HL Deb 25 May 1948 vol 155 cc1007-11

Clause 2, page 3, line 27, at end insert— (" Provided that the council or a county or county borough shall not thereby be precluded from appointing a member of the council who is also an officer or servant of another local authority.")

Clause 4, page 5, line 17, at end insert— (" (3) Where in consequence of an order made under the last preceding section, there is included in any new or existing river board area the whole or any part of another river board area, there shall become exercisable, as from the appointed day, by the river board for the first-mentioned area (in addition to the functions which become exercisable by that board under subsection (1) of this section) any other functions previously exercisable in the other river board area or part thereof, as the case may be, by the river board for that area, and those functions shall as from that day cease to be exercisable or, as the case may be, cease to be exercisable in that part, by the last-mentioned river board.")

Clause 10, page 11, line 35, leave out (" period of account,") and insert (" financial year immediately preceding the financial year ")

Clause 15, page 14, line 31, at end insert (" in respect of any effluent passing from any land or vessel ")

Clause 15, page 14, line 41, at end insert— (" Provided that, if it is not reasonably practicable forthwith to comply with the aforesaid requirement as to notification, the said requirement and the other requirements aforesaid shall be complied with as soon as reasonably practicable.")

Clause 15, page 14, line 45, leave out from beginning to (" without,") and insert (" sewerage authority (as defined by Section ninety of the Public Health Act, 1936) ")

Page 15, line 2, at end insert— (" (4) In relation to any legal proceedings in respect of any effluent passing from any such sewer as aforesaid, subsection (2) of this section shall have effect as if the reference to the occupier of the land from which the effluent is passing were construed as a reference to the sewerage authority by whom the sewer is maintained.")

Clause 16; page 16, line 34, leave out from (" shall ") to ("be") in line 35.

Clause 18; page 17, line 6, at end insert (" and a copy of the byelaws shall be sent to every local authority whose county or borough or district is wholly or partly within that area ").

Clause 19; page 18, line 27, at end insert (" in the manner specified in Subsection (3) thereof ").

After Clause 19; insert the following new clause—

(" Publicity for proceedings of river boards.

.—(1) The minutes of proceedings of meeting of a river board shall be open to the inspection of any local government elector for any part of the river board area, on payment of a fee not exceeding one shilling, and any such local government elector may make a copy thereof or an extract therefrom.

(2) Notwithstanding anything in this section any such part of the minutes of proceedings of a river board as contains information with respect to any manufacturing process or trade secret obtained in the exercise of powers under this Act shall not be open to the inspection of a local government elector.

(3) In this section, the expression "local government elector" means a person registered as a local government elector in the register of electors in accordance with the provisions of the Representation of the People Acts.")

Clause 25, page 21, line 20, leave out (" legal ").

Clause 27, page 23, line 20, leave out from (" make,") to end of line 24, and insert (" such provision (if any) as appears to the Ministers to be just—

  1. (a) for the payment of compensation by the river board to the authority from whom the functions are transferred;
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  2. (b) in a case where the functions transferred are of an onerous character, for the making of payments by the authority to the river board in respect of the transfer; and
  3. (c) for making other financial adjustments between the river board and the authority, and for other matters consequential on or incidental to the matters aforesaid.")

Clause 28, page 23, line 45, at end insert— (" Provided that, where functions are transferred to a river board from a catchment board and, immediately before the appointed day, the catchment board were a constituent authority in relation to a combination scheme in force under Section two of the said Act, the river board may agree with the joint committee established by the scheme to make such modifications in the scheme as appear to them to be necessary for making the river board a constituent authority instead of the catchment board and applying the scheme to officers and servants of the river board, and the scheme shall have effect as so modified and, in relation to officers and servants of the river board, the joint superannuation fund maintained under the scheme shall, so long as the scheme remains in force and the river board is a constituent authority, be the appropriate superannuation fund for the purposes of the said Act.")

Page 24, line 1, leave out subsection (4).

