WATER RESOURCES BILL [H.L.]

HL Deb 12 February 1963 vol 246 cc890-978

3.0 p.m.

THE MINISTER OF STATE, HOME OFFICE (EARL JELLICOE)

My Lords, I beg to move that this Report be now received.

Moved, That the Report be now received.—(Earl Jellicoe.)

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I should like your Lordships to forgive me for detaining you for one moment in order that I may make a personal statement at this stage. Your Lordships may recall that, on the Committee stage of this Bill, I moved a long and controversial Amendment about the amalgamation of the Wear and Tees River Board with that in the Northumberland area. During the course of making the case before your Lordships' Committee I quoted as being in support of what I was saying three water companies in the North-East of England. I have since been reproached for having misrepresented them. The water companies were the Sunderland and South Shields Water Company, the Durham County Water Board and the Hartlepools Water Company. There is not an Amendment down at this stage of the Bill on the occasion of which I could mention this matter, and I therefore thought that I would ask your Lordships' permission to put this error right at this stage. I am told that those bodies are not in support of the case that I made and, since professional reputations and other matters of importance are at stake, I thought it right at this stage to clear the matter up.

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Clause 5 [Transfer to river authorities of functions of river boards]:

THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF HOUSING AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT (LORD HASTINGS)

My Lords, this Amendment does not make any alteration of substance, but is put down in view of the plea made by my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross during the Committee stage, that it should be made clear how river authorities will exercise functions relating to the prevention of pollution of rivers and streams. It is still necessary to keep the reference, now in paragraph (d), to … other statutory provision not contained in, or made or issued under, the Rivers Boards Act, 1948 since river boards have functions to perform under other enactments, such as, for instance, the Pipe-Lines Act, 1962; and indeed some river authorities will also exercise functions which are being conferred on the river boards they succeed by local enactments—for example, the Kent River Authority will be a harbour authority. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 4, leave out lines 20 and 21 and insert— ("(c) the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) Acts, 1951, to 1961, or (d) any other statutory provision not contained in, or made or issued under, the River Boards Act, 1948").—(Lord Hastings.)

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Hastings for this Amendment. I hope I shall not be considered to be carping if I ask whether he would try to go further still. He made the point on Committee that he was trying to get as great a degree of consolidation in this Bill as was possible, and I do understand that the powers referred to in paragraph (d) may be diverse. Nevertheless, the river boards have been in existence only since 1948, and I cannot believe that it would be impossible to put in some Schedule a list of the subsidiary enactments or Private Acts which have given specific powers to these river boards during this time. The point is that not only the river boards themselves, but other people who come into contact with them, will want to know what their powers are, and unless it appears in some fairly clear form in this Bill they will have to do a tremendous amount of research and may well miss the exact point that they are looking for. I ask my noble friend whether he can try to do a little more than he has already done.

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, I will gladly undertake to have another look at this to see whether we can go a little further, but I am afraid that will hardly be possible in your Lordships' House; it will have to be in another place. However, we will have another look.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 6:

Constitution of river authorities

6.—

(3) The remainder of the members of a river authority (other than additional members) shall consist of the following, that is to say— (e) one or more members appointed by the Minister as being qualified in respect of industry other than agriculture.

3.6 p.m.

LORD LINDGREN moved, after subsection (3) to insert: ( ) Such number of members of a river authority as is sufficient to represent adequately the interests of statutory water undertakers shall, subject to the provisions of section (Statutory water undertakers members of river authorities) of this Act, be appointed by the statutory water undertakers whose limits of supply are wholly or partly comprised in the area of the river authority or who have the right to abstract water from a source of supply within the area of the authority.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, Amendment No. 4 is consequential upon Amendment No. 2, and if it suits the convenience of your Lordships I would suggest that we might take them both together. The Amendments are almost identical to two that I moved during the Committee stage of the Bill. They seek to make provision for statutory water undertakers to have direct representation on the river authority. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, dealt with the Amendments on Committee stage, and I do not think it is unfair to paraphrase his arguments by putting them into two groups: The first group was the case for representation of the water undertakers, and the second concerned the way the representatives were, in practice, to be appointed.

I would submit that the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, accepted the case for adequate representation of the public water supply, and he suggested that Clause 6 (3) (d) made provision for it. With the greatest respect, I would suggest that Clause 6 (3) (d) does not provide for representation of the statutory water undertaker; it provides for the appointment by the Minister of one or more members qualified in respect of public water supply; and "qualified" is defined as meaning having had experience of, and shown capacity in, or otherwise having special knowledge of, matters relating to that subject. Therefore, it seems clear to me that if the Government accept the principle of representation, then something on the lines of the Amendments which I submitted on the Committee stage, and now re-submit, is required.

As to the method of appointment, the noble Lord, Lord Hastings said that the major difference between the Government's proposals and those that I submitted at the Committee stage was that the Government insisted that the Minister should appoint a representative, rather than that selection be left to the statutory water undertakers—that it was a question of selection by the Government rather than of nomination by the statutory water undertakers. The noble Lord said further that there was a fundamental difference between the county councils who have the right to appoint their own representatives, and the statutory water undertakers for whom the Minister does the selection.

Here I ought to declare an interest, being a member of one of the impor- tant Home Counties county councils. The noble Lord said, quite rightly, that a county council represents all ratepayers, and that a county council, and through the county council all ratepayers, were forced to pay the precept to the river authority, whether or not it was to their direct benefit; but the water undertaker would be paying for a direct benefit. I submit that this is hardly a sound argument. It is no more true to say that no ratepayer gets a benefit from the work of the river authority than it is to say that every statutory water undertaker gets a direct benefit. Moreover, water undertakers will be no more able than ratepayers to refuse to pay the charges demanded by the river authority.

It was further stated by the noble Lord that if the statutory water undertakers were to elect their own representative, the Government would be in some difficulty in selecting the method of appointment. Again I would suggest that there is no real difficulty in laying down, by ministerial order, the machinery for appointment of a representative or representatives by a number of statutory water undertakers. This has been done before. Your Lordships will remember that the Kent Joint Advisory Water Committee Order, 1958 occupied a considerable amount of Committee time in this House and in another place. There is provision under that Order for statutory water undertakers in Kent to be represented on the Kent Joint Advisory Water Committee.

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, in the discussion on my previous Amendments, said that the proposal would interpose representatives of a statutory water undertaker between representatives of the ratepayers appointed by the county council and representatives of the taxpayer as appointed by the Government. Again, I would submit that this confirms my view that the members to be appointed by the Ministers are to be representatives of the taxpayers, and that an Amendment is necessary to make provision for representation of statutory water undertakers, which has been accepted in principle by the Government. It was further argued that if the water undertakers were given the privilege of appointing their own representatives, then a similar privilege would be claimed by the National Farmers' Union, the Federation of British Industries and other interests. With the greatest respect, I would suggest that that argument is based much more on expediency than on logic, and that, in any event, the statutory water undertakers are in a special position, in that, like other abstracters, they are obliged to take water, whereas the farmer or the industrialist is not.

To sum up, if the Government accent the principle of representation of the statutory water undertakers some Amendment seems to be required to give effect to the principle. I would suggest, with respect, that no valid or practical reason has been adduced to show why statutory water undertakers should not appoint their own representatives. My Lords, I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 4, line 36, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Lindgren.)

LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE

My Lords, I should like briefly to support this Amendment, in so far as it seeks to recognise the fact that the special obligations imposed on the statutory water undertakings places them in a category different from other interests. I confess that I find it difficult to argue that the only way this can be recognised is to give them the right to appoint the members who are to represent the water supply interests. At the same time the phrase in this clause "qualified in respect of public water supply" does not necessarily mean qualified to represent the interests of the statutory water undertakers in general or those in the area in question. Experience of local conditions, and knowledge of the problems of the statutory water undertakers in the area in question, are clearly very important in this context.

The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, in Committee gave a specific assurance (column 375 of Hansard of December 6 last year) that statutory water undertakers in the area would be consulted when the appointment of a member or members to represent the water supply interests was being considered. Such an assurance is very welcome to the statutory water undertakers, and if a way could be found of writing that into the Bill, I feel that much of the substance of this Amendment would be secured, even though the logic of Lord Lindgren's argument might not be fully answered.

3.17 p.m.

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, said, these two Amendments were put down during the Committee stage—I think in precisely the same terms. We had a long argument and discussion upon them on that occasion. I must confess that I am a little surprised, and a little disappointed, that the noble Lord has felt it necessary to put them down again and re-argue the case. On this occasion he has slightly altered the emphasis of his case. For instance, he did not really refer to the Amendment, which asks the Government to let the statutory water undertaker decide how many representatives there would be on the river authority. Of course, that is completely looked after under Clause 3 (1) where, as a result of the statutory obligation to consult, the Government will constitute these river authorities in accordance with the relative importance of the various interests concerned, after agreeing those numbers with the statutory water undertakers, industry, agriculture, fisheries and so on. So that in respect of numbers, which he has overlooked on this occasion, although it forms part of his Amendment, the fact is that that aspect is already completely looked after in the Bill.

The noble Lord emphasised the question of representation under Clause 7, and still argued that his proposal was a very different thing from appointing people qualified in respect of public water supply. He was asking for direct representation of the statutory water undertakers, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, has pointed out, it is in fact something slightly different. One point is that the Government are trying to get a balanced representation on these river authorities and they do not want people simply to represent specific interests. They want people, qualified by knowledge and experience so far as their particular area is concerned, who will operate as a team and help the river authority to perform its new functions really effectively. We still maintain that the only way to obtain this result is for appointment to be by the Minister himself, so that he can be free, without any prejudice or partiality, to choose the best individuals available. But he will do so only after consultation, as the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, reminded us, with the interests concerned; and that goes for agriculture, fisheries, land drainage and industry as well. We must stand on that, and we cannot agree that there is any case for special representation of statutory water undertakers compared to any other interest.

Another argument of the noble Lord, which he reiterated, was in respect of the finance. He has argued before and does so again now that, because the statutory water undertakers would be contributing very substantially to the new functions of the river authority, therefore they should be able to nominate their own representatives. But quite apart from the fact which he again mentioned, that I made this distinction between the local authorities who are representing the ratepayers, and the other interests who are paying for direct benefits to themselves, I think it is worth mentioning, and worth reminding the statutory water undertakers, that the very great bulk of their abstraction will be made pursuant to licences of right, with which no charge will be associated at the outset for several years; and that, even when charging schemes do come into force, they, above all people, are likely to enjoy a reduced rate of charge because of the contribution made by their works to the fulfilment of the purpose of the river authority in discharging its new function. That, of course, is allowed for under Clause 58, and there is no doubt that the statutory water undertakers will benefit greatly from that clause. So I do not think there is really a case for special representation which they can prove on grounds of finance relative to the contributions of other people.

Then we come to the last argument of the noble Lord, which was on this special position of the statutory water undertakers. Of course your Lordships will remember that this was really the first of a long series of Amendments which were based upon the fact that the statutory water undertakers have a special statutory obligation to provide supplies, particularly for domestic purposes. Therefore, even at this early stage of the proceedings, I think it is only fair to draw your Lordships' attention to a Government Amendment which is to follow Clause 93, in which this particular statutory obligation of the water undertakers is acknowledged. We shall have an opportunity to argue that case fully, not only on the Government Amendment, but earlier than that—probably to-day—on another Amendment, that to Clause 29, by the noble Lord opposite. Therefore I do not propose to embark on that now. But I think that, from the point of view of the special position, that aspect is looked after either under the noble Lord's own Amendment or under a Government Amendment, which of course we prefer, and which we shall argue in due course. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will feel I have again made out my case adequately, and that he has had a fair answer. I trust that in the circumstances he will see his way to withdrawing this Amendment.

LORD LINDGREN

My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, is surprised and disappointed, but one does feel that this is a matter of principle. After all, there is an argument on behalf of the Minister on the basis of the county council and county borough representatives, and the independent ministerial representatives, inasmuch as they represent two very large interests: the first, that of the ratepayer, and, the second, that of the taxpayer. But it is equally true that, so far as the statutory water undertakers are concerned, they are exceedingly large contributors to the resources of the river board, and upon the effective and efficient working of the river board the success of the water undertaker very largely depends.

While it is true that the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, has said that there will be consultation—and one appreciates that—the wording of the Bill is that the person shall be qualified as having had experience of, and shown capacity in, or otherwise as having special knowledge of, matters relating to water supply. I know some very admirable persons who are consultant water engineers, and many admirable persons who have been associated with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government in the past, who one could say are extremely well-qualified and extremely knowledgeable so far as water supply is concerned, but as regards actual experience of the functioning of a statutory water undertakers and of the administrative difficulties they have to face, they do not have the same direct knowledge or the same responsibility.

I think equally of a retired Army officer who has been abroad using his experience in the Royal Engineers or somewhere else to provide local water supplies. One does not think that that is the type of representation there ought to be. There is this difficult point. If the Government go to a group of statutory water undertakers and say, "Here we have Mr. X or Brigadier Y. We propose to put him on the authority as representing statutory water undertakers", it is extraordinarily difficult for a group of business people or local authorities associated with a statutory water undertaker to say, "This fellow does not really represent us and we are going to object to his being appointed." The most they can say is, "We do not think he really can represent us, but we are not going to object to his coming on to the authority. All we hope is that when he is here he will see our point of view and do the best he can for us." Therefore, I really do not think the Government have made their case. But in view of the position taken up by the Ministers in charge, there is really very little left for me to do other than to ask that the Amendment should be negatived. I certainly will not press it to a Division.

On Question, Amendment negatived.

3.28 p.m.

THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE moved, in subsection (3) (e) to leave out "Minister" and insert "President of the Board of Trade". The noble Earl said: My Lords, as compared with the case of the statutory water undertakers, the case for appointing suitable members of a river authority to represent many different kinds of industry seems still stronger, because although the Minister of Housing and Local Government stands behind the statutory representatives (who, after all, were first in the field and have the duty of public supply), those who are going to be members representing various industries will have requirements for water which so far are greater than the total requirements of the statutory water undertakers. It seems to me that their case for having strong representations is greater and yet they have nobody at their back.

Since I put down this Amendment I have made many inquiries. I understand that the official position taken up is that the Government are not in favour of my Amendment. But I would ask whether some formula could be found which would enable the Minister of Housing and Local Government to have (shall we say?) an advisory committee to look after the special desires and requirements of industry. I do not wish to embarrass the Government by pressing this Amendment, because I have found out officially that they do not see eye to eye with me. The last word I would say is: do the Government not think that there should be some formula, such as that the Federation of British Industries should be automatically represented? I beg to move this Amendment, because I want to hear what the Government have to say.

Amendment moved— Page 5, line 5, leave out ("Minister") and insert ("President of the Board of Trade").—(The Earl of Albemarle.)

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, as the noble Earl who has moved this Amendment has said, he realises the two Ministers concerned—that is to say, my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government and also the President of the Board of Trade—have consulted about this matter. They have considered this particular point and still prefer that the provisions of the Bill should remain as they are. The reason is really that in the appointment concerned it is a question of appointing somebody not simply familiar with industry in general, but with industrial water problems in particular—and water affairs come quite clearly under the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, and not under the Board of Trade. Apart from that, the noble Earl has made the point that perhaps there could be some improvement within the Ministry of Housing itself, administratively speaking, in order to strengthen the water side which deals with industry. I think that was the point he was really trying to make. Without saying anything definite, I should like him to realise that we are looking at that particular aspect of the matter, and he can rest assured that the Ministry which I represent will make adequate provision to look after the interests of industrial water users.

LORD HAWKE

My Lords, I found my noble friend's answer reasonably convincing, but, at the same time, it seems to produce a certain anomaly in that in Clause 8 he is not carrying out the precepts which he is laying down for Clause 6. There, in Clause 8, where there is any question of anybody wanting to sail boats on any of this water, the Minister of Transport himself appoints the member. Again, when there is any question of coal interests being involved—and presumably it is only coal interests qua water that are involved—the member is not appointed by his Minister but direct by the National Coal Board. I should have thought that the two arguments were inconsistent, and that if he accepts the premises which he has laid down in reply to my noble friend he ought to amend Clause 8 to have these members appointed by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, too.

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, I am not sure that I am entitled to reply again on Report stage.

LORD HAWKE

Yes, you are.

LORD HASTINGS

But, with the leave of the House, I would merely point out that the two cases which the noble Lord has mentioned refer to statutory authorities, and, of course, industry is not that.

