HL Deb 30 July 1963 vol 252 cc1062-3

3.47 p.m.

Consideration of Commons Amendments resumed.

LORD DOUGLAS OF BARLOCH

My Lords, if I may have your leave to speak again, the noble Lord, Lord Hastings, has not really answered the case which I put up. He has not in fact denied that these provisions are extremely obscure; that it is very difficult to tell what they mean. He has in effect admitted that they really ought to be redrafted completely. I recognise, as my noble friend Lord Silkin does, that that is not possible at this late stage in the Session, but it would still be possible to extend the time limit. The noble Lord, Lord Hastings, has said that this has only a limited application. I do not know how many cases there are in which licences are, or will be, required for agricultural or other purposes. It is all very well to say that it has a limited application, but there may be a very large number of cases, nevertheless.

The noble Lord also said that these provisions rest upon de facto occupation. That, I think, is correct, but whether he or anybody else can readily define what that means is quite another story. He has said that administrative arrangements will be made in order to obviate the difficulty; and the administrative arrangement that is proposed, as I understand it, is that there will be notification upon the licence that, on a change of occupation application must be made. But if, for example, the owner employs a manager or bailiff to manage his farm, will the bailiff see the licence? If the owner dies abroad, nobody thinks of looking at the licence in order to see the result of what the noble Lord calls the administrative arrangements. This is a highly unsatisfactory state of affairs, and it is probably going to cause a great deal of trouble.

I cannot accept the argument that, if this provision is not included, the river authority will not have means of dealing with exceptional cases in which it is necessary to curtail the extraction of water. I simply do not believe now that that is so. This is a provision which is necessary in order to have a regular and proper means of transferring the licence from one person to another person who is going to be in occupation of a certain piece of land. Surely, it is desirable that that transfer should be made as simple as possible. If the noble Lord is not prepared to agree to six months, could he not at any rate agree to three months?

On Question, Amendment negatived.

On Question, Motion agreed to.