§ 2.45 p.m.
§ Order of the Day for the Third Reading read.
§ THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (THE EARL OF LISTOWEL)My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be read a third time. I should like on behalf of my right honourable friends the Minister of Town and Country Planning and the Secretary of State for Scotland, and my noble friends Lord Henderson and Lord Westwood, to express our keen sense of obligation to this House for its co-operation with the Government in a joint effort to make this a useful and easily operated Bill. I think the discussion at all stages in regard to this Bill has shown the House at its best as a revising Chamber, always ready to amend any flaws left by hasty workmanship while respecting the vox populi in the main structure. I cannot remember a single speech animated by Party bias. Every argument I can recollect was directed to the merits of the proposals in the Bill. It is now twenty days since this Bill was brought to your Lordships from another place. As the powers in this Bill are urgently needed 949 to prevent the mistakes made in the siting of new houses and industrial premises after the last war being repeated, we are particularly grateful to your Lordships for acting with so much dispatch and enabling the Bill to be passed into law before the summer Recess.
In conclusion I should like to inform your Lordships that the Third and final Report of the Reith Committee will be presented to the Ministers concerned to-day, and at the same time I would like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Reith, and his colleagues on the Committee, for completing so rapidly this difficult and wide-ranging inquiry which has provided the basis for the legislative and administrative work connected with a national policy of planned urban development. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a third time.
§ Moved, That the Bill be now read 3ª.—(The Earl of Listowel.)
§ LORD REITHMy Lords, I should like to say that I believe the happy and successful passage of this Bill has been in a large measure due to the courtesy and consideration which the noble Earl and his colleague the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, have shown throughout the discussions in this place. As being in some measure responsible for the scheme, may I just wish the Minister of Town and Country Planning and the Secretary of State for Scotland great success in the implementing of the Bill in the new towns which are to be built, which we all hope will be towns of which we can be proud.
§ On Question, Bill read 3ª, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.