THE EARL OF ALBEMARLE

With permission, I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 11 [Maps of river authority areas]:

THE JOINT PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY, MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE, FISHERIES AND FOOD (LORD ST. OSWALD)

My Lords, this drafting Amendment has two purposes, which I will explain only briefly. The first part of the new subsection—that is, from the beginning down to the word "respectively" in the fifth line—removes any doubt as to whether a map prepared under the clause is a "document" within the meaning of the Documentary Evidence Act, 1868, as applied to the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. The second part of the subsection—that is, from the words "and that Act" in the fifth line down to the end—provides that a map prepared by the Minister of Housing and Local Government and the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food jointly under subsection (1) of the clause can be proved by production of a copy certified by the appropriate officer of either Ministry. My Lords, I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 10, line 49, at end insert: ("(9) Any map sent to a river authority under this section shall be taken to be a document within the meaning of the Documentary Evidence Act 1868, as applied to the Minister and to the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food respectively; and that Act, as so applied, shall have effect in relation to any map sent under subsection (1) of this section as if it had been issued by each of those Ministers acting separately and not jointly.").—(Lord St. Oswald.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 12:

Establishment and principal functions of Water Resources Board

12.—

(2) The Water Resources Board shall be charged with the duty of advising river authorities with respect to the performance of their new functions, and of advising the Minister with respect to the performance of his functions under section 1 of the Water Act 1945, as extended by section 1 of this Act, and with respect to such other matters (if any) as may be referred to the Board by the Minister.

(3) Without prejudice to the last preceding subsection, it shall be the duty of the Water Resources Board— (a) to consider in what way action needs to be taken for the purposes of conserving, re-distributing or otherwise augmenting water resources, either in England and Wales generally or in relation to any particular river authority area, and to give to the Minister (and, where the Board consider it appropriate, to other Ministers) and to river authorities the earliest possible notice of action which in the opinion of the Board will be needed for any of those purposes, together with such recommendations with respect thereto as may appear to the Board to be necessary or expedient; (e) to encourage and assist river authorities in the formulation of such plans as the Board think necessary for augmenting water resources in a river authority area by transferring water from another river authority area;

3.35 p.m.

LORD JESSEL moved, in subsection (2), after "functions" (where that word first occurs), to insert— and in relation to their functions of river pollution with respect to the maintenance of the quality of the water

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is quite a short point. On the Committee stage of the Bill the noble Lord, Lord Champion, moved an Amendment to charge the Water Resources Board with the duty of advising river authorities on all their functions, not just their new functions. In resisting the Amendment, my noble friend Lord Jellicoe expressed his conviction that it would be a mistake to require the Water Resources Board to advise the new authorities over the whole range of the river boards' existing functions. I can see the merits of this argument, and to-day I am not pressing for all that the noble Lord, Lord Champion, asked for on the Committee stage. I feel, however, that the question of pollution is one existing function which should come within the scope of the Board.

It is of interest to note that this function is in any case the duty of the Minister of Housing and Local Government. My noble friend Lord Jellicoe—and here I quote from Hansard of December 11, 1962, [Vol. 245 (No. 21) col. 602]—said: …that quality of water as well as quantity is an element in water conservation policy. He felt, however, that there was no need to spell this out further in the Bill. My Lords, industry feels that this is a matter of some importance. If, as is generally conceded, quality is part of water conservation, then it must fall within the Therefore, having heard that, I should stress here that quality rather than purity for purity's sake is the important factor. So I think it would be appropriate for the Board to issue a policy statement on the principles to be observed by the river authorities in carrying out these functions. I suggest, therefore, that it would be much better if this duty were written into the Bill. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 11, line 7, after ("functions") insert ("and in relation to their functions of river pollution with respect to the maintenance of the quality of the water").—(Lord Jessel.)

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I should like straight away to assure my noble friend that we, of course, attach great importance to this question of the quality of water. We realise, in particular, that for industry the quality of this valuable product is often just as important as its quantity. In fact, if I may cap my noble friend's quotation, at our Committee stage I stated quite categorically, in the column after that to which he referred: …we fully recognize—and here I come back to what I have just said—that the Board in discharging their conservation responsibilities must have regard to quality as well as quantity". I am quite prepared to stand on those words.

Nevertheless, I cannot recommend your Lordships to accept my noble friend's Amendment, and for two reasons. In the first place, the Water Resources Board, if they were to discharge the duty this Amendment would lay upon them, would, I suggest, need to concern themselves with the day-to-day exercise by river authorities of their prevention of pollution powers—to interest themselves in individual applications for consent to discharge effluents. That is because anti-pollution work is essentially a matter of case work. It is true there is what is known as the Royal Commission standard, a dilution factor, but that is not an overall panacea. Each application for discharge of effluent must be dealt with on its own individual merits. The only way for the Water Resources Board effectively to advise would be by dealing with individual applications; and that is not the sort of job with which the Water Resources Board should properly be concerned. The Board should be concerned with the water quality as well as water quantity, but their concern should be overall and strategic, and they should not be required to exercise directly day-to-day supervision over the river authorities in their discharge of antipollution duties. If they were to do so there would be a clear risk of confusion between their advice activities and the exercise by my right honourable friend, the Minister of Housing's appellate function under the various river pollution Acts.

My second objection to the Amendment is the reference in it to the maintenance of the quality of water. The objective of the various pollution Acts is to secure an improvement in water quality and such improvements are being made. With many of our badly-polluted rivers the status quo is not nearly good enough. It would be wrong, therefore, to put the Board under a duty—as this Amendment would—to concern themselves only with the maintenance of water quality. I would readily grant that the Board should have a locus standi in matters of water quality. I would submit, however, that this is better secured by the Amendment which I am just about to move than it is by my noble friend's Amendment.

If Amendment No. 7 is accepted, the Water Resources Board will—as I shall try to explain—need to concern themselves with matters of water quality and with matters of water pollution. My noble friend can be assured that where the Board consider action to improve the quality of water is necessary they will be able to say so. More important, if the Minister agrees with them, he will, under Clause 95 of this Bill, be able to make certain that the river authorities take the necessary action. Those are the reasons why, whilst being not unsympathetic to the purpose behind it, I cannot recommend that the Amendment be adopted by your Lordships.

LORD MOLSON

My Lords, we have listened to a very subtle argument from the Minister of State and I am bound to say that I am a little surprised that the Government are taking the view that they are. He has made it plain that he entirely agrees with the purpose that my noble friend, Lord Jessel, has in mind. He contemplates that, in their general strategic responsibilities, the Water Resources Board will, in fact, concern themselves with the quality of water. Therefore, having heard that, I would suppose he might be willing to accept the Amendment, or at any rate the spirit of the Amendment, with a view to providing for it to be spelt out in this Bill. The argument he has used against it is that if the Water Resources Board are directed specifically to deal with this matter from a strategic point of view they will find themselves obliged to deal with individual minor cases. Well, my Lords, the Government are advised by those who are concerned with the drafting of Bills, and we must, I suppose, assume that the purpose of my noble friend, Lord Jessel, will be achieved but that it is undesirable to incorporate it in words in the Bill. I must say I remain sceptical about it, but we must rely upon the Government's assurance.

LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH

I am rather pleased to learn that the noble Earl has turned down this Amendment. It would seem both remarkable and ridi- culous, on the face of it, if one simply looked at it from this point of view. The existing river boards have been looking after pollution of water for the last twelve years. They therefore have become skilled operatives in dealing with pollution. If they have not, then they have missed the bus. But to invite the Water Resources Board, who have had no knowledge of or contact with polluted water or clean water, or cleaner water, to advise how to do it those who have been doing the job for twelve to fourteen years does seem rather ridiculous. The noble Lord who moved the Amendment may have something deeper and more profound in his mind than I can see; but if there is nothing deeper or more profound than the simple argument as to whether we should invite the Water Resources Board, with no knowledge of pollution, to advise those who have had twelve to fourteen years' experience of pollution, then I am sure the noble Earl is quite correct when he rejects this Amendment.

LORD JESSEL

My Lords, in spite of the unexpected and powerful support of my noble friend Lord Molson, I am going to withdraw this Amendment, because I am convinced by the noble Earl's argument. I shall be interested to hear what he has to say on his next Amendment, No. 7, which he assures me will partly cover the principle I have in mind. I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

EARL JELLICOE moved, in subsection (3) (a), after "resources" to insert: or of securing the proper use of water resources".

The noble Earl said: My Lords, this Amendment would amend paragraph (a) of Clause 12 (3) so that it would be the duty of the Water Resources Board to consider in what way action needs to be taken for the purpose of conserving, redistributing or otherwise augmenting water resources or of securing the proper use of water resources, either in England and Wales generally, or in relation to any particular river authority area,…". This would bring this clause into line with Clause 4 which provides for a similar duty to be laid upon each river authority.

Two major results will flow from the inclusion of these words in Clause 12 (3), if your Lordships decide to include them. In the first place, it is quite clear that securing the proper use of water must embrace securing economy in the use of water. Your Lordships will remember that my noble friend Lord Molson moved an Amendment at Committee, the purpose of which was to give the Board powers to advise the Minister on measures to ensure economy in the use of water. In my reply I accepted the view that economy in the use of water was an important aspect of water conservation; and my noble friend withdrew his proposed Amendment on my undertaking to consider the matter further. He has been kind enough to propose an Amendment to my Amendment now. In my view, noble Lords were quite right to stress the importance of this matter during our Committee stage; and I trust that this Amendment, which makes it clear that it will be the duty of the Board to consider measures leading to economy of the use of water, meets their point, despite my noble friend's further Amendment.

The second result which will flow from the inclusion of these words in Clause 12 (3) is that it will now be clearly open to the Board to concern themselves with questions relating to the quality of water resources. That is the point to which I referred in replying to my noble friend's Amendment just now. The words "securing the proper use of water resources" would clearly include the earmarking of resources of a particular quality for uses to which that quality of water was suited. May I give an example? It may be rather absurd, in a water deficiency area, for an industrialist to use potable water to wash down the backyard of his factory, since that water may be badly needed by domestic consumers. With that sort of consideration in mind, some statutory water undertakers now supply non-potable water to some, but not all, industrial consumers—in fact, too few. This is the sort of thing which, under Clause 4, my right honourable friend wants the Board to encourage and which, under Clause 12 (3) (a), as amended, the Water Resources Board, in its turn, should encourage the river authorities to encourage.

In Committee, I gave the reasons why we felt that my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government must retain the functions of the central authority under the Prevention of Pollution Acts, largely in the light of his appellate responsibilities in this field. Nonetheless, if this Amendment is adopted, it will be open to the Board to make such investigations as they think proper as regards water purity and thereby as regards water pollution. They will be able to bring to the notice of the river authorities and the Minister the results of such investigations, together with their recommendations for action—and given Clause 14 (1) (c) of this Bill, such recommendations will not, or need not, be merely platonic. In this context, I would also draw the attention of noble Lords to Amendment No. 20. Taken together, I suggest that these two Amendments will widen the scope of the Board's duties in relation to water pollution and purity, broadly speaking, in the way which noble Lords who took part in our Committee stage discussion on this point had in mind. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 11, line 16, after ("resources") insert ("or of securing the proper use of water resources").—(Earl Jellicoe.)

LORD MOLSON moved, as an Amendment to the Amendment, after "proper" to insert "and economic". The noble Lord said: My Lords, I beg to move my Amendment to the Amendment. Let me begin by expressing my gratitude, and that of my noble friends, to the Government for what they have done in the way of seeking to make it clear in this Bill that it will be one of the responsibilities of the Water Resources Board to consider economy. I have observed also the skill, and perhaps I might say economy in words, of the draftsman in seeking by the word "proper" to include the important point my noble friend Lord Jessel has recently made with the other point which I made about economy.

If I understand the idea of the Parliamentary draftsman, it is that the word "proper" here will include both the quality of water and the avoidance of any misuse of water. As we recognise, it also has the merit of elegance. The responsibilities imposed upon the Water Resources Board under this Amendment will be identical with those imposed under Clause 4 of the Bill upon the river authorities. However, I still ask the Government to accept the additional words "and economic" because I think that it is extremely important, not only that the drafting shall be accurate, but also that the attention of the public and of the Water Resources Board should be drawn to the importance of economy.

I am not going to repeat what I said on Committee stage, but I would remind my noble friend the Minister of State that in the course of his reply he mentioned on three separate occasions how much importance the Government attach to reasonable economy in the use of water, and he has just given another example: that where there is a shortage of potable water industrialists should not use for industrial purposes water which is suitable for domestic purposes. I have again to say very much what I said on the previous Amendment. That is, that while I am reasonably satisfied that the Government, with the expert advice they command, are quite right in supposing that the word "proper" does include economy, I still think that there would be nothing lost, and much gained, if they were prepared to accept this Amendment to their Amendment, since it is thoroughly in accordance with the spirit of the speech which the Minister made on Committee stage.

As I see the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, apparently leaving the Chamber, I would say, in reply to his gentle criticism of my last observations upon this subject, that the Amendment that has now been moved does, I think, clear me of the charge he made. He suggested that it was unwise, unnecessary and undesirable that the Water Resources Board should be given any responsibility for the giving of advice to the river authorities on a matter with which they have dealt so well in the last fourteen or fifteen years. As has been made plain by my noble friend the Minister of State, under the Amendment which we are discussing the Water Resources Board should give advice to the river authorities upon the matter of the quality of water. Therefore, while thanking my noble friend for going so far as he has done, and making it quite plain that I should not think of trying to divide the House upon this matter, I would say to him that I hope, having gone so far, he can just go a little further and accept the two simple and innocuous, but I think valuable, words "and economic".

Amendment to Amendment moved— After ("proper") insert ("and economic").—(Lord Molson.)

LORD CHORLEY

My Lords, I should like to add a word of support to the argument of the noble Lord who has just addressed the House. I agree with him that technically the Government Amendment covers this point, but sometimes it is very important to underline policy in an Act of Parliament, and my impression is that up and down the country a tremendous waste of water is going on. The more we do at headquarters (so to speak) to prevent this happening, the better; and I am sure that this is one way of doing it. My mind was very much brought to this matter some years ago, when I took part in an inquiry into a proposal to raise the level of a lake in the Lake District which is used as a reservoir. The proposal was being supported by a local authority already using water from this lake to a very substantial extent. In fact, they were just about the highest users of water in the country per head of population, yet they had no particular industry which called for water, and it was a puzzle to everybody why they should be taking this line.

We were advised by a water engineer of some eminence who was assisting us with our case that it was obvious to him, having had a look round, that their apparatus, which had been installed many years before, had not been brought up to date, and that in fact they were losing a great deal of the water they were already taking from this reservoir lake. He indicated that they could get all the extra water which they said they required by examining their pipes and seeing that the water did not leak away. That may seem a simple case; but we had interesting talks with this man, and he said that it was symptomatic of what was going on, to his knowledge, in many parts of England. It seems to me—and I hope it does to the noble Earl—important that the need for stopping this sort of thing should be emphasised in this important Bill. For that reason, I support the case made by the noble Lord, Lord Molson.

LORD HAWKE

My Lords, I think that my noble friend Lord Molson has a real point here, because by inserting these words one is strengthening the hands of the Water Resources Board when the river authorities come to discuss schemes with them. In the drier parts of England we are short of precipitation. There are large parts of England where water supply could be considerably increased, but only at vast capital cost, and our capital resources are distinctly limited. I have been reminded in my local paper that there threatens to be a shortage in my part of the world next summer owing to wastage from burst pipes and so on. When the river authorities come to discuss the question of capital expenditure with the Water Resources Board, the Board will have their hand immensely strengthened if they can point out that by Statute they are given a duty to look after economy in water, as well as the proper use thereof.

4.3 p.m.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Molson advised me that, having gone so far, I should perhaps go a little further. That, if I may say so, was rather improper advice, and also dangerous advice, both inside and outside this House, at times. But having said that, and having said that I should like to meet noble Lords who have spoken to this point, I am still, I confess, a little puzzled by this Amendment. I am puzzled, in the first place, by the use of the adjective "economic". Strictly, "economic", as I understand it, is the adjective of which the noun is "economics", but I gather that "economic" is sometimes used in the sense of "economical"; and the Concise Oxford Dictionary, which I consulted this morning, tells me that "economical", in its turn, is sometimes used in the sense of "economic". But whichever meaning we attach to this little word, I suggest that it is not really appropriate in this paragraph. The nice and economical, or economic, little word "proper" does, I submit, everything that is needed.

I argued just now in support of this Amendment why I think that is so, and I will not repeat the argument, save to say (and here I think I am repeating what my noble friend said) that it would embrace "economical" and, for that matter, "economic" My noble friend may well say: "Well, there is no harm in that, and there might be advantage in dotting the i's and crossing the t's here", which is the argument used, I think, by the noble Lord, Lord Chorley. I think there is also a danger here, because if the words "and economic" were to be inserted after "proper" they would appear to have a restrictive, and I think possibly too restrictive, effect, limiting the Board to considering only those uses of water which are both proper and economic. The two may aften go together, of course; but there may be uses of water which are perfectly proper without being economic; and, indeed, there may be uses which are economic without being altogether proper. All in all, I would suggest that this Amendment to the Amendment is unnecessary, and also that it might have its possibly undesirable consequences. Therefore, I will be, at least at this stage, rather timid and not accept my noble friend's invitation to take that dangerous extra step further.

LORD MOLSON

My Lards, without being wholly convinced by the ingenious argument that has been put forward by my noble friend, and having said that I am deeply grateful to him for having gone so far and conceded the substance of what I asked for on the Committee stage, I beg leave to withdraw the further Amendment which I have moved.

Amendment to Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

4.7 p.m.

LORD CONESFORD moved to add to subsection (3) (e): or by using sea-waver and extracting the salt, or otherwise".

