HC Deb 27 June 1988 vol 136 cc38-9
Mr. Spearing

I beg to move amendment No. 317, in page 50, leave out lines 28 to 32.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)

With this, it will be convenient to consider amendment No. 319, in clause 81, page 56, line 46, leave out from beginning to end of line 3 on page 57.

Mr. Spearing

I shall be brief, but the amendments are important because clause 70 gives considerable powers to the Secretary of State in respect of transfer orders. Subsection (4) states: (4) In connection with any transfer made by it, a transfer order may contain such incidental, consequential, transitional or supplementary provisions as appear to the Secretary of State to be necessary or expedient and, in particular, may—

  1. (a) apply, with or without modification, any provision made by or under any enactment; and
  2. (b) modify the operation of any provision made by or under any enactment."
As I read it, that means that modifications to the transfer can be made, altering and modifying any Act, as it goes along. Will the Minister explain why that provision is included and why it appears to give enormous powers to the Secretary of State to undermine and change any existing enactments?

Mr. Waldegrave

I hope that I can deal with the amendments in a way that will satisfy the hon. Gentleman. I agree that the powers look pretty broad, but I will try to explain why we have used them. The provisions are precedented in the London Government Act 1963 and the Local Government Act 1985. The orders will be subject to negative resolution procedures.

I shall give the hon. Gentleman some examples of the kind of matters with which we might want to deal. Obviously, they are important to the people concerned, but they may not sound important when mentioned at this level in the House. For example, we may want a HAT to be able to treat notices by the local housing authority as if they had been given by the HAT. We might also want to give HATs some flexibility about whether new rent books need to be issued. It might be pointless to change all that. In order to achieve this, the Secretary of State might use his power under clause 70 to treat notification by a HAT to a tenant that a transfer is taking place as compliance with section 5(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.

Moving on to clause 81, in addition to the similar general provision applying to dissolution orders, the hon. Member also expressed concern about the Secretary of State's power to set up new corporate bodies to take on some of the HATs' functions. There were some good examples of that which the hon. Member will remember during the abolition of the metropolitan counties. In, for example, South Yorkshire, a special pensions body was set up to deal with pension matters there. I refer to powers to deal with the odd and sometimes unpredictable situations which may arise and which need to be dealt with. As I have said, although they are important to the people concerned, I do not believe that they will worry the House, and they are well precedented.

Mr. Spearing

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

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