 procedure to bite.
We have always accepted the necessity for such regulations to be in force and 1225 available publicly before the first appointed day, and would in any case have ensured that this was done. There is, however, something to be said for writing such provision into the Bill. That is what the amendment does, and I am sure that it will find favour with the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) accordingly.

§ Mr. Rossi
I rise to quarrel not with the amendment, which we accept wholeheartedly, but with the way in which the hon. Gentleman presented it. He said that it was not a very important amendment. He said that it would be convenient to have it in the Bill rather than outside it. I recall all the debates when we have asked the Government to spell out in the Bill what are the rights of citizens and not leave it to be dealt with by ministerial action. I wonder that the Minister can say now "It is not very important for this to be in the Bill, because the Minister will do it anyway." What is the legislative process all about, unless it is to define what the private citizen's rights are, unless it is to lay down what a Minister may or may not do in the exercise of his office?
In contrast to the hon. Gentleman's rather churlish introduction to the amendment, I think that the Lords deserve thanks for forcing it on the Government. The amendment makes it plain that the regulations, which define what is and is not relevant development—we all know that the definition of "relevant development" is the key to the operation of the land scheme—must be before us before the Minister can declare the first appointed day and bring the Bill into operation. I am grateful to their Lordships for having forced this amendment on the Government and having written into the Bill the date upon which the Minister shall deal with this matter. It is on that basis, and not on the basis on which the hon. Gentleman introduced the amendment, that we support it.

§ Mr. Graham Page
I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) that this amendment is of considerable importance. How the Bill could have operated without having the regulations, I do not know. I accept the assurance that it was the intention of the Government to bring in these regulations before the commencement order on the 1226 appointed day, but it is right to have it written into the Bill.
Can the hon. Gentleman give some estimate of the time when the regulations will be put in draft before the House, and therefore of how soon the first appointed day will be? I imagine that the regulations are in draft already, that we shall be seeing them fairly soon, and that the appointed day will be when we approve them in the House. To have such an estimate would be of great help to those who have to prepare for the operation of the Bill.

§ Mr. Oakes
I can only reply to the right hon. Member for Crosby (Mr. Page) that it will be done as speedily as possible. I cannot give a more precise date, but work is proceeding on the regulations.
The hon. Member for Hornsey (Mr. Rossi) never ceases to amaze me about two aspects of this matter. He is always saying that this is of urgent priority and he always uses flamboyant language to describe it. He says that the House of Lords forced the amendment on the Government. We always said that it would be rather stupid for the first appointed day to be in operation before the regulations were in operation, because there would be nothing for the regulations to bite on. We have said that throughout. We have also said that the Government intended to do this and therefore we did not need to spell out the obvious in the Bill. Very well—we are now spelling it out in the Bill, and that is the enormous, tremendous, moral and political victory that their Lordships have won over us.