The noble Lord said: My Lords, when this clause was before us on the Committee stage a little over two months ago I raised a matter of some importance on the Question that the clause stand part. I drew the attention of noble Lords to the great and growing importance of obtaining an increase in our water supply by using sea water and extracting the salt. Admittedly, that will be a matter of great importance in the future, and I think the not very distant future. There was, I believe, general agreement on the importance of that matter, but the question was whether it was already adequately dealt with in the Bill. I pointed out that there was no express mention of it anywhere, but I admitted the possibility that obtaining fresh water from the sea might be covered by the words to be found in lines 15 and 16 of page 11, "otherwise augmenting water resources". Nevertheless, I gave reasons for doubting whether those words were altogether sufficient and said it was desirable that the matter should be placed beyond all doubt.

My noble friend Lord Jellicoe, in a not unsympathetic reply on that occasion, promised that he would give the matter further consideration. He has fully carried out that promise, because, if I may refer by way of anticipation to it, noble Lords will find that Amendment No. 115 on the Marshalled List deals with this specific point. It deals with it by adding some words to the Interpretation Clause. Let me tell the House at once that I thank my noble friend for that Amendment, which we cannot discuss in advance but which I believe to be a good Amendment. The Amendment I am now putting forward is not an alternative to that one, but is, I suggest, a good addition to it. The Amendment which my noble friend will move when we come to Amendment No. 115 makes it quite clear that those words, "otherwise augmenting water resources", wherever they appear in the Bill, cover this use of salt water and extracting the salt.

So far so good. But I have two reasons why I should like the Amendment which I am now moving to be made in the present clause. I think it is rather undesirable that the Water Resources Board, when referring to the clause in the Bill which summarises their duties and functions, should find no mention at all of the use of sea water, and that it should be left without mention until one reaches about the hundredth page of the Bill. I should have thought it was desirable that in the first clause mentioning the functions and duties of the Water Resources Board there should be some reference to this topic. That is my first reason: the desire to incorporate quite early in the Bill an express mention of this use of sea water.

My second reason perhaps is equally important. If noble Lords will look at the existing words in Clause 12 (3) (e), they will find the only specific mention of what use is to be made of the duty of augmenting water supplies. It is perfectly true that subsection (3) is introduced by the words: without prejudice to the last preceding subsection, it shall be the duty of the Water Resources Board. Then we come to the only paragraph dealing specifically with augmenting, paragraph (e), and that says: to encourage and assist river authorities in the formulation of such plans as the Board think necessary for augmenting water resources in a river authority area"— so far so good; and then they add these words— by transferring water from another river authority area. That is one method, but only one method. I think my noble friend will see the force of the argument that either there should be no restriction to one single method of augmenting—in which case those words should be omitted—or you should mention other methods as well, and that is what my present Amendment seeks to do. I propose to add to the words: by transferring water from another river authority area the words or by using sea water and extracting the salt, or otherwise". I regard that as a useful mention in this clause of what we all, including the Minister, agree is a very important subject, instead of simply leaving it to the admirable Amendment which he proposes later to move in the Bill. My Amendment now is in no sense an alternative to that Amendment. I suggest it usefully supplements it. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 11, line 46, at end insert the said words.—(Lord Conesford.)

LORD WILLIAMS OF BARNBURGH

My Lords, I do not want to do anything less than the noble Lord, Lord Molson, desires—that is, to be economic in the use of words in this debate—but I should like to ask the noble Earl in charge of the Bill, and the noble Lord who moved the Amendment, whether, assuming those words were embodied in the Bill giving power to a river authority or a Water Resources Board to advise the river authority to start experimenting with the desalting of sea water, he would expect that to be done, if at all, by a single river board or a combination of all the 26 river boards, after indulging in a good deal of research? Perhaps the noble Earl can tell us exactly what the experience has been of those on ships and other vessels who have been experimenting with the desalting of sea water. My information is that it is a very costly proceeding. It may ultimately be found to be necessary, but if such an undertaking is bound to be entered upon by any river board, or a number of combined river boards, then I think the Minister in charge of the Bill would have to give the power, with the appropriate restrictions in expenditure, before any single board or combination of hoards would enter on an operation of this description.

We all agree with the noble Lord that wherever our water supplies can be augmented where water is in short supply, then we ought to leave no water unturned, instead of no stone. In the meantime, perhaps the noble Earl will tell us what previous experiments have shown with regard to desalting of water in terms of expense, and whether he thinks that any river board ought to be encouraged to incur vast expenditure unless and until they know much more about it than appears to be known at the present moment.

LORD HAWKE

My Lords, at first sight my noble friend's Amendment may seem a trifle fantastic, but I do not believe it is in the least fantastic. I understand that the extraction of fresh water from the sea is a viable proposition in the drier lands such as the Persian Gulf. My impression is that the price has come down to comparatively few shillings per thousand gallons. That, of course, is based on cheap oil fuel. I do not think it is a question of individual experiments having to be made by any river authority. The experiments have all been done. It is a question of whether their needs are such to warrant the purchase and erection of this form of apparatus. In that case, I should think the Water Resources Board was the right body to advise them. I was going to ask my noble friend to give precisely the same information as was asked for by the noble Lord opposite—whether he has the latest figures about the cost of extraction, and which cities in the world are at the moment being supplied with water from the sea.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I am obliged to my noble friend for having ventilated this matter in Committee and for having reverted to it now, since it gives me the opportunity to say that, as is often but, unfortunately, not invariably the case, there is, I believe, no real difference between the Government and the noble Lord on this matter. For our part, we agree that the desalination—I use that word with a certain amount of reluctance, as I expect it will be sat upon very sharply by my noble friend—the desalting of salt water, whether it comes from the sea or underground, as a means of augmenting water resources, is certainly a matter which ought to be within the scope of both the Water Resources Board and the river authorities. As I made clear on Second Reading and again on Committee, we agree that this is an important matter and, of course, likely to become more important in the future.

I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, and my noble friend Lord Hawke, whether I could give any details about the economics of the various processes. It would probably be imprudent for me to venture too far into this field, and what I should like to do is to refer my noble friends to an extremely interesting study of the whole matter which the Water Research Association have initiated and a report of which they have published. This gives a very comprehensive and extensive summary of the position. Broadly speaking, I think the conclusion is that at the present time these processes are economically viable only in the rather special circumstances of a very dry place like Kuwait, which not only is extremely dry but also has extremely cheap fuel immediately available.

LORD HAWKE

My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend? Since making my few remarks I have been reminded that Guernsey has a plant of this nature, and I wondered whether he knew of the results there?

EARL JELLICOE

I was aware that there is a plant in Guernsey, but that, again, is a rather special case, as it is only there for the tourist overload, as it were, and not for the normal water supplies of Guernsey. I am speaking very much subject to correction, but I think the economics of the Guernsey plant run out at something like 15s. per thousand gallons, or something of that order, which is extremely high compared with the normal water supplies. I think it would be unwise of me to venture too deeply into that field but I would, in reply to the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Barnburgh, merely say that experimental work of this sort could, of course, be assisted by the Water Resources Board under Clause 82 (b) of this Bill. It would not necessarily therefore fall entirely upon the river authority, if your Lordships were to accept my noble friend's Amendment.

But, having said that, I should like to draw your Lordships' attention to Amendment 115, to the Interpretation Clause of this Bill, which is Clause 117, whose beauties my noble friend has just unveiled to us. I know that probably I am trespassing and likely to be out of order in referring to that, but I hope I may be allowed to do so in the context of this Amendment, because Amendment 115 would have very much the same effect, we believe, as my noble friend's, and, since it is a Government. Amendment, he may not be altogether surprised to hear that I prefer this Amendment to his. I would also go on to say why I do not think it should be supplemented by his and why I prefer our Amendment. In the first place, it is self-supporting. My noble friend's Amendment, however, would not really stand up on its own.

LORD CONESFORD

My Lords, may I interrupt my noble friend? Possibly I can shorten this by saying that I also prefer it. If I had to choose between the two I should choose the Government Amendment, which has a more general application. The only point I think the House need trouble him about is why we cannot have mine as well.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I think there are three possibilities here: to choose the noble Lord's Amendment alone, which I think we now need not; to choose the Government's Amendment alone; or to choose a combination of the two. I would suggest that there are two reasons why the second choice—the Government Amendment alone—would be the preferable one. The first reason is that my noble friend's Amendment is less comprehensive in that it covers only seawater, and therefore is not entirely preferable to Amendment 115, which is drafted so as to embrace brackish water in estuaries and saline water in underground strata. I think it is important that those two other types of salt water should be included. My second reason is that I do not think that Clause 12 (3) is really the best place to have an Amendment of that sort. That clause was drafted to lay particular emphasis on the part to be played by the Water Resources Board in assisting river authorities to get together and formulate schemes for transfer of water, and it seemed to us a duty the responsibility for which the Water Resources Board were ideally equipped to discharge.

I do not think it would be right to single out schemes for treating salt water in a similar way. It would be far better to view this matter as one of the Board's general responsibilities, and that is how it would be viewed if and when Amendment 115 is accepted—and here I come back to what my noble friend has said. He said that unless his Amendment is accepted, if I understand him aright, we should not have in Clause 12 of the Bill any reference to augmenting water resources until we came to paragraph (e). In fact, we have a previous reference in paragraph (a) subsection (3) of that clause. The augmenting which comes there would be qualified by Amendment 115, and it is our view that it would be far better if the general responsibility for considering proposals for augmenting water resources, which would embrace desalination, came right at the start rather than be singled out in a not very appropriate place in paragraph (e). In short, I would suggest that our excellent Amendment gives my noble friend all, and indeed more than, he would obtain by his otherwise admirable Amendment, and I would suggest that it would be better if our Amendment were to stand alone, when we get to it, and not be supplemented by his more limited one.

LORD CONESFORD

My Lords, first, may I thank my noble friend Lord Hawke for supplementing so well the case for including something on this important matter in the clause? Let me just defend my drafting a little. It was never intended to be sufficient without the Government Amendment to the Interpretation Clause. I suspected that the Government would produce an Amendment to that clause and I suspected that the Parliamentary draftsman would produce something much better than I could produce. But let me say at once that, had he failed to do so, I myself should have put down an Amendment to that Interpretation Clause. But to come to the particular Amendment that I have moved, my noble friend, in his criticism of my words, omits to give any effect whatever to my concluding words, "or otherwise", which would have covered, of course, those other cases apart from sea-water, that he mentioned. Nevertheless, he is quite right in saying that his Amendment, No. 115 in the Marshalled List, gives me substantially that for which I pleaded. In these circumstances, I do not think I should detain the House by pressing this further, and I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 13 [Constitution of Water Resources Board]:

EARL JELLICOE moved, in subsection (1), to leave out "seven" and insert "eight". The noble Earl said: My Lords, the object of this Amendment is quite simple. It is to enable my right honourable friend the Minister of Housing and Local Government to appoint an amenity member to the Board without displacing any member from the Board and thus sacrificing any of the specialist knowledge and skills which I think we should like to see represented there. We consider that there is need for six such specialist skills, but we need an independent chairman. That means seven members of the Board. If we are to have an amenity member we shall need eight. Hence this Amendment. This Amendment is in fact one of a group of amenity Amendments to this Bill which we shall be moving. Whatever noble Lords may feel about the Government on other matters, I hope that they may feel able to agree that these Amendments demonstrate that we mean what we say when we say we really care that the amenity and natural beauty of the countryside are properly safeguarded in this Bill.

During our Committee stage I argued that the safeguards for amenity which we had already written into this Bill were, broadly speaking, adequate. I remain of that opinion. Nevertheless, having listened to the arguments which were advanced during our Committee stage, we considered it right that these safeguards should be buttressed by three further provisions. The first is this Amendment. The second consists of a couple of Amendments, Nos. 18 and 19, relating to minimum acceptable flows. And the third is the important Amendment, No. 48, to Clause 52.

So far as the Board is concerned, this Amendment recognises that we are most likely to get the right answer if the amenity point of view is put at the formative stage of the Board's strategy for water resources and their development. The appointment of this amenity member to the Water Resources Board will in fact correspond to Sir William Holford's membership of the Central Electricity Generating Board and that of Mrs. Pauline Dower, Deputy Chairman of the National Parks Commission, on the British Waterways Board. During our Committee stage the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, whose expertise on these matters we recognise, said [OFFICIAL REPORT, Vol. 245 (No. 21), col. 559]: The point might perhaps be considered again in relation to the central authority. If there were someone who was able to bring these considerations prominently into account at the stage of approval or the shaping of a general plan, that might be another way of meeting the point. That is the point which the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, was urging. I trust that both noble Lords will agree that this Amendment will in fact meet the point.

I wish to emphasise that we did not think it right to lay down in the Bill any particular qualifications for this amenity member of the Board or to require any particular consultations before his appointment. We can if necessary discuss this at greater length when we come in a moment to Lord Chorley's Amendment No. 11, if he wishes to move it. Here I would like merely to point out that no particular qualifications or particular form of consultation prior to appointment is laid down for the other members of the Board. If that is right for the other seven, we think it is right for the eighth. But clearly my right honourable friend will wish to obtain the best and most suitable man who happens to be available. Clearly he will wish to consult with the National Parks Commission, whose distinguished Chairman I am glad to see in his familiar place among the Jacobins on the mountain. In sum, I wish to make one thing crystal clear, and that is that our aim will be to secure somebody of the top rank for this appointment and that there will be no question that the amenity member of the Board will be a sleeping partner on it. I would suggest that the appointment of this additional member to the Board represents an important additional safeguard to amenity in this Bill, and I have much pleasure in moving this particular Amendment.

Amendment moved— Page 12, line 23, leave out ("seven") and insert ("eight").—(Earl Jellicoe.)

LORD CHORLEY

My Lords, I would express our very great appreciation of what the noble Earl has just said. I am sure it will give great encouragement to the whole of the amenities movement. This Amendment and the ones to which he has referred certainly carry us further than I think many of us expected he would go and they do in fact show how much we owe to him, I am sure, behind the scenes, for getting this most valuable amendment of the Bill. He has quoted a very wise remark of the noble Lord, Lord Hurcomb, who speaks with such intimate and long experience of these problems, on the importance of getting really expert advice and understanding of these problems at the earliest possible stage, and some of our Amendments which we put down on the Committee stage were directed to this particular point. I think this Amendment will certainly ensure that that is done and will enable a wise general supervision of the work of the river authorities, from the amenities point of view, to be carried through at headquarters. I do not want to take up time, but I can assure your Lordships and the noble Earl that this Amendment together with the other Amendments to which he has referred will go a great way towards meeting the points we were making and we are very thankful indeed for what he has done.

LORD HURCOMB

My Lords, I should also like to express my appreciation of the length to which the noble Earl has gone in meeting what I regarded as the very legitimate apprehensions of those interested in amenity in case the Bill were left as it was. It is true that I raised the point primarily in regard to the river authorities themselves. I quite recognise the difficulties of adding to their numbers some members with special qualifications, and that is why I suggested that the point might be better met by dealing with the matter in the constitution of the Water Resources Board. I have an Amendment down later on dealing with a rather narrower point in regard to wild life, which I hope the noble Earl will also see his way to accept. I am sure, as the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, has just said, that the action he has taken will give great satisfaction to all those interested in conserving the beauty of our landscape and the extent of its natural life. There are criticisms of the form of the clause which is still in the Bill as Clause 93. All it does, it is true, is to require all the authorities concerned and the Minister himself to have regard to amenity and the considerations affecting wild life. I share the views of the noble Earl that that clause has considerable value. It would indeed ill become me to criticise either the purpose of the clause or its wording, because it is substantially the clause which I induced my noble friend Lord Mills to insert in his Electricity Bill some years ago. But it is true that all it says is that regard must be had to those considerations and account taken of them.

Many people regard that as weak. Indeed they are apt to quote a story current at the time of the Electricity Bill which I believe to be well founded. It is said that the legal advisers to some of the leading authorities concerned were told that they had not the remotest reason for objecting to the clause because it did not mean a thing. I do not think that is true. I think that every time your Lordships' House and Parliament itself place an injunction upon these authorities to have regard to these matters, they do not take that as meant in a purely perfunctory sense. I will not repeat the arguments I used on Committee stage. It makes a great deal of difference to have someone inside the body itself who not only understands the issues but sees that his colleagues take them into consideration at the right stage—and the right stage is, of course, the earliest possible stage when everything is still in a formative state and plans have not been precipitated into the rigid moulds and are so difficult to alter because any modification is apt to give rise to questions of prestige and therefore becomes controversial. I am very much obliged to the noble Earl for the action he has now taken, which I think will have a real effect in securing a better atmosphere and will ensure that more regard is paid to those considerations than has been paid in too many planning decisions in the past.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I should like to thank noble Lords for the welcome which they have given to this Amendment.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

EARL JELLICOE moved, after subsection (1), to insert: The members of the Board shall include at least one member appointed by the Minister as having special knowledge or experience of matters relating to the conservation and use of water resources in Wales.