After Clause 30, insert the following new clause—

Power to postpone triennial appointment of new members of catchment boards and river boards.

(".—(1) Where a new river board area is defined or an existing river board area is altered by an order made under this Act and the order involves the transfer to the river board for the area as so defined or altered of all the functions of a catchment board or another river board, or such of those functions as will necessitate the variation of the constitution of that catchment board or that other river board, and the order is made during a year in which the term of office of the members of that catchment board or other river board will come to an end and before the first day of August in that year, and it appears to the Ministers that the appointed day for the transfer of functions to the river board for the said area, whether it has already been appointed or not, will be later than the thirty-first day of October in that year, they may by order provide for extending the term of office of the said members for such period not exceeding six months as may be specified in the order, and the Ministers may, if it subsequently appears to them at any time before the expiration of the period so specified to be necessary or expedient so to do, provide by order for extending the term of office of the said members for a further period not exceeding six months:

Provided that the powers of the Ministers under this subsection in relation to an order extending the term of office of members of catchment boards only shall be exercisable by the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries instead of by the Ministers.

(2) Where the term of office of the members of any catchment board or river board is extended under this Section, and the functions of the catchment board or river board do not wholly cease on the said appointed day, the term of office of the members who are appointed to succeed those members shall be shortened to a corresponding extent.")

Clause 34, page 28, line 27, leave out (" by,") and insert (" under ").

Clause 34, page 28, line 27, after (" section,") insert (" the exercise of default powers with respect to those functions ").

First Schedule, page 30, line 23, at end insert (" and, in a case where the area affected by the order includes the whole or any part of the areas originally excluded from Section one of this Act, the Metropolitan Water Board.")

Second Schedule, page 34, line 11, at end insert— (" Provided that the Ministers may, subject to such conditions as they may think fit to impose, remove any disability imposed by this paragraph in any case in which the number of members of the board so disabled at any one time would in the opinion of the Ministers-be so great a proportion of the whole as to impede the transaction of business or in any other case in which in the opinion of: he Ministers it is in the interest of the inhabitants of the river board area that the disability shall be removed.")

Second Schedule, page 34, line 46, at end insert— (" 20. A river board may pay reasonable subscriptions, whether annually or otherwise, to the funds—

  1. (a) of any association of river boards formed for the purpose of consultation as to the common interests of river boards and the discussion of matters connected with the discharge of the functions of river boards;
  2. (b) of such associations of officers of river boards, being associations formed for the purpose aforesaid, as may be approved by the Ministers.")

Third Schedule, page 35, line 42, after (" board,") insert (" at any time ")

Third Schedule, page 35, line 45, after (" in,") insert (" sub-paragraphs (i) and (ii) of paragraph (a) and sub-paragraphs (i) to (ix) of paragraph (b) of ")

page 37, line 26, leave out (" and section eight ")

page 37, line 29, at end, insert (" and the words in the said section from ' and where,' to the end of the section shall not apply, and the first paragraph of section eight of the said Act shall be modified so as to have effect as follows:— ' Every river board shall, subject to the restrictions in this Act contained, have power to enforce the provisions of this Act in relation to any stream in the river board area, and for that purpose to institute proceedings in respect of any offence against this Act '.")

page 37, line 45, at end add— (" 18. If any enactment or statutory order referred to in the last preceding paragraph (other than the proviso thereto) applies to a part only of a river, an order made under that paragraph may extend the enactment or statutory order to the whole of that river (including any tributaries thereof), so far as it is included in the river board area.")

THE EARL OF HUNTINGDON

My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, for his kind words and the gracious way in which he has spoken. I should also like to thank him for his very helpful suggestion that the remaining Amendments might be moved en bloc. As the noble Lord has said, they are really Amendments which deal with the structure of the Bill, or drafting Amendments designed to improve the Bill in one way or another. If any noble Lord would like me to go through them separately I am quite willing to do so. If not I will move that they be accepted.

Moved, That this House do agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(The Earl of Huntingdon.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.