HL Deb 31 July 1962 vol 243 cc209-10

After Clause 22, insert the following new Clause:

Extension of power to authorise compulsory purchase of land for off-street parking

("The following provisions relating to the compulsory purchase of land for the provision of parking places under section eighty-one of the principal Act, that is to say, subsection (11) of that section and subsections (8) and (9) of section thirteen of the Road Traffic and Roads Improvement Act, 1960, shall have effect as if the references therein to the said section eighty-one included references to paragraph (a) of subsection (6) of the said section thirteen (which enables a local authority to let land for the provision of parking places).")

6.18 p.m.

Viscount HAILSHAM

My Lords, this Amendment requires some explanation, as a piece of legislation by reference. This new clause gives effect to an undertaking which the Parliamentary Secretary gave at the Committee stage in another place by which he induced Mr. Victor Goodhew to withdraw a similar Amendment. The situation is this. Section 81 of the principal Act empowers local authorities to provide parking places, and subsection (11) of that section gives them power of compulsory purchase for the provision of an off-street parking place. Section 13 (6) (I am leaving out the Scottish provisions which are parallel) enables an authority to provide off-street parking places by letting land on which they could erect or adapt a building for the purpose of providing such a parking place with a view to some other person's doing so. Ordinarily I think one would have said that this was providing a parking place, but it is clear that it is not because it is provided by subsection (6) of Section 13 that: Subsections (2) to (7) of Section 11 of this Act shall apply in relation to any parking place provided under any land letting as if it had been provided by the authority under Section 81. So it is Clear from the last section that letting does not count as providing.

The effect of that, of course, is that the authority must run the off-street parking place itself, so as to come within Section 81, in order to acquire the benefit, if it is a benefit, of the compulsory purchase provision; and this leads to a really rather anomalous position. The effect of the Amendment is to extend subsection (11)—Which is the compulsory purchase provision—of Section 81 to the provision of parking places by letting, as well as those places which are run by the local authority itself. Some people might see an issue of great importance in this. I think that if we were in a very controversial mood we might argue about it a long time, but I have an idea that, if it were not for the fact that it adds to compulsory purchasing powers, I might have got away with it by saying that it was a drafting Amendment. I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.

Moved, That this House doth agree with the Commons in the said Amendment.—(Viscount Hailsham.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.