The noble Earl said: My Lords, I am moving this Amendment as the result of an assurance which I gave the noble Lord, Lord Champion, on Committee. In the Amendment which the noble Lord then moved he made it clear that what he was seeking to ensure was that there should be a Welshman on the Board. For my part, I said that the Government agreed with him in principle about this and I invited Lord Champion to withdraw his Amendment so that we could see whether we could produce a suitable and watertight one of our own.

At Committee the noble Lord complained that I was twitting him about the drafting of his Amendment. I fear that he may now twit me about the drafting of ours. We all know what we want to write into the Bill here; that is, to ensure that at least one of the members of the Board should be a person of Welsh origin, with special knowledge or experience of matters relating to the conservation of the use of water resources in Wales. I think the noble Lord will agree that we have covered the question of special knowledge and experience quite adequately. He may, however, feel that we have provided not quite so adequately for the Welshness of this member. It has, in fact, not proved altogether easy to find a formula for this which is both suitable and watertight. For example references to "a Welshman" or to a member "drawn from Wales" would not be really satisfactory when we remember the large number of persons born in Wales who now live outside the Principality.

The noble Lord, however, will remember that I have already given two assurances that the aim will be to secure a Welshman for this job. I am glad to repeat that assurance once again. In view of this threefold assurance, and given the wording of the Amendment, I hope that he will agree that it secures what we all want—namely, that on a Board which must clearly concern itself with the water resources of both England and Wales, Welsh opinion and experience should be adequately represented. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 12, line 25, at end insert the said subsection.—(Earl Jellicoe.)

LORD CHAMPION

My Lords, I do not propose to twit the noble Earl or the wording of his Amendment, because I am grateful to him for having produced an Amendment at all which goes some way to meeting my point. I do not regard this as a major Amendment. I cannot imagine for one moment that, when I get home this weekend the bands will be playing, that the harps will be plucked or that choirs will sing. Nevertheless, I regard this exercise as having some importance for Wales, particularly having regard to the special position of Wales in relation to water. I thank the noble Earl for having placed this Amendment on the Marshalled List.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD CHORLEY had given notice of his intention to move an Amendment: ( ) One member of the Board shall be appointed by the Minister after consulting the National Parks Commission.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I put down this Amendment because, looking into the glass darkly, I failed to see that the noble Earl was going to provide us with a grand old-time amender's representative. In the circumstances, we have most adequately got what we have asked for, and I do not see any reason for moving this Amendment.

Clause 14 [Periodical surveys]:

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, this Amendment arises from an undertaking I gave to my noble friend Lord Grenfell on the Committee stage. Normally a period of 20 years will be required in respect of making forward surveys of water resources and water supply; but we do need flexibility so that the Water Resources Board can vary that period, if necessary or desirable. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 13, line 38, after ("resources") insert ("during the period of twenty years from the date on which the survey is completed or such longer or shorter period from that date as the Water Resources Board may in any particular case direct").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 17 [Gauges and records kept by other persons]:

LORD HASTINGS moved, in subsection (1), to leave out paragraph (a) and insert— (a) shall give notice to the river authority of his proposal to instal the gauge, and shall not begin the work of installing it before the end of the period of three months beginning with the date of service of the notice or such shorter period as the river authority may in any particular case allow, and".

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this is an Amendment to meet, partly at any rate, an undertaking given on the Committee stage to the noble Lord, Lord Cawley. He was concerned about the installation of temporary guages. Here, we have made possible the installation of such gauges, by leave of the river authority, much earlier than the three-months period. What we have not yet been able to do is to go a little further. The noble Lord, Lord Cawley, was especially interested in temporary gauges put into streams for testing pollution. I also mentioned the problem of fishermen's gauges which are put in for testing the flow. It has not been possible to insert any greater detail in the Amendment at the moment. The problem is rather more difficult than we expected, especially in respect of gauges for testing pollution. But we are still studying this possibility; consultations are going on, and the point will be dealt with if at all practicable, at a later stage. Meanwhile, I ask your Lordships to accept this Amendment.

Amendment moved— Page 16, line 35, leave out paragraph (a) and insert the said new paragraph.—(Lord Hastings.)

LORD CAWLEY

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord for having taken so much trouble with my two Amendments. I hope he will be able to find some way to meet the second one at a later date. I think it would be disastrous if the river authority should hold up the obtaining of evidence, which in these cases is needed rapidly. It may be that the river authority would not hold another meeting for another fortnight, in which event there would be delay in granting authority. I think it is essential that the necessary authority should be given quickly.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 19:

Minimum acceptable flows

19.— (4) Before preparing so much of any draft statement under this section as relates to any particular inland water, the river authority shall consult—

LORD HASTINGS moved, in subsection (4), after paragraph (a) to insert: (b) any other statutory water undertakers having the right to abstract water from any underground strata, where it appears to the river authority, having regard to the extent to which the level of wafer in those strata depends on the flow of that inland water, that the exercise of that right may be substantially affected by the draft statement in so far as it relates to that inland water.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment has been put down as the result of a promise made to the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, in Committee. Noble Lords will remember that we thought his Amendment rather too categorical and that we should have one in rather more general terms. On consideration, it seems that the only practical way of proceeding is to base consultation on the river authority's assessment of the situation. But of course, if, after this consultation, any statutory undertaker is dissatisfied with the river authority's statement, it will have an opportunity of seeking redress through the ordinary machinery for objection to the draft statement prescribed in Schedule 6. Nevertheless, we hope that the relationship between the river authority and statutory water undertakers will be close enough to take this sort of problem in its stride, particularly in the light of the new clause to follow Clause 93, to which I referred earlier. I hope that the noble Lord will feel that this Amendment is adequate. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 18, line 18, at end insert the said paragraph.—(Lord Hastings.)

LORD LINDGREN

My Lords, I should first like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, for the Amendment which he has put down. It meets the points that I raised in the Amendment that I submitted on the Committee stage in regard to subsection (4). We are most appreciative of the Amendment and express our thanks.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS moved, in subsection 4 (c), after "authority" to insert "harbour authority or conservancy authority". The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment and No. 16 go together. Clause 19 (4) (c), as drafted, requires a river authority to consult any navigation authority having functions in regard to an inland water before preparing a draft statement of minimum acceptable flow. These two Amendments have the effect of adding a requirement to consult any harbour authority or conservancy authority having functions in relation to the inland water. These are the first of a series of Amendments designed to incorporate references to harbour authorities and conservancy authorities in those clauses where at present only navigation authorities are cited. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 18, line 22, after ("authority") insert the said new words.—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, I beg to move No. 16.

Amendment moved— Page 18, line 24, after ("authority") insert ("harbour authority or conservancy authority").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

4.51 p.m.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved to add to subsection (4): (e) any body of persons designated to them for this purpose by the Minister as being representative of a class of persons having the right to abstract water therefrom

The noble Viscount said: My Lords, this is a point which I raised on the Committee stage, and which my noble friend Lord St. Oswald conceded that I had argued carefully, thoughtfully and reasonably—though I am afraid also fruitlessly, so far as any Amendments to meet it are concerned.

In fixing the minimum acceptable flow the river authority, by Clause 19 (5), must have regard to the amount of water needed for agriculture, fishing, industry, navigation, water supply or other purposes. To enable them to see that they have the right amount of water for all those uses, they are required to consult under subsection (4) with various people. They are to consult with the statutory water undertaker who is to deal with the water supply, with any internal drainage board—which is partly to do with agriculture—with the navigation authority, and with the Central Electricity Generating Board. I proposed in my Amendment on Committee stage, and I again propose it in the one which is now on the Marshalled List, that there should be a further requirement for the river authority to consult other bodies designated by the Minister. I have not suggested that any specific body should be so designated, or indeed that any body should be so designated; but simply that there should be power in the Minister to say, for example, that a group of industries in one particular river authority area should be consulted before the minimum acceptable flow is fixed. Indeed, there may be other bodies which come into the same category.

My noble friend rejected this argument, first, because he said that he wanted to restrict consultation to statutory bodies, which frankly I do not understand. Secondly, he said that in any case a sensible river authority would see that all the people I have in mind were consulted beforehand, and that most of the people I have in mind are already represented on the river authority itself. I do not understand that argument either. If we take the case of industry, it is true that in Clause 6 (3) (e) there is a requirement that one member or more than one should be appointed to the river board in respect of industry. So there will be one person, at any rate, on the river authority who knows about industry.

But my Lords, so are there on the river authority persons appointed in respect of fisheries, land drainage, agriculture and water supply. That does not prevent my noble friend from requiring the river authority to consult the statutory water undertaker or the internal drainage board, despite their having their own members on the board; and in cases where there is a navigation problem there will also be a navigation member on the board under Clause 8. It does not seem to me that anybody is left, except the Central Electricity Generating Board, who does my noble friend any good at all on the argument he proposed to put forward. Why, therefore, not accede to this Amendment?

I think my noble friend accepted that it would be essential that the river authority should know what amount of water industry and other big users in their area of that river will require before they fix minimum acceptable flows. If these other people are to be consulted beforehand, why not give the Minister power to designate bodies to enable proper consultation to be carried out in time? I agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, said before; that what is really important in these cases is to get the full facts before the requisite body in good time, and not by means of objections or subsequent inquiries or other means which may come about after the decisions have been taken. That is not the time to do so. The time to do it is in consultation before the minimum accepted flow is fixed. I hope that my noble friend may be a little less adament on this occasion than he was before. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 18, line 26, at end insert the said new paragraph.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)

LORD MERRIVALE

My Lords, I would add only a very few words in support of my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross. I feel that strong grounds exist for the acceptance by Her Majesty's Government of this Amendment, especially in respect of industry. My noble friend referred to the various organisations which had to be consulted beforehand, but I would especially mention the statutory water undertakers and also the Central Electricity Generating Board, to which organisations I propose to refer a little later. As my noble friend very ably said, how can a river authority form a valid opinion of the minimum required flow better than by consulting beforehand major abstracters? I stress the words "major abstracters", because the Government may feel that one could not contact every body. But I feel that there are strong grounds for prior consultation with major abstracters. My contention is that industry is a major abstracter. As the noble Lord, Lord Fleck, stated on Second Reading, industry abstracts over 2,000 million gallons of water per day, a figure which he said (and I have no reason to doubt it) is at least as high as the amount taken by the statutory water undertakers.

My Lords, on the basis of quantity of water abstracted, over 2,000 million gallons a day is a high proportion of the amount of water which was on average abstracted daily during 1960 by Central Electricity Generating Board power stations for circulation purposes. These power stations required the use of 13,000 million gallons of water daily for England and Wales. I feel that industry's share is a very large proportion, if one bears in mind that out of that amount only 3,040 million gallons were taken from inland sources—that is, for direct cooling and for making up any loss by evaporation. I understand (this is only a very tentative figure, for one can only guess in these matters) that by 1970 industry will require in the region of 3,000 million gallons daily, whilst the Central Electricity Generating Board will require less water from inland sources for direct cooling; though it is estimated that in 1970 they will be requiring from all sources a figure around 20,000 million gallons per day.

So, my Lords, I feel that this shows to some extent that the demands of industry are increasing, and that the part they will have to play will be an increasing one. Therefore there are strong grounds for their being consulted beforehand with regard to this question of minimum flows required by the river authorities. In conclusion, I feel that the basis of quantity of abstractions is a valid yardstick by which one should estimate whether or not an organisation should be consulted beforehand.

LORD ST. OSWALD

My Lords, I should like to say at the outset that I appreciate as much as I appreciated before what my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross has in mind; but also that I am convinced, and I hope to convince him and also my noble friend Lord Merrivale, that what we have provided in the Bill will afford ample means for consultation, both formal and informal, and will make for simple and efficient administration at the same time.

I invite noble Lords to consider first the purpose of statements of minimum acceptable flows. These will be in effect the starting points for the management and control of water resources. The minimum acceptable flow must, by virtue of Clause 19 (5)—that is to say, if Amendment No. 19 is accepted—be not less than the minimum which, in the opinion of the river authority, is needed for safeguarding the public health. and for meeting the requirements of existing lawful uses, whether for agriculture, fishing, industry, navigation, water supply or other purposes, and the requirements of land drainage". It will be appreciated that future uses, and the future plans of industry and others, are irrelevant to the determination of minimum acceptable flow within this particular definition.

Noble Lords will also recollect that any person abstracting at the second appointed day—that is to say, when the river authorities begin to exercise their functions—who wishes to secure a licence of right, must apply during the initial period of three months following that day. By virtue of this provision in Clause 33, a river authority will have full details of all existing abstractions which need to be licensed. There will be no question, as I think my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross implied in Committee, and as my noble friend Lord Merrivale seemed to imply to-day, of the determination by a river authority of the minimum acceptable flow "without knowing what industry requires": or, for that matter, what any other class of licensed abstracter might require.

Your Lordships will know that Clause 19 (4) requires the river authority to consult other statutory bodies whose functions are affected by river flows, and it is plainly right that one statutory body should be required to consult another whose functions and interests touch upon its own, or whose experience and knowledge will clearly be of value to that river authority. This consultation will take place before the draft statement is prepared—and quite properly, too, for the reasons mentioned—but we think it is unnecessary to require river authorities to consult individual abstracters or bodies representative of abstracters before the statement is first drafted. The river authority will be equipped with information about their abstracters and uses. In so far as further information will be useful, the river authority will be quite free to approach anyone it wishes. It seems clear to me that a river authority will wish to consult all manner of interests at various stages of the preparation of statements—and will do so—but there would be no advantage in requiring them to consult designated bodies of abstracters before they had something on which those bodies could usefully comment in a given instance.

I have studied my noble friend's point with great care, and I have listened again to-day to his argument, carefully, thoughtfully and reasonably expressed as ever. But I still cannot see how this mandatory consultation with diverse bodies would have any advantage over informal consultation in reducing the amount of objection to be disposed of at the formal stage. Representative groups do not necessarily cut out objections by individuals. But the argument which seems to me altogether convincing is that we can, I am sure, leave it to a river authority, composed as it is of persons knowledgeable in many interests, to display good sense in dealing with the abstracters in the, area, and in being ready to consult informally wherever this is the right course to adopt. I would add that the value of consultation will be reinforced in the minds of river authorities by their desire to do everything possible to avoid having their decisions upset following an objection to the Minister, and so to maintain public confidence and respect. My Lords, for those reasons I cannot feel that my noble friend's Amendment is either necessary or desirable, and I cannot invite the House to approve it.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, my noble friend has said two things which disquiet me very much. The first of them is what I suspected: that a river authority would be very loath indeed to have its decision, once made, upset by the Minister on appeal. This is exactly the reason why I suggested that these consultations should, in the first place, take place very widely before they ever came to any decision at all. The second thing which disquiets me even more—if I heard my noble friend aright—is that I thought he said that the idea of these consultations, or of the fixing of the minimum acceptable flow, had nothing whatever to do with the future plans for industry. Did my noble friend say that?

LORD ST. OSWALD

My Lords, what I said was in this context. The context, as my noble friend will recall, is "the requirements of existing lawful uses".

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

Then if no account is going to be taken of future plans in industry, am I right in supposing that no account is going to be taken of future plans of statutory water undertakings, either? If so, what on earth is the object of consulting them? I do not understand my noble friend's answer at all. It seems to me that either we are going to have this thing threshed

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, the effect of this Amendment is specifically to require the river authority to have regard to the natural beauty of the inland water for which a minimum acceptable flow is under consideration, and to the surroundings of that water. The need to do this was the point urged out properly, with full consultation with all the people who are going to abstract water—admittedly, not on the basis of the most that they might possibly ever want, but at any rate with some eye to their future requirements, which is what I understood to be the point of bringing in the Central Electricity Generating Board, the statutory water undertakers and people of that sort—or, alternatively, there is no need whatever to have any consultation at all, because the statutory water undertakers' existing sources will also have licences of right, so, presumably, will those used by the Central Electricity Generating Board, and so will those used by industry. If my noble friend's contention is really what I think it is, I think that he should strike out this subsection altogether, because it seems to be quite otiose. I do not know whether the Rules of Order in this House will allow my noble friend to answer this, because I am really very worried about it.

On Question, Whether the said Amendment shall be agreed to?

Their Lordships divided: Contents, 13; Not-Contents, 41.

CONTENTS
Albemarle, E.	Cromartie, E.	Merrivale, L. [Teller.]
Cawley, L.	Ebbisham, L.	Moyne, L.
Chorley, L.	Ferrier, L.	Sinclair of Cleeve, L.
Colville of Culross, V. [Teller.]	Lambert, V.	Somers, L.
Cowley, E.

NOT-CONTENTS
Alexander of Tunis, E.	Dundee, E.	Luke, L.
Ampthill, L.	Eccles, L.	MacAndrew, L.
Bossom, L.	Ferrers, E.	Massereene and Ferrard, V.
Boston, L.	Fortescue, E.	Milverton, L.
Chesham, L.	Freyberg, L.	Molson, L.
Clitheroe, L.	Goschen, V. [Teller.]	Newton, L.
Clwyd, L.	Hailsham, V. (L. President.)	Radnor, E.
Coleraine, L.	Hastings, L.	St. Oswald, L.
Conesford, L.	Hawke, L.	Soulbury, V.
Crathorne, L.	Horsbrugh, B.	Strathclyde, L.
Denham, L. [Teller.]	Hurcomb, L.	Stuart of Findhorn, V.
Derwent, L.	Ironside, L.	Swinton, E.
Devonshire, D.	Jellicoe, E.	Tenby, V.
Dilhorne, L. (L. Chancellor.)	Lothian, M.

