§ Clause 54, page 41, line 41, leave out ("having regard") and insert ("specify in the direction, regard being had")
§ Clause 54, page 41, line 43, leave out ("and")
§ Clause 54, page 42, line 2, after ("disposal") insert ("and to any revenue likely to be derived by a sewerage authority from the trade effluent")
§ Clause 54, page 42, line 2, leave out ("specify in the direction")
§ 4.20 p.m.
§ LORD BRECONMy Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with Amendments Nos. 13, 14, 15 and 16, which can be taken together with Nos. 25 and 26, as approved by the Commons. The purpose of this group of Amendments is to provide that a local authority, in imposing charges on an exempted effluent under Clause 54 or on an unexempted effluent under Clause 58, shall have regard to any revenue likely to derive from the effluent. Your Lordships may remember the noble Lord, Lord Hawke, explaining, when the Bill was before the Committee in this House, that the treatment of certain effluents, particularly those produced in a section of the wool industry, may yield byproducts which have some value to the local authority. There has been, as he explained, some anxiety among the manufacturers concerned lest, when a local authority fixes charges for receiving an effluent, they will not be obliged to take this factor into account unless the Act says so explicitly. As I told the House on the last occasion, my advice is that this obligation is already implied in the clauses as drafted, but the Amendments certainly remove any doubt which the manufacturers feel on this matter, and I suggest they should be accepted.
§ Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendments.—(Lord Brecon.)
§ LORD LATHAMMy Lords, that means that in no circumstances can a local authority make a profit out of its activities in this direction, does it?
§ LORD BRECONNo, my Lords. What it means is that when it takes the effluent from the industry, in arranging its charges the local authority will have to take into consideration the profit it will make from any revenue it receives by using that effluent or part of that effluent.
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.