HL Deb 09 July 1973 vol 344 cc530-7

1. No order made by a water authority under section 12 or 13 of the Water Act 1945 shall have effect until confirmed by the Secretary of State under this Part of this Schedule.

2. A water authority shall, at least one month before they apply for the confirmation of any such order,—

  1. (a) cause a notice of their intention to make the application to be published in the London Gazette and in such other manner as they think best adopted for informing persons affected, and
  2. (b) cause copies of the notice to be served on the bodies to whom the order relates and any other public authorities who appear to them to be concerned.

3. For at least one month before an application is made for the confirmation of such an order, a copy of it shall be deposited at the offices of the water authority.

4. The water authority shall provide reasonable facilities for the inspection without charge of an order deposited under paragraph 3 above.

5. Any person on application to the water authority shall be entitled to be furnished free of charge with a printed copy of such an order.

6. The Secretary of State, with or without a local inquiry, may refuse to confirm an order submitted for confirmation under this Part of this Schedule, or may confirm the order either with or without modifications; and the authority shall, if so directed by the Secretary of State, cause notice of any proposed modifications to be given in accordance with such directions.

7. The Secretary of State may fix the date on which an order confirmed under this Part of this Schedule is to come into operation, and if no date is so fixed the order shall come into operation at the end of the period of one month beginning with the date of confirmation.

8. An order confirmed under this Part of this Schedule shall be printed and deposited at the office of the water authority and copies of it shall, at all reasonable hours, be open to public inspection without charge.

9. Any person on application to the water authority shall be entitled to be furnished with a copy of it, on payment of such reasonable sum as the authority may determine.

10. Subsections (2) to (5) of section 250 of the Local Government Act 1972 shall apply in relation to a local inquiry under this Part of this Schedule as they apply to a local inquiry which a Minister caused to be held under subsection (1) of that section but with the omission of the word "local" from subsection (4)."—(Baroness Young.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Schedule 4 [Land drainage]:

EARL FERRERS moved Amendment No. 24: Page 71, line 42, leave out from beginning to ("authorities") in line 43 and insert ("members of a regional or local land drainage committee appointed by or on behalf of a constituent council or constituent councils as it applies in relation to members of a water authority appointed by a local authority or").

The noble Earl said: My Lords, this is a clarifying Amendment to make it clear that the terms of office of local authority members of regional and local land drainage committees apply irrespective of whether those members are appointed by those authorities or, in the event of disagreement, appointed on behalf of those authorities.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Schedule 5 [Consequential, transitional and supplementary provisions]:

BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 25:

Page 82, line 7, leave out paragraph (c) and insert— ("(c) for the calculation, collection and recovery on behalf of a water authority by a local authority during a transitional period of amounts payable in respect of services provided in the local authority's area by the water autho- rity and for the apportionment during that period of any payment in whole or in part of any demand by a local authority which includes any such amount as between those services and the other purposes for which the demand is made.

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 25. The purpose of this Amendment is to provide a more comprehensive means of dealing with the mechanism to be included in the transitional order for the recovery of charges.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

3.49 p.m.

BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 26:

Page 82, line 44, at end insert— ("(8A) In section 259(4), as it applies for the purposes of this Act, for the references to the reorganisation of local government effected by the 1972 Act there shall be substituted a reference to the provisions of this Act.").

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 26 which relates to the applied provisions of the Local Government Act 1972. Section 259 provides for compensation for loss of office, and Subsection (4) brings within the scope of the regulations which may be made under the section, those persons who suffer loss of employment or pay caused by reorganisation under the Act of 1972. This Amendment substitutes, for the purposes of the Bill, a reference to the provisions of this Bill for the reference to reorganisation under the Act of 1972.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Schedule 7 [Minor and consequential amendments, etc.]:

BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 27: Page 99, line 40, leave out ("such companies, boards and committees") and insert ("any description of water undertakers").

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, Amendment No. 27 modifies the wording of the replacement Section 9 of the Water Act 1948 (subscriptions to associations of water undertakers). It has been pointed out that, as at present drafted, subscriptions could be paid only to an association representing statutory water companies, joint water boards and joint water committees, whereas an association might well in practice (like the present Water Companies Association) limit its membership to statutory water companies. This Amendment will now apply only to statutory water undertakers other than water authorities, in so far as this describes the type of association which undertakers will be empowered to join. At the same time, the opportunity has been taken to widen the scope of the provision so that such undertakers will be empowered to join an association of any description of water undertakers. It is now wide enough to cover a European or international association. I beg to move.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

BARONESS YOUNG

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 28. This Amendment is concerned with the prevention of waste of clean water, and the effect of it is to preserve the status quo. I beg to move.