Resolved in the negative, and Amendment disagreed to accordingly.

upon the Committee by my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross and the noble Lord, Lord Chorley. I then offered to put the words "amenity" or "beauty" into the text of this subsection without losing the word "character", which in our view is rightly there. I hope the noble Lords who are concerned about this matter will feel that, with the draftsman's help, we have now overcome the semantic and philological problem with which we struggled here at our Committee stage. My Lords, I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 18, line 30, leave out second ("and") and insert ("(and in particular, any natural beauty which the inland water and its surroundings may possess) and to").—(Earl Jellicoe.)

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, despite what has just occurred, I am still capable of feeling very grateful to my noble friend in this respect.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

5.20 p.m.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, despite what has just occurred I am moving this Amendment to meet a related point on the general question of amenities. This Amendment is closely linked to the Amendment which your Lordships have just accepted. Its purpose is self-evident. It is to ensure that in proposing a minimum acceptable flow in a particular inland water, the river authority is not confined to the minimum which is necessary for safeguarding public health and for meeting the other requirements set out in the subsection. On the contrary, under the Amendment the river authority may fix a higher flow than those factors alone would demand. This may be necessary as a result of the view which the authority have formed of the character and natural beauty of the water and its surroundings. Like its predecessor, this Amendment is a relatively small one. But I trust your Lordships will agree that, taken together, these two Amendments reinforce the safeguards for beauty and amenity which we are writing into this Bill. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 18, line 31, after ("be") insert ("not less than").—(Earl Jellicoe.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, the purpose of this Amendment is to emphasise that river authorities, and the Water Resources Board, will need to be concerned with water quality as well as with quantity. Obviously, if the quantity is rightly judged, the quality will be adequate also. However, we feel that there is advantage in recognising in this clause that for some uses quality is just as important as quantity. These points were discussed earlier this afternoon. Your Lordships will recall that in Clause 4 it is laid down that part of the duty of a river authority is to take action to secure the proper use of water resources in their area. This Amendment reinforces that duty in relation to statements of minimum acceptable flows. Your Lordships will recall that earlier to-day you approved an Amendment which I moved—Amendment No. 7—the effect of which was to bring the quality of water specifically within the purview of the Water Resources Board. I think that it is likewise right to highlight the importance of water quality in the context of the statement of minimum acceptable flows. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 18, line 33. after ("meeting") insert (" (in respect both of quantity and quality of water)").—(Earl Jellicoe.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment designed to pave the way for more substantial Amendments to Schedule 6 which have been put down following an undertaking I gave during the Committee stage to the noble Lord, Lord De Ramsey. There are a number of similar paving Amendments in the next two clauses: Amendments Nos. 20B, 20C, 20D, 20E, 26A and 26B. I think it might be convenient if your Lordships were to consider them together. I think it might also be convenient if we postponed our substantive discussion of all this until we come to Schedule 6. I realise that we might need to come back to this group of Amendments at Third Reading if we decide, after discussing the Amendments which we shall be proposing to the Sixth Schedule, that these Amendments need to be deleted or amended. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 18, line 39, after ("I") insert ("and, where applicable, Part IV").—(Earl Jellicoe.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 20 [Periodical review of minimum acceptable flows]:

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment formally.

Amendment moved— Page 19, line 22, after ("I") insert ("and, where applicable, Part IV").—(Earl Jellicoe.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment formally.

Amendment moved— Page 19, line 22, after ("II") insert ("and where applicable, Part IV").—(Earl Jellicoe.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 21 [Additional powers of Minister in relation to minimum acceptable flows]:

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment formally.

Amendment moved— Page 19, line 42, after ("III") insert ("and, where applicable, Part IV").—(Earl Jellicoe.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 20, line 8, after ("III") insert ("and, where applicable, Part IV").—(Earl Jellicoe.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 22 [Measurement of level or volume instead of, or in addition to, flow]:

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, this Amendment is little more than drafting and requires only a short explanation Clause 22 (1) makes provision for the measurement of the level or volume of an inland water instead of, or in addition to, the flow of that water in statements of minimum acceptable flows. Clause 21, however, deals with the preparation and the amendment to statements by the Water Resources Board and the Minister of Housing and Local Government respectively; and it is wrong that a river authority should be empowered to determine the action to be taken by the Minister or the Board under Clause 21. This Amendment deletes the reference to that clause in 22 (1). I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 20, line 22, leave out ("to 21") and insert ("and 20").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, this is a similar type of drafting Amendment. Any action of the Minister of Housing and Local Government under Clause 21 (3) must be directed to amending the statement in the form in which it was made. This amendment secures this by including Clause 21 (3) among the provisions to which Clause 22 (2) applies. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 20, line 29, after second ("of") insert ("section 21 (3) and").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

5.28 p.m.

THE EARL OF LUCAN moved, after Clause 23 to insert the following new clause

Saving for British Waterways Board

". Notwithstanding anything in the last preceding section, nothing in this Act shall derogate from any right of the British Waterways Board—

1. (a) to draw water from any of its existing sources of supply; or
2. (b) to sell any of its water."

The noble Earl said: My Lords, this Amendment is for the purpose of eliciting information from the Government, and I will very briefly explain the object of it. As your Lordships know, canals draw their water from reservoirs or from rivers or other sources. They supply water for industry and agriculture and other purposes, a transaction from which they get an important part of their revenue and a part which is becoming more and more important in their finances. The Bowes Committee made a great point of this. The Government, we believe, accepted broadly the recommendation of that Committee in their White Paper (Command 676). I need only remind your Lordships that in 1957 the revenue from the sale of water was nearly £500,000 and I have little doubt that it has been increasing considerably since. That accrues to the British Waterways.

Now the Bill before us, in defining water resources, clearly lists all sources of water, including canals, reservoirs and rivers, and other sources from which the canals draw their water at present. Under the Bill the canal authorities would be unable to draw any water for their waterways without obtaining licences from the appropriate river authorities. It is clearly unthinkable that the canals that have just been reorganised, and from which the Government expect continued service, should be dependent on the good will of all the different river authorities to keep their waterways going. Similarly, it is unthinkable that they should be prevented from selling water or allowing people to abstract water from their waterways on contract, and thus forfeit a sizeable part of their revenue. I cannot help thinking that the Government have had this in mind and are prepared to put Amendments into the Bill to cover it, but I should like to hear from them that that is so. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— After Clause 23 insert the said new Clause.—(The Earl of Lucan.)

LORD ST. OSWALD

My Lords, the noble Earl is quite right in thinking that the Government have had this matter in mind, and I hope he will not wish to press his Amendment when I explain that although setting out to safeguard the rights of the British Waterways Board, it does not take into account two very necessary considerations. The first of these is the interest of the canal-side abstracter. He might hold a contract with the Waterways Board for the purchase of water from them but still be unable lawfully to abstract, because he had no licence from the river authority, or he might hold both documents and face double charges—one levied by the Waterways Board in relation to the contract and one by the river authority in relation to the licence. The second matter is that the Waterways Board own or manage certain rivers as well as canals, and may be in a position to sell water from them. The activities of the Board need to be suitably integrated with those of the river authorities in such cases.

The Government will be putting down an Amendment to introduce a new clause on Waterways Board matters after Clause 114. This will deal with both the matters mentioned above. It has, of course, been discussed with the Board, who are content with it. The noble Earl will be interested to know that the effect of the new clause will be to adapt the licensing and charging provisions of the Bill in relation to canals of the British Waterways Board, so that only the Board is entitled to apply for abstraction licences. Thus the normal charges will largely be waived in respect of such abstractions. The river authority will be licensed, as everywhere else, but only the Board will get new licences. Therefore, they will sell water to their clients, who will pay only one charge—the Board's charge. There will be special provision for existing abstractions. I hope that after what I have said the noble Earl may feel it appropriate to withdraw his Amendment at this stage.

LORD AMULREE

My Lords, before the noble Earl withdraws his Amendment, may I ask him to try to retain one single word from his Amendment, the word "draw" in the first paragraph? In this Bill we have perpetually been told that we are going to "abstract" water. Could we not possibly come back to using the more reasonable term and say we are going to draw water, not abstract it? With all respect to the Civil Service, I am afraid that this is a real good bit of Civil Service journalese with which we might dispense, and we might again say "draw" water, which has a fine background to it.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, what would be the abstracters in that case—drawers?

LORD AMULREE

My Lords, I think that we have a perfectly good precedent, if we read the words of the Bible.

THE EARL OF LUCAN

My Lords, there is something in the suggestion of my noble friend Lord Amulree. "Draw" is better than "abstract"; "drawer" is better than "abstracter" and "drawing" is better than "abstraction". I wish we had the noble Lord, Lord Conesford, with us, because he is our chief guardian of language. I am very glad to hear from the noble Lord, Lord St. Oswald, that we are to have an Amendment to cover this point. I hope that when it comes we shall find it fully satisfactory. I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 24 [Exceptions from general restrictions]:

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, this is an Amendment which we have put down at the request of my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross, whose name is also joined with ours in it though he put it down separately. It follows the wording which was suggested by my noble friend in Committee stage and makes the intention clearer. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 21, line 36, leave out ("the abstraction of any") and insert ("any abstraction of a")—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 25 [Power to provide further exceptions]:

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, Amendments Nos. 25 and 26 go together. Their effect is simply to make perfectly clear the purpose of an order under Clause 25. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 23, line 10, leave out ("in respect of") and insert ("excepting").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, I beg to move the next Amendment.

Amendment moved— Page 23, line 12, at end insert ("from the restriction").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, this Amendment and the next are the Amendments already referred to by my noble friend Lord Jellicoe in connection with preparing the way for the new Sixth Schedule. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 23, line 2.5, after ("I") insert ("and, where applicable Part IV").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment formally.

Amendment moved— Page 23, leave out lines 33 to 37.—(Earl Jellicoe.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 28 [Publication of application for licence]:

LORD ST. OSWALD

My Lords, Amendments Nos. 27 and 28 are in line with Amendments Nos. 15 and 16, already mentioned by my noble friend Lord Hastings. I think that it may be for the convenience of the House if Nos. 27, 28 and 29 are taken together. Clause 28 (1) (b), as drafted, requires a copy of the notice of an application for a licence to abstract water to be served upon any navigation authority having functions in relation to the inland water from which abstraction is proposed.

The effect of Amendments Nos. 27 and 28 is threefold. First, a reference is incorporated to any harbour authority or conservancy authority, as well as to any navigation authority having functions in relation to the inland water. Secondly, the obligation to serve notice on the navigation, harbour and conservancy authorities is confined to any such authorities having functions in relation to the inland water at any proposed point of abstraction. Thirdly, by way of carrying out the promise which I gave to the noble Lord, Lord de Ramsey, an applicant for a licence is required to serve notice of his application on any internal drainage board within whose district any proposed point of abstraction is situated. Consequentially, Amendment No. 29 is a purely drafting change in the definition of the term "relevant locality" and provides a definition of the term "proposed point of abstraction". I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 25, line 12, after ("authority") insert ("harbour authority or conservancy authority").—(Lord St. Oswald.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD ST. OSWALD

My Lords, I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 25, line 13, at end insert ("at any proposed point of abstraction, and on any internal drainage board within whose district any proposed point of abstraction is situated").—(Lord St. Oswald.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD ST. OSWALD

My Lords, I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 25, leave out lines 31 and 32 and insert ("any proposed point of abstraction is situated, and 'proposed point of abstraction' means a place where a licence, if granted in accordance with the application, would authorise water to be abstracted").—(Lord St. Oswald.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 29 [Determination by river authority of application for licence]:

LORD LINDGREN moved, after subsection (3), to insert: ( ) Where the application is made by statutory water undertakers, the river authority shall not refuse to grant a licence if the water is available and is required by the applicants for the purpose of meeting their statutory obligations in relation to water supply; and any dispute which may arise between the river authority and the applicants as to whether the water is available, or is required by the applicants for the purpose of meeting their said obligations, shall be settled by the Minister, who in the case of a dispute as to whether the water is available shall consult the Water Resources Board before reaching his decision.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this again is an Amendment identical to one moved on the Committee stage. It seeks to place an obligation on the river authority to grant an application for a licence made by a statutory water undertaker if the water is available and required by the statutory water undertaker to meet its statutory obligations, and, in the event of there being any dispute, provides for the matter to be referred to the Minister for settlement. In the Committee discussions, the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, put forward three main arguments against the Amendment which was before the Committee. He claimed that the Amendment was contrary to the principle of the Bill, which was to place the control over water resources in the hands of the river authorities; and he agreed, of course, that the decisions of the river authority would be subject to appeal to the Minister. He further suggested that the Amendment ignored the duties placed upon the river authorities.

I submit that this Amendment is not against the principle of the Bill but, on the contrary, is required to complete the machinery of the Bill. The Bill gives the river authorities the necessary power to control the water resources in their respective areas, but, as I read it, it does not place any specific duties upon the river authorities to afford a supply of water. The statutory water undertaker, on the other hand, has the duty to afford supplies to the public. I would suggest that, as the Bill stands, the river authority will have the power without any duty, and a statutory water undertaker will have the duty without any power.

This Amendment seeks to provide the link which is necessary to complete the chain from the conservation works of the river authority to the consumer's tap. If the consumer can call upon the statutory water undertaker, then surely the statutory water undertaker must be able to call upon the authority. I would agree that if, in practice, there is no shortage of water in the particular river basin, the obligation which the Amendment places on the river authority would create no problem. If, however, there is a shortage of water, the Amendment will ensure that priority is given to public water supplies; and in the event of a dispute, automatically the problem will go to the Minister, who, in the prescribed circumstances, will obtain the advice of the Water Resources Board.

The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, said that, in any event, where abstraction by statutory water undertakers would involve the construction of major works requiring the Minister's approval under the Water Act, 1945, the application for the licence was likely to be called in by the Minister under Clause 38. Clause 38 was not discussed on the Committee stage. That was not the fault of the Minister, of course, but of those of us who had the scrutiny of the Bill in our charge. I submit that it is desirable, if the noble Lord will do it, to give some clarification of the circumstances in which the Minister proposes to invoke Clause 38 and remove applications for licences from the jurisdiction of the river authority under Clause 29. If every abstraction by statutory water undertakers requiring works is to be dealt with by the Minister, then it seems to me, at least, that Clause 29, in practice, will be of far less importance than I have taken it to be.

The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, admitted that the claim of the statutory water undertakers for priority of treatment was well founded and was accepted by the Government in so far as the supplies of the statutory water undertakers were required for human consumption. But the noble Lord pointed out that the statutory water undertakers also supplied industry and agriculture, and that it would be wrong to put the industrialists or farmers taking water from the statutory water undertakers in a better position than the industrialists or farmers abstracting water from their own sources of supply. I do not think this argument against the Amendment is very sound. Any industrialist or farmer can require a supply of water from a statutory water undertaker, and, therefore, all have equal opportunity, if they so desire, to get their supplies through the statutory water undertakers. The Water Act, 1945, however, establishes the order of priority by making the first duty of the statutory water undertaker to give a supply for domestic and public purposes; and, secondly, to give a supply for other than domestic purposes if the supply of domestic water is not affected. Thus, I would submit that the Amendment is sound in seeking to establish a priority for abstraction required to meet the statutory duties of the water undertaker, for that statutory duty is fixed under the Water Acts, and the Water Acts themselves would be the priority under which the statutory water undertaker operated.

Under a subsequent Amendment the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, admitting the point of the statutory duties of the statutory water undertakers and the difficulties that they may be placed in, agreed to consider putting down an Amendment at this stage. The noble Lord has placed an Amendment on the Paper, to which reference has already been made, as an addition after Clause 93. If that addition had been completely satisfactory, I would agree that there would have been no need to resubmit this Amendment to the House. But I do not think that the Amendment to which I have referred, and with which we shall be dealing later, meets the points I have raised, because it places no specific enforceable duty upon the river authority to give a licence to a statutory water undertaker. It places on the river authority a duty to have particular regard to the statutory duty of water undertakers to supply water for domestic services, only when the river authority is dealing with an application for the variation or revocation of a licence held by a statutory water undertaker. I would suggest that this implies that the duty of the statutory water undertaker is not to be taken into account in considering any other application for abstractions. It is this question of the balance between the priority for the abstraction for the statutory duty as compared with the other abstractions with which I am trying to deal in the Amendment, which I now move.

Amendment moved— Page 26, line 5, at end insert the said subsection.—(Lord Lindgren.)

LORD SINCLAIR OF CLEEVE

My Lords, this Amendment enshrines a point which is of great importance to statutory water undertakers. I think it goes further than that, in that it is important because it raises, as I see it, a point of principle. I hope I am in order, since the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, himself referred to it earlier this afternoon, in referring to Amendment No. 97, which the Government have suggested might be an answer to the Amendment now proposed. Incidentally, I share entirely the argument in the concluding words of the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, about the conceivably restrictive effect that Amendment No. 97 might have. I do not think that is by any means the intention, but I believe that conceivably it might be restrictive.

