SUPPLEMENTARY PROVISIONS WITH RESPECT TO TRANSFER SCHEMES (Hansard, 25 June 1984)

§ Mr. Ridley
I beg to move, That this House doth agree with the Lords in the said amendment.
This is a technical amendment which applies to schemes under which property is transferred from LRT to one of its subsidiaries or from one subsidiary to another. This is really a drafting point. I shall be delighted to explain the amendment if the House wishes me to do so, but I can assure the House that there are no deep and unrevealed motives behind it.

§ Mr. Prescott
Can the Secretary of State tell us which functions are to be carried across in that way? Can he differentiate between those functions and statutory provisions?

§ Mr. Ridley
If LRT sets up a subsidiary to run the underground it will have to transfer the property associated with the underground to that subsidiary, and clearly the function of running the tube trains will have to be transferred as well. There may be other functions which will become the obligation of the subsidiary once it has been set up. The amendment is designed to ensure that both the property and the duties are transferred.

§ Mr. Spearing
Although the amendment is technical, the Secretary of State, with his usual courtesy, has invited inquiries. I assume that the amendment will not apply to the other persons about whom we have been talking, but only to subsidiaries as defined by the legislation. A few moments ago the Secretary of State presented to the House the possibility of someone putting in a bid to run bus services more cheaply than London Transport runs them at the moment. One would assume that such a bid would not be associated with any property owned by London Transport at the moment, and that the bidder would use his own premises and equipment rather than transferred property. Can the right hon. Gentleman assure the House that what is in question is the technical book transfer of the big subsidiaries, and that the amendment does not apply in any way to private people making bids?
Secondly, the schemes are to be presented to the Secretary of State. Will such schemes be published before the Secretary of State assents to them? If they are not published before he assents to them, will notice of them be given in the annual report? As this is a statutory provision, one might suppose that such transfers should be open and transparent, that notice should be given of the application to the Secretary of State and that his decision should at least appear in the annual report.

§ Mr. Ridley
The answer to the hon. Gentleman's second point is yes. Any schemes set up to create subsidiaries will be formal and public. They will require my consent, which will be made public and I am sure will be reproduced in the annual report.
On the first point, it is unlikely that the amendment will refer in any way to agreements under clause 3(2). The amendment would apply not only to the duties that I have 719 mentioned to the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott), but to duties that arise under local Acts. Under such an Act, for instance, a duty to fence the railway might be attached to the underground service which is to be transferred. That duty would be transferred to the subsidiary, as well as the property.
On reflection, is it most likely that nearly all the duties that will be transferred under the amendment will arise under local Acts. No duty will arise under a local Act in relation to a private bus contractor, although it is possible that some property could be transferred to a private bus operator, such as the bus stops and shelters. It would be sensible for the person running the bus route to maintain the shelters, but in that case what would be involved would be a property, not a duty.