§
Page 2, line 25, leave out paragraph (b) and insert:
("(b) if any such regulations prescribe a standard width exceeding one hundred and sixty feet, the regulations shall direct that such standard width may be adopted only so far as may be necessary for making provision for any embankment or cutting required for the road as respects which it is adopted.")
§ THE EARL OF PLYMOUTHMy Lords, the effect of this Amendment is that now no provision is made for standard widths in excess of those in the First Schedule, save in the special case of a road which runs through a cutting or is required to be supported by an embankment. The object of the Amendment in those special cases is obvious and needs no elaboration. Apart from that, if a standard width in excess of 160 feet is required, Parliament will have to be consulted.
§ Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(The Earl of Plymouth.)
§ LORD HASTINGSMy Lords, I take no exception whatever to the new paragraph being put into this clause, but my noble friend apparently forgot to draw the attention of the House to the fact that the old paragraph which has been taken out has no reference whatever to the new paragraph which is to be put in. The old paragraph read:
Before any regulations are made under this subsection a draft thereof shall be laid before Parliament, and if either House of Parliament within the next subsequent twenty-eight days upon which that House has sat after the draft has been laid before it presents an Address…The Amendment reads "Line 25, leave out paragraph (b)," and then goes on to insert the new paragraph (b), to which, as I have already said, I take no exception whatever; but the paragraph which is cut out is a very important one. Perhaps the noble Earl will have a word or two to say on the matter.
§ THE EARL OF PLYMOUTHMy Lords; the explanation is quite a simple one. The main object of the original paragraph as it stood in the Bill was that there should be some safeguard and that it should be necessary to consult Parliament when it was desired to impose a standard width above 160 feet. That is the greatest width in the First Schedule of the. Bill, as I have explained to your Lordships. Now 1027 no provision is made whatsoever for any standard width above 160 feet, except in this one specific case to which I have referred. In those circumstances it was not thought necessary to retain that provision, that Parliament should be consulted when any alterations were made in these standard widths; but, as I have said, if it is desired to impose a standard width of more than 160 feet, the authority in question will have to come to Parliament and have the matter discussed afresh.
§ LORD HASTINGSThank you, I am very much obliged.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.