We heard earlier this afternoon that the words "have regard to" may have some meaning, and that the words "have particular regard to" may have a shade more meaning. But they are very different from a straightforward instruction, and on this point surely there is a strong case for a straightforward instruction. The requirements of the statutory water undertakers to fulfil their statutory obligation for domestic and public supply are clearly of great importance. I sympathise with the Government in trying to avoid anything like an order of priorities in this Bill, but these statutory obligations are inescapable, and in so far as the statutory water undertakings can prove to the river authorities that such-and-such a quantity is specifically required to meet obligations for domestic and public supply, I think there is an unanswerable case for the licence being given to cover that quantity. I add the words "and public" to the word "domestic" which is used in the Government Amendment, because I think, in normal usage, "domestic" does not cover the requirements of public health—the supply of water for fire fighting purposes, and so on, which are normally held to be covered by the word "public." Therefore, I suggest the words "for domestic and public supply".

For these reasons, I strongly prefer a straightforward instruction such as is suggested in the Amendment to Clause 29, and not a vague instruction "to have particular regard to" later on in the Bill—a straightforward injunction to the river authority not to refuse a licence for such quantity as can be shown to be essential to meet the statutory obligations as I have defined them. Accordingly, I strongly support the Amendment.

5.56 p.m.

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, I am most grateful to the two noble Lords who have spoken for the reasoned, as well as reasonable, manner in which they have moved and supported this Amendment. As the noble Lord, Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, has said, it is an extremely difficult problem, and we have tried to meet the case made by the noble Lords during the Committee stage. As they realise, they have had some difficulty in closing the gap between our slightly different points of view. On the other hand, I am afraid that I cannot quite agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lindgren, when he said that his Amendment is not against the principle of the Bill. We still believe that it is contrary to the basic concept of the Bill and, incidentally, of the Report of the Proudman Committee, which is that there should be comprehensive and unified management of resources by river authorities, subject to a right of appeal to the Minister against the decisions of these authorities on application for licences.

The effect of the noble Lord's Amendment would be to reverse that situation: statutory water undertakings would have absolute priority for water where it was available, and if the river authority did not wish to grant the licence it would be the authority who would have to appeal to the Minister against the diktat of the statutory water undertakers. That would be putting an essential part of the Bill the wrong way round, and doing it only in respect of statutory water undertakers. The noble Lord is asking for this Amendment, of course, because of the need for statutory water undertakers to fulfil their statutory obligations. Therefore, he argues, their needs are more important than those of other people, and they must have priority over the other users.

This is the point, my Lords, where the Government part company with Lord Lindgren and Lord Sinclair of Cleeve, who has recognised the difficulty we have in inserting any such word as "priority" into the Bill. But we have put down this new clause, which requires a river authority to have "particular regard", which is at least stronger than just "having regard", to the statutory duty of the water undertakers to supply water for domestic purposes in all those things done by the river authority in managing water resources which could affect the water undertakers' ability to discharge their duty, and which are not otherwise protected under the Bill. We think that this new clause is correctly placed. It has relevance over a wide range of the provisions of the Bill and is not limited, as is the noble Lord's own Amendment, which comes in Clause 29 and therefore applies only to application for licences. As I say, our Amendment ranges over the whole Bill, and when we come to it we shall see that it is preferable from that point of view.

The noble Lord asked a particular question in respect of Clause 38, and he will note that in Clause 38 the Minister can give a general direction to river authorities or direction in particular cases. I do not think we can assume that there would be a general direction to call in every case affecting statutory water undertakers, but I think it is likely that the Minister would call in an application for a licence where the water undertakers also require an order by him authorising acquisition of land or the erection of works in association with the abstraction. Another example where he might call it in would be a highly controversial scheme which affected amenities—a reservoir in an area of great natural beauty—and the Minister would wish to inform himself at first hand and to hold an open inquiry. Those are cases of the sort where Clause 38 would operate.

Perhaps noble Lords who support this Amendment have not quite appreciated what the effect could be, and I wish to put it to noble Lords that it could have a very awkward effect on the operations of this Bill and go much beyond what they themselves probably intend. This Amendment gives an unqualified priority to any demand voiced by statutory water undertakers for a supply to meet their statutory obligations. It says that if water is available the licence cannot be refused. Presumably that means that if there is water in the stream over and above the quantity required to meet the minimum acceptable flow and the protected rights under the Bill, then the statutory undertakers are to have the water for the asking. I think that is a fair assumption.

But suppose the Central Electricity Generating Board were to come to the river authority and say that it is thinking of doubling a certain power plant with a consequent extra demand for cooling water beginning in two or three years' time. The river authority would take that into account in shaping its licensing policy so that it would have that water available when the demand came; and there might be other cases. The river authorities have to plan ahead; that is one of the main purposes of this Bill. But this piece of planning could be upset by the statutory water undertakers under this Amendment. They are to have the available water if they ask for it, and therefore they could pre-empt what is for them not only the cheapest source of supply—which it is perfectly reasonable for them to want to have—but also the most convenient source of supply. And this is really the most difficult point of all, because if the conditions laid down in this Amendment were fulfilled, then the licence would have to be issued irrespective of the proposed point of abstraction. Therefore it would be no good the Minister or the Water Resources Board making forward-looking plans to transfer the surplus water of a river to a drier part of the country. By the time the plan was ready to come into force the water might as a result of this Amendment have been demanded and taken by some statutory water undertaking.

Noble Lords will see that, as the result of this Amendment, determination of the source of supply and point of abstraction by statutory water undertakers would really rest with the water undertakers, not with the river authority, not even with the Water Resources Board, who are to plan all the future resources of the country, nor with the Minister. Therefore I must repeat that the effect of this Amendment is to deny or make impossible the system of comprehensive planning and management of water resources advocated by the Proudman Sub-Committee and embodied in this Bill, and which the Government quite rightly think is essential to the success of the whole Bill.

Furthermore, the Government think that Clause 29 is not the appropriate place for an Amendment designed to ensure the proper recognition of the statutory duty imposed upon water undertakers; and it is, of course, because of that statutory obligation that the noble Lord is moving this Amendment. This duty we think ought to be borne in mind in other contexts than the consideration of application for licences by the water undertakers. This Amendment overlooks or, at any rate, ignores the duty placed upon river authorities by the Bill under Clause 14. The Government, on the other hand, have fully accepted the point urged by noble Lords that there should be some explicit reference to duties of statutory water undertakers, and in accordance with my undertaking at Committee stage we have put down Amendment No. 97 to deal with this point after Clause 93. We feel that the mere apprehension that river authorities may not appreciate the position of the statutory water undertakers does not justify this particular Amendment and all the results which would follow from it, all of which I have tried to outline and explain to noble Lords, and it is those results which make it impossible for us to accept this Amendment. I suggest to the House that the Government Amendment is to be preferred and that this Amendment should, for the reasons I have given, be rejected.

Finally, I would say that the future requires the closest collaboration between the river authorities and the statutory water undertakers, and I am quite sure, from what noble Lords interested in them have said and from their whole attitude, that the water undertakers intend to give this co-operation when the Bill takes effect. I hope also that noble Lords will give the Government credit for wishing to allay their fears and to meet them as far as we possibly can; but I am convinced that the proper basis for that co-operation is not this Amendment but the Government Amendment to follow Clause 93.

I do not think I want to argue that Amendment in the greatest detail even further, but I have outlined the reasons why I think it is preferable and why it covers a much wider field than the present suggested Amendment and will ensure that the position of the statutory water undertakers is safeguarded. I would simply say to noble Lords that we very much appreciate the point they are trying to get at and we regret that we cannot accept the Amendment in this form, but we sincerely believe that our own Amendment will look after their position and will ensure in practice, if not in theory on paper, that the sort of prior consideration—to put it that way without calling it actual priority—that they are seeking will be granted to them as a result of the Government Amendment.

LORD LINDGREN

My Lords, first I would thank the noble Lord for the time, thought and attention that he has given to this problem, and say straight away that we accept the fact that the comprehensive and unified control of water resources is the job of the Bill and we support it to the full. The problem is that one tends perhaps to look at it from the point of view of the obligations that rest upon particular groups of persons and particularly statutory water undertakers. The point which the noble Lord himself raised in regard to the electricity works is just one of those things which causes a person or a group of persons, a statutory water undertaker, to have their doubts.

A statutory water undertaker has his statutory obligations, and the priorities of those obligations are set out in the 1945 Act. There is no obligation upon the river authorities to supply, as the noble Lord, Lord Hastings admitted, and they may have at the back of their mind the setting up of a generating station in two or three years' time. It is not unreasonable for the statutory water undertaker to have a fear that in periods of capital restriction a water board not wanting to incur considerable expenditure in advance of requirements may refuse to supply a statutory water undertaker in order that they may meet a commitment of a bulk supply to an industrial undertaking such as an electricity works. It is just that sort of thing that causes the problem. If there is—as most probably there will be, in 999 cases out of 1,000—the availability of the water and there is no question of the licence not being granted, then the occasion will not arise. But the problem arises where there is a conflict of interest, and a conflict of interest might arise not altogether at the river board's own desire; it may be because of Government action, restriction of capital expenditure and the rest. But in the light of what the noble Lord has said, and in the hope that it will work out in practice as he feels, I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 31 [Effect of licence]:

LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY moved to omit subsections (1) and (2) and to insert instead: (1) Subject to the following provisions of this section and section 54 (5), in any action brought in respect of the abstraction of water against any person who is for the time being the holder of a licence under this Act to abstract water, or who is the servant or agent of or otherwise acting under the authority of the holder of such licence, it shall be a defence for such person to prove that the water was abstracted in pursuance of the licence and in accordance with the conditions contained in it.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is an attempt to get over what seems to me a practical difficulty. Under Clause 31 (1) the holder of a licence cannot be sued provided he is abstracting water in accordance with the terms of that licence. The difficulty seems to be to know how anybody other than he himself is to prove whether or not he is abstracting water in accordance with the terms of the licence. Somebody down-stream suddenly finds that the level of water has fallen and thinks that the abstracter is probably abstracting too much water, but he has no access to the abstracter's gauges, no knowledge of the hours he is pumping, and all that sort of thing; it is almost impossible for him to prove his case.

What this Amendment does is to change the onus of proof. If the Government accept this Amendment, then the person downstream who finds that the level of the water has fallen can then start to sue the abstracter of water, but it would then be a complete defence for the abstracter to prove that he was in fact abstracting water within the terms of his licence. Presumably if this Bill is to mean anything at all there will have to be some method by which abstracters know how much they are abstracting, either by capacity of pumps or gauges; otherwise this Bill is meaningless. That is the point of the Amendment. If the noble Earl accepts it, there would be a consequential Amendment, my Amendment No. 54 of Clause 54 (4), to deal with the rights of people who sue during the preliminary period of this Bill. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 27, leave out from beginning of line 36, to end of line 7 on page 28 and insert the said new subsection.—(Lord Amherst of Hackney.)

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I am very grateful to my noble friend for his explanation of this Amendment. I thought when I first read it that he was aiming at the wider matter of Common Law rights which we discussed at some length during Committee, and in that event I should not have been able to give him much satisfaction. We think it important, indeed vital, to secure that so long as a licence holder complies with the terms of his licence he should either be immune from, or should have an absolute defence of, any action in respect of his abstraction or impounding. That principle was cardinal to the Proudman Report and is cardinal to this Bill. I see, however, that my noble friend is shooting at a more selective target. The aim of his Amendment, as I now understand it, is to transfer the burden of proof, putting it on the defendant, the abstracter, to prove that the challenged abstraction has been made in accordance with his licence. I am certainly not able to accept my noble friend's Amendment as it stands. I am advised that it is defective in detail. For example, the status of a person as a licence holder or servant or agent should be considered in relation to the time at which the challenged abstraction was made, not, as under this Amendment, at the time when the action is brought.

The last two lines of the Amendment are also wrong, I think, as they pick up phraseology which I shall be seeking to amend when we come to the next Amendment which I shall be moving. I should also mention that if we made this Amendment, or an Amendment along these lines, to Clause 31 (1) we should also have to consider making a parallel Amendment to Clause 37 (2), since that subsection makes similar provision as regards licences to obstruct or impede the flow of a river as this subsection does as regards licences to abstract or draw water. That said, I grant that my noble friend has given us food for thought here. I should very much like the chance of considering very carefully the points he has made. I should also like to reserve the possibility of our introducing a Government Amendment at a later stage, possibly at Third Reading, if there is time. With that assurance, I would invite my noble friend to withdraw his Amendment.

LORD AMHERST OF HACKNEY

I am grateful to my noble friend, and I will certainly withdraw this Amendment, on the assurance that he will look into it further.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, this Amendment has, I fear, a rather legalistic flavour. I am advised that the wording of Clause 31 as it stands might be taken to imply that compliance is required only with provisions in the licence regulating the abstraction. In fact there must be compliance with provisions which govern what is to be done after the water is abstracted—for example, about measurements to be taken, or the purposes for which it is to be used. The relevance of this example is shown by what my noble friend has said in moving his last Amendment. In short, this small Amendment somewhat tightens up the wording of the Bill here. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 28, line 3, leave out from ("and") to end of line 4 and insert ("the provisions of the licence are complied with").—(Earl Jellicoe.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 33 [Entitlement to licence of right]:

6.22 p.m.

LORD LINDGREN moved, in subsection (1) (b), to leave out "such a source of supply" and insert "underground strata in a river authority area". The noble Lord said: My Lords, when we have finished with this Amendment, the Marshalled List may look a little less formidable; because, if your Lordships agree, Amendments Nos. 34, 35, 38, 47 and 52 can be dealt with together. They are all consequential, whether Amendment No. 33 is accepted or rejected.

Clause 33 (1) gives an entitlement to a licence of right to any person abstracting water under a statutory provision, and to any person abstracting at any time within a period of five years ending with the second appointed day. On the Committee stage I moved an Amendment which would have had the effect of preventing any persons from abstracting after the publication of the Bill. If they did abstract after the publication of the Bill they would not be able to claim a licence of right. In supporting that Amendment, I argued that it would encourage the wholesale abstraction of water before the second appointed day, which might be two years hence, to enable a licence of right to be claimed when the new scheme came into operation.

The noble Earl, Lord Jellicoe, who advised the Committee against accepting the Amendment, admitted that there was a difficulty in establishing the period and that my proposal was perhaps attractive. But he suggested that the Amendment then before the Committee had two main defects. It was suggested that it would make it more difficult to obtain accurate evidence to establish the amount of water abstracted, which was to be the basis of the licence of right, and that it would prevent all legitimate development between the date of the Bill and the coming into operation of the new scheme. The second part of the noble Earl's objection was particularly valid, and I have tried to meet that in the new Amendments which we are now discussing, because they seek to prevent the wholesale abstraction of water merely for the purpose of obtaining a licence of right, and at the same time they are free from the defects which the noble Earl detected in the Amendments put forward on the Committee stage.

The new Amendments now before the House divide the abstractions into two classes: first of all, abstractions from underground, and, secondly, abstractions from surface water. The underground water has been brought under control by Section 14 of the Water Act, 1945. Where underground water has to be conserved the Minister will have made an order under Section 14, and no new abstraction can be made without a licence from the Minister. Thus, underground water which is abstracted under licence from the Minister will be abstracted by virtue of a statutory provision, and the abstracter will be entitled to a licence of right under Clause 33 (1) (a). The abstractions from underground water which are not at present controlled under Section 14 of the Water Act, 1945, will fall within Clause 33 (1) (b), and so again the abstracter will be entitled to a licence of right.

That leaves the problem of abstractions of surface water, and it is proposed to deal with this under a new paragraph which will become paragraph (c). This provides that a licence of right may be obtained in respect of an abstraction at any time within the period of five years ending with the second appointed day. But if the abstraction commenced after the publication of the Bill (which, if my memory is right, was November 7, 1962) then, to qualify for a licence of right, the abstracter must obtain from the present river board a written statement that the board does not object to the abstraction. This suggestion follows the recommendation made in the Second Report of the Central Advisory Water Committee's Sub-Committee on the Growing Demand for Water. It was there suggested that, where it was necessary to introduce a temporary method of control, this should be entrusted to the existing river boards.

I submit that the Amendment would improve the Bill, because it would discourage wholesale abstractions of surface water merely for the purpose of obtaining a licence of right when the new scheme comes into operation. At the same time, it will permit legitimate development, because it will not interfere with the development of underground supplies and it will permit the development of surface supplies, subject to the control of the river board. I think that I have now met the perfectly valid objections which the noble Earl raised to the Amendments that I moved on the Committee stage, and I move the first in this series of Amendments in the hope that the noble Earl will be able to agree.

Amendment moved— Page 30, line 20, leave out ("such a source of supply") and insert ("underground strata in a river authority area").—(Lord Lindgren.)

