AMENDMENT OF TRANSPORT (LONDON) ACT 1969 (Hansard, 11 November 1980)

§ Mr. King
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.

Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to take Lords amendment No. 183.

§ Mr. King
These amendments were introduced by the Government on Report in the House of Lords. Their effect is to delete schedule 10 and replace it with a new schedule which is designed to alter and supplement the provisions of the London Government Act 1963 so as to put the Greater London Council substantially in the same position as if it were subject to part VIII of the Bill, and to bring it within the scope of part VIII capital expenditure by the London Transport Executive. The further effect is to amend the Transport (London) Act 1969 to ensure that any proposal by the London Transport Executive to acquire a leasehold interest in land or property will be a proposal requiring the approval of the Greater London Council.

§ Mr. Spearing
In another place the Under-Secretary, Lord Bellwin, said that the new schedule makes provision for capital expenditure by the London Transport Executive to be controlled in much the same way as expenditure by any of the other passenger transport executives will be controlled in future."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 28 October 1980; Vol. 414, c. 216.] He then went on to talk about comparable authorities outside London.
I suggest to the Minister that probably there are not comparable bodies outside London to the London Transport Executive because it is responsible to the Greater London Council. It may be controlled in the same way as passenger transport executives but I do not think that the transport organisation in the Metropolis can be written off in quite that way.
The point arises in that this provision makes it quite clear that the capital expenditure by London Transport will be prescribed, as I understand it, under part VIII of the Bill. At the moment, authority for raising money of this sort comes within the Greater London Council (Money) Bill and that will also, I believe, be prescribed. However, the point of my rising on this matter is to make inquiry about a subject which is causing some concern in London relating to capital sales by London Transport of its land.
In many ways the Government appear to wish to encourage the release of land held by statutory undertakers of this sort, and seem to want the capital obtained 425 to be used as part of the capital requirements of the undertaking. But if the sales of that sort by London Transport will come clearly within the ambit of Part VIII, the matter comes under the terms of clause 63, which is part of part VIII, and in particular under subsection (3)(d) and subsections (5) and (6).
Without spending much time on this matter, as the hour is late, I just put this point to the Minister. It is possible that capital sales by London Transport falling foul of that clause may complicate the running of that organisation, in that it is controlled in such a way that capital sales, if not spent within a year, have a trip-over effect for the subsequent year, and it may be that the expenditure is thereby constrained in a way in which the Minister does not wish.
It may be, as Lord Gainford said in the other place, that there was not sufficient consultation with London Transport on this issue. I rather fancy that that was so, because I understand, having initiated inquiries, that there is some concern. Even if the Minister cannot entirely allay the fears of the House at this late hour, I hope that at a later stage in legislation the point will be looked at. I do not think that the Minister wants to put London Transport under any greater disadvantage than it has already, coming within part VIII and, therefore, being very heavily constrained in capital expenditure, which is the Government's present policy.

§ Mr. King
Capital expenditure of the London Transport Executive will be a part of the GLC's capital expenditure, which will have to be set out, as the hon. Gentleman rightly said, in the annual Greater London Council (Money) Bill. The provision for the use of capital receipts by the GLC will be made in the contingency provisions attached to the money Bill, and account will be taken of the LTE's capital receipts in the money Bill contingency provisions for the GLC as a whole.
We have not sought to disadvantage the GLC or the LTE as against other authorities. They wished to stick to their traditional money Bill procedure, to which the Government were happy to accede. Obviously, it is necessary that the general principles apply under the capital expenditure provisions in the Bill, and the GLC 426 and the LTE are expected to conform with those same general principles—not to their disadvantage but not to their advantage either. We want them to be on a fair basis.