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, the noble Lord is no doubt rather surprised that I am going to deal with his Amendment. To tell the truth, I am a little surprised myself, because it was only after it was agreed that I should take it that we discovered that the noble Earl had held a long disquisition on this subject on the Committee stage. My noble friend Lord Jellicoe is sorry that he is not replying to this Amendment, but I can assure the noble Lord opposite that the reply will not vary in any respect from what the noble Earl would have said. During the Committee stage, my noble friend explained at great length what the difficulties were. This is really a problem of a balance of disadvantages, and it was made quite clear that the Government were only too willing to accept suggestions to see whether we could get over the difficulties which exist. Therefore, it was in no spirit of obstinacy or wish to have the doubtful pleasure of rejecting the noble Lord's Amendment, that his suggestion has been examined. But it is our duty to look very carefully at the suggestions to try to find out how in practice they are likely to operate.

The noble Lord has quite clearly divided those who abstract water from underground from those who abstract surface water. He is afraid that certain people may commence abstracting surface water unnecessarily and unfairly after November 7, 1962, and there is possibly some danger that in some cases this might happen. On the face of things the noble Lord's Amendment appears to provide a simple solution of the difficulty of fixing a qualifying period for licences of right which neither admits too readily the selfish abstracter who is concerned only to beat the gun to his private advantage, nor excludes too arbitrarily the abstracter who has some legitimate new development to pursue, which may be to the public interest.

First of all, my Lords, it seems to the Government that the river boards as they now exist are not well suited to dealing with the needs of a variety of abstracted, because they have had no experience in this field. The scope of the boards at the moment is hardly wide enough for the purpose proposed; nor do they at present operate in detail over all the waters which the Amendment would bring under their purview. At the moment they are concerned with land drainage on main rivers, prevention of pollution of rivers and streams, and administration of the Fisheries Acts. The constitution of the boards, their background, and their expertise are all reflections of those functions.

Even more important from the point of view of the river boards, if they were to take over this responsibility, would be the background against which they have to determine whether or not they object to an abstraction. What are to be the guiding principles to which they should have regard? What exactly are they to protect? Presumably the criterion by which they would judge proposed abstractions would be whether or not those abstractions would cause undue depletion of the flow so as to damage other interests in it. If an abstraction can be shown either to be unlawful or to damage existing abstractions, the due process of the existing law can be invoked by any riparian proprietor and any damaging abstraction effectively stopped, thereby removing any question of a licence of right being granted. That is the first protection.

But, as was argued during the Committee stage, a river authority also has its protection under the Bill—it will not be defenceless against these people. There are the provisions of Clause 34 (3), the factors to which a river authority must have regard in determining the quantity to be licensed; then there is Clause 54 (5), which leaves the holders of licences of right of this sort open to challenge for three years. And there are also the provisions of Clauses 41 to 43, relating to revocation or variation of licences. With all those provisions on the statute book, the bogus applicant would not get very far.

My Lords, there are other difficulties which we can foresee. For instance, what is to be done if a would-be abstracter wishes to contest an objection raised by a river board to his proposal? Surely he cannot be put at a disadvantage by the river board, and he must have the right of appeal. As it stands, the Amendment would confer on the river board a power more drastic than the river authority itself is to have under the Bill, because the abstracter would not have any right of appeal. That is a further difficulty. Then, supposing a river board did not object, provided that the abstraction was subject to limitations on the quantity taken and the method whereby it was taken, how could such limitations be fixed? Would there be no right of objection to that, as there will under the Bill in regard to regular applications for licences, or revisions of them?

All in all, my Lords, it seems that the only answers to these questions are those contained in the Bill, and we think that the Amendment gives rise to more problems than it sets out to solve. We do not suggest that the position is entirely satisfactory, but we feel that the balance of advantage lies with the Bill as it stands, rather than with these Amendments. Therefore, while sincerely thanking the noble Lord for his great effort to help to improve this particular clause, we feel that it will not perhaps achieve the effect for which he hoped. At the same time the Ministry of Housing are still studying this problem to see whether we can arrive at some solution. If any other suggestion which seems more acceptable is subsequently put forward, the Government will not refuse a change in the Bill if they can be convinced that some better arrangements than those in Clause 33 (1) can be made.

LORD LINDGREN

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply, particularly the last part of it. One appreciates that this is a difficult problem, and the noble Earl who took over the bowling on the previous occasion put his case very fairly and distinctly. No one wants to stop legitimate development. One reason for the first group of Amendments is that there are already some indications in some areas—I will not say over the whole country—of persons trying to stake a claim for a certificate of right by making the abstractions now.

The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, said that the river boards had not a great deal of experience in dealing with a number of abstracters. I hope that they will soon get that experience, and I hope that they will have even greater powers in the future. It is true that at the moment, when there is a water surplus, there are a number of underground abstractions which there ought not to be, and although it might cost a little money to take advantage of the surface water and let the underground supplies recoup themselves, I think it ought to be done and I think the river authorities ought to have the power to do it. But no doubt when the Water Resources Board is set up it will look at that point. In view of the fact that the noble Lord concluded his remarks by saying that the Government have still an open mind, if in fact a satisfactory form of words can be found, I will ask leave to withdraw the Amendment. Between now and the Third Reading we will look at the problem again to see whether we can find satisfactory words. And I am certain that the noble Lord and his advisers will do the same.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 34 [Licences of right for statutory users]:

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, this drafting Amendment is linked with the following one. It provides simply for inserting a paragraph as a result of the Amendment which is to follow. I move it formally.

Amendment moved— Page 32, line 1, after ("of") insert ("(a)").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, this Amendment seeks to meet the substance of a criticism of Clause 34 (4), which was made by my noble friend Lord Walde-grave during the Committee stage. I acknowledged then that this subsection might be too restrictive in so far as it referred to plant installed or in process of installation but took no account of plant authorised of which the installation had not actually begun. This Amendment puts the situation right, so as to embrace that plant authorised but not yet begun. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 32, line 4, leave out ("not being works, machinery or apparatus") and insert ("or (b) any other works, machinery or apparatus the construction or installation of which was authorised by the relevant statutory provision, not being (in either case) works, machinery or apparatus provided or authorised to be").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 35 [Reference of applications to Minister]:

6.41 p.m.

LORD MERRIVALE moved to leave out Clause 35 and insert the following new clause— 35.—(1) The provisions of this section shall have effect where an application under section 33 of this Act is made in a case falling within subsection (1) (b) of that section: and in this section—'the relevant period' shall mean the period of five years ending with the second appointed day or the period beginning with the date on which the applicant or his predecessors began to abstract water from the source of supply in question and ending with the second appointed day, whichever is the shorter. (2) The provision made by the licence as to the quantity of water authorised to be abstracted shall be such as appear to the river authority to correspond as nearly as may be to the quantities referred to in paragraph (a) below having regard to such of the following matters as are applicable and are proved to the reasonable satisfaction of the river authority, that is to say—

1. (a) the quantities of water abstracted by the applicant or his predecessors from the source of supply in question during the relevant period;
2. (b) the seasons of the year during which those quantities of water, or the greater part of them, were so abstracted;
3. (c) the extent to which in the future it is intended that the water abstracted should be used for the same purposes as in the past;
4. (d) the extent to which works, machinery or apparatus were reasonably provided by the applicant or his predecessors in anticipation of future requirements.

(3) The provision made by the licence as to the quantity of water authorised to be abstracted shall be such as will not permit the abstraction of water in excess of the quantity shown to the reasonable satisfaction of the river authority to be capable of being abstracted by means of works, machinery or apparatus which were constructed or installed before the second appointed day, or were in the course of being constructed or installed on that day, not being works, machinery or apparatus provided for use only in the event of an accident or other emergency involving a total or partial failure of other works, machinery or apparatus.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, this Amendment is concerned with licences of right for non-statutory users. I sincerely hope that this Amendment will commend itself to your Lordships and to my noble friend Lord Jellicoe, for in its present modified form—that is, compared with the form it had when the noble Lord, Lord Fraser of Lonsdale, and myself moved it on Committee stage—I feel that it meets the main objections which were raised then by my noble friend Lord Jellicoe. For if I understood him aright, he was worried by the fact that our previous Amendment sought to make it compulsory for an abstracter to prove quantities previously taken, and that in many cases it would be difficult to do so as records may not have been kept.

Under subsection (2) of this Amendment which we are considering today, it is necessary only for the licence to provide for a quantity of water as appears to the river authority to correspond to quantities of water abstracted during the relevant period. There would seem to be flexibility here, especially when one bears in mind the provisions of Clause 42 which enable a river authority to revoke or vary a licence. As Clause 35 now stands in the Bill—and it is rather complicated to understand, as one has to refer back to Clause 34 (3)—the quantity of water authorised to be abstracted shall be such as the river authority considers appropriate. To industry in particular, who in most cases have paid a consideration for these valuable rights appertaining to land—and by "consideration" I mean, for instance, that the cost of the land when there had been a question of setting up a factory was to that extent increased by the question of whether or not there was a ready availability of water—these are valuable rights which are due to them. Any reduction in these rights appears to industry in general to be a certain form of confiscation, and these arbitrary powers which are granted in the Bill to river authorities are therefore causing much concern.

The second main objection of my noble friend on December 17, was the exclusion of purpose for which the water was to be abstracted. I hope that my noble friend will be satisfied with the wording of subsection (2) (c), which I feel now satisfactorily covers the purpose for which the water has been extracted, as stated in the present Clause 35 (c), and the purpose for which water is intended to be extracted as stated in Clause 34 (3) (c). With those few remarks, and with the changes in this later version of this Amendment, I hope that my noble friend will be able to see his way to accepting at least the principle underlying this Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Leave out Clause 35 and insert the said new clause.—(Lord Merrivale.)

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I am not sure that I can go all the way with my noble friend Lord Merrivale on his proposed clause, because I suppose there may be certain instances where one particular river authority cannot give to all the applicants for licences of right in their area exactly the same amount of water as has been previously drawn in the past by those would-be abstracters. It may be that there just is not enough water to go round.

On the other hand, with all the protection that is being put into this Bill for water undertakers and all sorts of other people who have statutory powers, I am beginning to think that industry, which is, after all, such a very important segment of the community, is getting a slightly shabby deal in this Bill. It seems to me that there is nowhere in the Bill itself—although I have no doubt it may have been given on other occasions in speeches—any assurance that, even where there is enough water, they are going to get the same amount under their licence of right as they have hitherto been drawing. Of course, if that were to be a commonly accepted idea there would be a great outcry that confiscation for no purpose had been carried on without any compensation being given for it. So I hope that my noble friend Lord Jellicoe will be able to allay some of these very real fears that are going about, that people who have hitherto been drawing water, for which in some cases they originally paid, will now be curbed and not allowed to take the full amount they had before, even although there is plenty of it in the source from which they are drawing.

The other point on this clause is this. When my noble friend Lord Merrivale drew the clause to your Lordships' attention in Committee stage, I complained that I found the clause quite unintelligible. My noble friend Lord Jellicoe confessed that my complaint did not fall upon deaf ears, and that he also found it very difficult to understand. Since then, however, I am afraid that hidden persuaders have been at work, and my noble friend has now had explained to him what this clause does mean. I do, however, defy him to set out the meaning of this clause by itself without writing into the previous clause the amendments which are set out in inverted commas in this one. That being so, it seems to me ludicrous that the clause should stand as it is, and that it should not be redrafted so as to set out in perfectly clear English what it is intended to mean. I had no idea that my noble friend was not going to put down an Amendment in this respect; otherwise, I would have done so myself. I hope that he can give at any rate that promise.

6.50 p.m.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, there are three comments that I should like to make in replying to this Amendment. The first is that I fully recognise that since our Committee stage my noble friend has altered his draft clause in the light of some, at least, of the criticisms which I advanced. As a result, I would say straight away that the draft clause strikes me as being far more satisfactory than it was when we discussed it in Committee. The second point I should like to make is that we fully accept that improvements are still needed to Clause 35—and, indeed, to the preceding clause, Clause 34. At the end of my reply during our Committee stage, I said that I should like to see whether any specific points made in our discussion then could be covered in the Amendments which the Government recognised were needed to these two clauses; and that remains the position.

As regards the last point, which my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross made with his customary "asperity", I would say only that, having wrestled with this clause myself, I happen to sympathise with him. I sympathise with his plea for a new clause set out in full, and not the sort of potpourri which is the present clause. Provided my noble friend Lord Merrivale will agree with the suggestion that I am shortly going to put to him, as and when we produce Government Amendments to these two clauses, I think (if my noble friend can contain his soul and patience until then) he will find that the new clause will in fact be set out in full.

The third point I wish to make is that I cannot at this stage this evening recommend to your Lordships that you should accept the new clause proposed by my noble friend Lord Merrivale. I do not wish to argue the case in detail, but the main point why I am unwilling to accept the clause now is, quite frankly, that we have yet to make up our mind fully regarding it ourselves. Clauses 34 and 35, in fact, which provide for the settlement of the provisions of licences of right for statutory and non-statutory abstracters, remain, in our view, one of the most difficult parts of the Bill. We have put down no Amendment making a fundamental alteration to the provisions of the clauses. This is not because we are unwilling to do so, or that we have reached the conclusion that no such change is warranted—rather the reverse: it is because we have yet to come to a firm view on the matters to which these two clauses relate.

Since the Committee stage of the Bill the points made then in discussion have been given very careful consideration. There have been discussions between the officials of the Departments concerned and representatives of the interests most affected (the latest such discussions took place only a day or so ago), and we are still considering the points which have been made to us and examining the various ways in which Clauses 34 and 35 might be improved. May I just mention that I think that what my noble friend Lord Colville of Culross said about the fears of industry was perhaps somewhat exaggerated. I think that the certainty which in many respects this Bill will give the abstracter, the certainty of the protection of his rights, the certainty that conservation is being planned on a national and long-term scale, is a great gain for industry, as it is for the other interests affected. But, again, as regards the impact on industry of this particular clause, I would invite him and his noble friend to await our further consideration of this matter.

I therefore hope that my noble friend Lord Merrivale will not press his Amendment at this stage. I can assure him that we recognise the force of certain of the points which are embodied in his Amendment and which do not find their place in this Bill. I hope that he will not grudge us further time for the consideration of what is a very intricate item in the machinery which we are seeking to establish by this Bill—an item which must be capable of application to a very wide range of circumstances, in view of the great variety of abstracters who take water without specific statutory provision.

LORD MERRIVALE

My Lords, I should first like to thank my noble friend Lord Jellicoe for having promised that he will give further consideration to this question of amending Clause 35, and also Clause 34. I am also grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville of Culross, for his qualified support. I had intended to take up one point which he made. I had made a note with regard to a possible Amendment to subsection (2) of the new clause which I am moving; but, as my noble friend Lord Jellicoe did not refer to that point at all, perhaps it would be better not to mention it this evening. I must say that I am delighted to hear that consultations with interested bodies are still taking place. May I take it that there is hope for industry even now?

Finally, may I ask my noble friend Lord Jellicoe whether or not it is Her Majesty's Government's intention to move a new Clause 35 on Third Reading, which would give us an opportunity of expressing our views? Though no doubt they could be equally well, or better, expressed in another place, for those who have taken an interest in this matter in this House it would be nice to feel that the Government's new version of Clause 35 would be moved on Third Reading.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I should naturally like to respond in as positive a manner as possible to my noble friend on this, but I feel I must be rather guarded. Bearing in mind the very careful consideration which noble Lords have given to this and other parts of this Bill, I should very much like to dot the i's and cross the t's, so far as these two clauses are concerned; but, in view of the time factor, I think it would be rash of me to tie myself down.

LORD MERRIVALE

My Lords, I beg leave, in the circumstances, to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 36 [General restriction on impounding works]:

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, this is a drafting Amendment. What it does is to convert references to abstracting water into references to impounding water, and it is necessary to adapt Clause 26 (2) in the same way as has already been done in the Bill in Clause 37 (5). I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 33, line 43, at end insert ("and in section 26 (2) of this Act the first and second references to abstracting water shall be construed as including references to obstructing or impeding the flow of an inland water by means of impounding works.").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 41 [Revocation or variation on application of holder of licence]:

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, this is purely a drafting Amendment to correct an error. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 37, line 5, leave out ("section") and insert ("subsection").—(Lord Hastings.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 42 [Proposal by river authority to revoke or vary licence]:

LORD ST. OSWALD

My Lords, Amendments 42 and 43 are related and perhaps your Lordships would prefer to take them together. The purpose of these Amendments is similar to those in Clause 28 which have already been approved. Clause 42, as drafted, requires a copy of the notice of a proposal by a river authority to vary a licence to abstract water to be served upon any navigation authority having functions in relation to the inland water from which the licence authorises abstraction. The purpose of Amendments 42 and 43 is twofold. First, a reference is incorporated to any harbour authority or conservancy authority as well as to any navigation authority having functions in relation to the inland water; secondly, the obligation to serve notice on the navigation, harbour or conservancy authority is confined to any such authorities having functions in relation to the inland water at the point at which the licence as proposed to be varied would authorise abstraction or impounding of water. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 37, line 18, at end insert ("harbour authority or conservancy authority").—(Lord St. Oswald.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD ST. OSWALD

My Lords, I beg to move this Amendment formally.

Amendment moved— Page 37, line 19, at end insert ("at a place where the licence, if varied in accordance with the proposals, would authorise water to be abstracted or impounded").—JLord St. Oswald.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

7.2 p.m.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved, after Clause 45 to insert the following new clause—

Repayment of compensation

".—(1) Where any compensation has become payable under the last foregoing section, the river authority shall cause an entry to be made in a register kept by them for that purpose specifying the revocation or variation in respect of which the compensation became payable, the land to which such compensation relates and the amount of the compensation.

(2) The river authority shall send to the council of the county or county borough in which the land is situate a copy of any entry made in the register under the last foregoing subsection, and any such entry shall be registered in the register of local land charges, in such manner as may be prescribed by rules made for the purposes of this section under section 15 (6) of the Land Charges Act 1925, by the proper officer of the council of the county or the county borough, as the case may be.

(3) If at any time subsequent to the making of an entry in the register under subsection (1) of this section a person applies for a licence to abstract water for use on any land in respect of which such entry has been made, the river authority shall, if they grant the licence, require the applicant to repay to them the relevant part of the amount of compensation entered in the register in respect of that land.

(4) In the foregoing subsection the expression 'the relevant part of the amount of compensation' means so much of the amount specified by the entry in the register relating to the land concerned as the river authority shall determine to be proper having regard to—

1. (a) the terms of the revocation or variation which gave rise to the compensation, including any quantity of water the abstraction of which thereby became unlawful,
2. (b) the terms of the new licence granted to the applicant including the quantity of water thereby authorised to be abstracted,
3. (c) the area and use of the land or any part thereof to which the revocation or variation and the new licence respectively relate, and
4. (d) any other material considerations:

Provided that any dispute concerning the amount of a repayment which falls to be made under this section shall be referred to and determined by the Lands Tribunal."

The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I can assure your Lordships that no note of asperity will creep in as I move this Amendment. I must confess I have been most unjust if it has done heretofore because my noble friend has been most disarming and has met a large number of my points in Committee by means of concrete Amendments or promises of Amendments to come. This, however, is intended to be no more than a suggestion. The Bill at present provides that where a licence is revoked, then, rightly, the person who held the licence shall receive the commensurate compensation. It occurred to me to wonder whether this might not, on occasions, result in a certain amount of wrong if, after the licence had been revoked and compensation paid, the same person or a subsequent owner of the same land in respect of which the water under the revoked licence was used, later got another licence from the river authority to use more water. In this case he would not only have got compensation but his water as well.

These circumstances do occur in the realm of town planning, and it has been laid down in the Town and Country Planning Act that where a person's planning permission is revoked and his land loses its value thereby, he will receive compensation from the local planning authority for his loss, but if he or a successor to the land subsequently gets permission to develop that land he will have to pay back the requisite amount of compensation he received. This is only fair, and it seems to me that something of the same nature should be put into this Bill. If it were not, then the river authority might, in the first place, be unwilling to revoke licences at all, because they would have to pay compensation with no chance of getting it back again. If they did pay compensation for a revoked licence and were not able to get it back and a new source of water became available to them, they might think the person who had received the compensation should go down to the end of the queue of people applying for a part of that new source of water.

If the compensation were not to be repaid on the granting of a new licence it would not in the end be the river authority who would lose by it but all the other people who contribute to the water resources account of the river authorities; that is, all the others who use water in that river authority's area. Some people might think this an obnoxious clause. I am not sure it may not be something that fairness requires. Certainly, it is not without precedent in other not dissimilar fields. My noble friend may say I have drafted badly or that I have left out many serious considerations. I have attempted to think of all the matters which would arise, such as land being subdivided, but there may be other technical snags I have not thought of which make the whole proposition quite impossible. However, I should be glad to hear my noble friend's answer. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— After Clause 45, insert the said new clause.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I can assure my noble friend that no note of asperity will creep into my reply. I am less certain whether much sense will creep in because I find this deep water indeed. But I am grateful to the noble Lord for bringing the matter to our attention and I can assure him that, although I am going to be bleakly negative in my reply, we will give careful attention to the arguments with which he has supported his Amendment. I think he rested his case for this clause on two main arguments. The first, as I understood it, was that the river authority might hesitate to revoke a licence where it properly should, perhaps choosing instead to revoke others or to do nothing at all. I think that fear is rather misplaced. In the first place, if a river authority can be shown to be dodging the issue in the hope of avoiding payment of compensation, it will leave itself open to a direction by the Minister under Clause 95 (1) or, in even more extreme cases, to default proceedings under Clause 96. Secondly, if there is a strong case for revocation or variation, in the public interest, of a licence, the Minister will be prepared to consider exercising his powers under Clause 49 (2) and indemnifying the river authority all or part of any compensation which might become payable.

The second main argument on which, I think, the noble Lord rested his case for the clause is what I will call the "end of the queue" argument. I think that here, again, my noble friend's fears are somewhat exaggerated because this argument overlooks an applicant's right of appeal to the Minister against the refusal of a licence under Clause 39 of the Bill. If water is available, then unless a river authority can show good reason to the contrary, the presumption must be that an applicant cannot be refused merely because at an earlier date he or his predecessor were compensated for the revocation of the licence. That would be manifestly unfair. I feel, therefore, that so far as those two arguments are concerned, on which a large part of my noble friend's case rests, the fears on which they are based may be misplaced.

My noble friend went on to say he was open to the retort by whoever was going to reply that perhaps his clause had not been very well drafted. I think that, as one would expect, it has been extremely expertly drafted. Nevertheless, there are defects in it. I do not want to make minor points here, but I would single out two defects which I think are important. The first is that no distinction is made between compensation for abortive expenditure, under Clause 45 (1) (a), and for depreciation in value of an interest, under paragraph (b). It would be most unfair, we think, to require repayment of compensation for abortive expenditure and such repayment is expressly excluded from recovery under the planning code.

Secondly, no provision is made for repayment to the Minister of any contribution made by him under Clause 49 (2), again something which is expressly provided for in the planning code. There is another objection. We consider that subsection (4) is much too vague, would be likely to give rise to all manner of disputes, and would be extremely difficult to operate in practice. I think that I have said enough to show why we could not recommend your Lordships to accept this new clause as at present drafted; but, having said that, I would express my appreciation to my noble friend for airing this issue, and assure him again that what he has said will receive our careful consideration.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I am very much obliged to my noble friend. I accept the points that he has made in criticism of the clause. After all, it was only a venture. The third argument which I used is perhaps the most powerful consideration, and it was one on which he did not comment. It was that compensation would be payable out of public money contributed by other users of water in the area and it was not so much a case of the river authority as of other people paying it. To that degree I feel that there may be something to be said for repayments, either to the river authority or to the Minister. Nevertheless, I shall be very content to leave it to the consideration of Her Majesty's Government, and I beg leave to withdraw the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 46 [Revocation or variation of authorisation to impound under alternative statutory provision]:

7.14 p.m.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS moved, after subsection (2), to insert: ("( ) Where the undertakers or the river authority propose to revoke or vary the terms of the relevant authorisation under sections 41 or 42 of this Act as applied by this section, any person whose rights under the statutory provision which constitutes or includes the relevant authorisation are proposed to be affected shall have the like right to refer the proposed revocation or variation to the Minister as is conferred under section 42 (5) of this Act on the holder of a licence, and upon any such reference section 43 of this Act shall apply thereto with the necessary modifications.")

The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I am afraid that this is a very complicated Amendment. It is one which on Committee stage I attempted to raise wrongly under Clause 115 of the Bill. I believe this is the right place. The point is this. Under certain Private Acts or Orders under the Water Act, various bodies or authorities have been given permission to set up works like reservoirs, subject to allowing what is known as "compensation water" to flow down the river beyond the reservoir. That is to say, they are allowed to block up the stream, provided they allow a certain amount of water to go through the weir or dam so that there will be some water remaining in the river below it at all times or at certain times of the day.

In many of these Private Statutes or Orders, there has been specific provision written in by Parliament for the protection of the rights of people—riparian owners, mill owners or people who have fisheries or run boats, or something like that. Clause 46 of the Bill provides the machinery by which this sort of Private Act or Order can be varied or revoked by a river authority on the request of the statutory body which has the benefit of it and whose Act it is, in exactly the same way as if it had been a licence under this Bill. There is a provision by which, if a local authority proposes to vary or revoke the licence, the person who has the benefit of the Act, if he does not like the proposal, may refer the matter to the Minister, who will decide, if necessary, after a local inquiry.

However, there is little in the Bill as it is at present drafted dealing with the rights of the third party—that is to say, the person for whose benefit the special provision was written into the Private Act or Order. He may find that the local authority and the undertakers (as they are called in this particular clause) have got together and proposed something which radically alters the rights which were given and specifically protected by Parliament. Yet there is no power for him to refer the matter to the Minister or, if it is referred to the Minister by the river authority because the undertaker objects to their proposal, for him to be heard when the local inquiry is held.

I think that this is quite specific, because Clause 43 is incorporated in the whole of this exercise, and subsection (2) says: … the Minister may … cause a local inquiry to be held or afford to the holder of the licence and the river authority an opportunity of appearing before, and being heard by, a person appointed by the Minister for the purpose. I think that it would be very difficult for the third party who has these rights to appear and be heard on that occasion. Therefore, by means of a remarkable piece of jargon, I have attempted to incorporate some means of getting the third party heard and of getting the Minister to act as an arbitrator when it is proposed to take away these rights. There are many technical difficulties in this subject, and to some degree, I think, they are already covered by the Bill as it stands; but I am not satisfied that the situation is fully met, and I hope that something may be done to do away with a position which I am sure is wrong. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 40, line 34, at end insert the said new subsection.—(Viscount Colville of Culross.)

LORD HASTINGS

My Lords, the noble Viscount has explained his very difficult Amendment with great clarity. Fortunately, my reply can be extremely brief. It is quite true that the relevant authorisations contained in the alternative statutory provisions may well be embodied in several different local enactments, each containing protective provisions and each affecting the other. It is because of the complexity of some of these provisions that the arrangements in Clause 46 were included in the Bill. My noble friend is specially concerned, and quite rightly, with the rights of third parties. Of course, we cannot compromise on the principle of Clause 46, because we hold that it is essential for the proper management of our water resources that these old enactments relating to compensation water should be subject to revision. However, my noble friend has shown grounds for having another look at the detailed provisions of this complicated clause, and if he is prepared to withdraw his Amendment he can rest assured that the matter will be re-examined.

VISCOUNT COLVILLE OF CULROSS

My Lords, I am very much obliged to my noble friend. I do not in the least want to upset the principle of the clause. It is simply a matter of having these people heard in the right quarters. I gladly accept my noble friend's assurance, and beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 47 [Penalties]:

7.18 p.m.

EARL JELLICOE moved, after "Act" to insert: or who (in circumstances not constituting such a contravention) does not comply with a condition or requirement imposed by the provisions (as for the time being in force) of a licence under this Act of which he is the holder.

The noble Earl said: My Lords, this is a simple Amendment, which we consider necessary if the provisions of Part IV of the Bill are to be properly enforced. At present, where the holder of a licence abstracts or impounds water within the terms of his licence but fails to comply with a requirement of the licence it is not clear, as the clause stands, that he has contravened Clause 23 (1), 23 (2) or 36 (1), as the case may be. This Amendment clears up this point by making such a failure to comply an offence.

The provision is necessary when we remember that there will be some conditions in a licence which do not relate only to the actual abstraction or impounding of water but also to ancillary matters like the maintenance of reading or measuring devices. Such conditions may well be important and must, in our opinion, be backed up by adequate sanctions.

This Amendment, therefore, closes what has seemed to us to be a gap in the Bill as at present drafted. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 40, line 42, after "Act" insert the said words—(Earl Jellicoe).

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 52 [General regulations relating to licences]:

EARL JELLICOE moved, after subsection (2) to insert: ( ) Without prejudice to the generality of the last preceding subsection, provision shall be made by regulations under this Act for securing that in such circumstances as may be prescribed, being circumstances in which it appears to the Minister that applications for licences under this Act, other than licences of right, would be of special concern to National Park planning authorities,—

1. (a) notice of any such application will be given to such one or more National Park planning authorities as may be determined in accordance with the regulations;
2. (b) the matters to which the river authority or the Minister, as the case may be, is to have regard in dealing with the application will include any representations made by any such National Park planning authority within such period and in such manner as may be prescribed; and
3. (c) on any appeal against the decision on the application, notice of the appeal will be served on any National Park planning authority who made representations falling within the last preceding paragraph, and, in determining the appeal, the Minister will take account of any further representations made by such an authority within such period and in such manner as may be prescribed.

In this subsection 'National Park planning authority' means a local planning authority whose area consists of or includes the whole or part of a National Park.

The noble Earl said: My Lords, this Amendment stems from an undertaking which I gave to the noble Lord, Lord Chorley, during our Committee stage when we were discussing an Amendment which he had moved. I then said (and my quotation is from Vol. 245 (No. 21) col. 579 of the OFFICIAL REPORT): So far as the National Parks are concerned, I should be very glad to consider whether an arrangement could be worked out, for inclusion in the Bill, to secure that certain classes of applications for licences under the Bill, thought to involve particular risk to amenity, might in National Park areas be brought specially to the notice of the local planning authority concerned by the river authority. I think the purpose of the new subsection is pretty clear, and I submit that it meets the undertaking which I then gave to the noble Lord. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 44, line 7, at end insert the said subsection.—(Earl Jellicoe.)

LORD LINDGREN

My Lords, as no doubt the noble Earl noticed, my noble friend Lord Chorley came into the Chamber a little while ago, but has gone out again. I am certain that he appreciates the Amendment which has been put down. It does meet the position. I see that my noble friend has now returned.

LORD CHORLEY

My Lords, perhaps I might intervene, as one of the small group of amenity members who are particularly interested in this problem, to thank the noble Earl for putting down this Amendment, which goes the whole way to meeting the point that we were endeavouring to make on Committee stage (perhaps that is a little exaggeration), because it does protect the particular point in respect of the areas where National Parks are in existence. We were trying, at the same time, to see to it that the local authorities were represented by members of their planning committees, and this, of course, is a wider point than that relating to the National Parks.

The noble Earl, in replying on Committee stage, said he felt that in actual practice local authorities were almost bound to appoint members of their planning committees on these occasions, and I think there is a great deal of wisdom in that remark. But it has occurred to us, in discussing the speech made by the noble Earl on that occasion, that it might be possible for the Minister, in one of these advisory circulars which he issues from time to time, and which no doubt will follow on the passing of this Act, to indicate to local authorities that this would be the wise way of proceeding. If the noble Earl could see his way to looking at it from that point of view, and would perhaps pass this suggestion on to his right honourable friend, we should be grateful.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his remarks, and shall be glad to bring his last suggestion to the attention of my right honourable friend.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, this Amendment is purely drafting and consequential upon the Amendment which your Lordships have just approved. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 44, line 11, leave out ("(3)") and insert ("(4)").—(Earl Jellicoe.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Clause 54 [Transitional provisions for purposes of Part IV]:

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, this, too, is a drafting Amendment. The immediately following Amendment, No. 51, is consequential upon it, and I think it may be convenient if we take the two together. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 45, line 17, leave out from ("the") to ("shall") in line 18 and insert ("following provisions of this Part of this Act, that is to say—

1. (a) if the application is for a licence to abstract water, other than a licence of right, sections 23, 31 and 47 of this Act;
2. (b) if the application is for a licence of right, those sections and section 26 of this Act; and
3. (c) if the application is for a licence to obstruct or impede the flow of an inland water by means of impounding works, section 36, subsections (1) and (2) of section 37 and section 47 of this Act.")—(Earl Jellicoe.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Amendment moved— Page 45, line 22, leave out subsection (2).—(Earl Jellicoe.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

EARL JELLICOE moved, in subsection (5), after "Act" where it first occurs, to insert: or an application for a licence of right has before the end of the initial period been made by a person as being so entitled and has not been disposed of".

The noble Earl said: My Lords, this is a minor Amendment to repair an omis- sion in Clause 54 (5). The effect of this subsection as it stands is that an abstracter who obtains a licence of right on the strength of an abstraction made otherwise than by virtue of a statutory provision—a Clause 33 (1) (b) abstraction—is not thereby made immune from action until the end of three years from the second appointed day. This provision should clearly also apply to the Clause 54 (5) abstraction, an abstraction which may be continued after the end of the initial period if an application for a licence was made before then and the application is still outstanding—that is to say, has not been disposed of, under the Clause 54 (7) provision. This Amendment provides accordingly. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 45, line 45, after ("Act") insert the said words.—(Earl Jellicoe.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

EARL JELLICOE

My Lords, we agreed that we should terminate our proceedings on the Bill at this hour this evening, and as we have reached the end of Part IV of the Bill, I think this is a convenient moment to stop. I should like to thank noble Lords for their economic use of words in dealing with the various Amendments which we have disposed of in the course of the afternoon. I beg to move that further proceedings be adjourned.

Moved, That further proceedings be adjourned.—(Earl Jellicoe.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

House adjourned at twenty-seven minutes past seven o'clock.