Amendment moved—

Page 100, line 36, leave out from beginning to ("waste") in line 37 and insert— ("(1) Subject to any provision to the contrary contained in any instrument made under or by virtue of the Water Act 1973, Part XIII of Schedule 3 to the Water Act 1945 (provisions for preventing waste of water), except section 61 (power to test water fittings), shall apply throughout every water authority area except in the limits of supply of a statutory water company within the meaning of the Water Act 1973. (1A) Section 64 of that Schedule").—(Baroness Young.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

LORD SANDFORD

My Lords, we discussed this with Amendment No. 13. I beg to move Amendment No. 29.

Amendment moved— Page 101, line 10, leave out ("Natural Environment Research") and insert ("Nature Conservancy").—(Lord Sandford.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

BARONESS YOUNG moved Amendment No. 30: Page 107, line 7, at end insert—

("Town and Country Planning Act 1971

93A. In section 147(4) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 (exclusion of compensation for refusal of planning permission, etc., where development is premature by reference (a) to the order of priority in the development plan or (b) any existing deficiency in the provision of water supplies or sewerage services) for the proviso, there shall be substituted the following proviso:— Provided that this subsection shall not apply if the reason or one of the reasons so stated is that that development would be premature by reference to the matters mentioned in paragraph (a) of this subsection and the planning decision refusing the permission is made on an application made more than seven years after the date of a previous planning decision whereby permission to develop the same land was refused for the same reason, or for reasons which included the same reason."")

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 30 which makes a consequential modification in the provisions of the Town and Country Planning Act 1971 relating to compensation.

Section 147(4) of that Act provides, inter alia, that compensation is not normally payable for the refusal of planning permission where the reason for refusal is that development is premature by reference to any existing deficiency in the provision of water supplies or sewerage services. There is the proviso however that compensation may become payable if planning permission is refused a second time for the same reason after a period of more than seven years. Up to now this proviso has protected an applicant for planning permission against any failure on the part of the relevant authorities to provide water or sewerage. However, under this Bill an applicant will have an alternative which we consider a more effectual remedy in the form of the provisions for the requisitioning of sewers in Clause 17 of the Bill, coupled with the provision in Section 37 of the Water Act 1945 for the requisitioning of water supplies. It would be unnecessary and inappropriate therefore to leave open the alternative possibility, because we believe that under the Bill there is a better remedy. I beg to move.

BARONESS WHITE

My Lords, I do not propose to contest this Amendment, because I do not understand it. My only purpose in rising is to say that I think it is regrettable that this should have come at such a late stage in the Bill, because it means that those of us who are not expert in this matter have no further opportunity. Had this been an Amendment which we might have wished to query, it would, I think, have been desirable that we should have had a little more notice, and the Department might have thought a little earlier on about putting it down.

BARONESS YOUNG

My Lords, I am sorry that the noble Baroness, Lady White, feels that this has come at a very late hour, but if there are points that she would like to raise about which I can write to her, I shall be happy to do so.

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

Schedule 8 [Repeals]:

BARONESS YOUNG

My Lords, I beg to move Amendment No. 31.

Amendment moved— Page 109, leave out lines 34 to 50.—(Baroness Young.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

BARONESS YOUNG

My Lords, Amendment No. 32 is a drafting, Amendment. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 109, line 52, after ("19") insert (',in subsection (1), the words from "and the" to the end of the subsection.")—(Baroness Young.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

BARONESS YOUNG

My Lords, Amendment No. 33 is a technical Amendment the purpose of which is to remove subsection (4) of Section 136 of the Water Resources Act 1963 (Amendments and repeals) from the list of repeals in Schedule 8 to the Bill. I beg to move.

Amendment moved— Page 114, line 9, at end insert ("except subsection (4)")—(Baroness Young.)

On Question, Amendment agreed to.

3.58 p.m.

BARONESS YOUNG

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill do now pass. In doing so, I should very much like to thank my noble friends Lord Sandford, Lord Ferrers and Lord Colville, who have borne the burden of this Bill, and my noble friend Lord Aberdare, who has managed the Welsh clauses. I should like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady White, for her kindness and consideration to me in this, the first Bill that I have had to look after in this House, and to say how much I have appreciated the way in which we have been able to work together to conclude it so satisfactorily.

Moved, That the Bill do now pass.—(Baroness Young.)

BARONESS WHITE

My Lords, I should like, in my turn, both to thank my noble friends who have worked very hard with me on this Bill and also the noble Baroness, Lady Young, and the noble Lords who have been assisting her for their courtesy at all stages. I am delighted that this should have been the noble Baroness's first Bill, and, as she knows, we welcome her warmly to her new Ministerial position. I only wish that the courtesy of the Government Front Bench had been matched by a willingness to accept Amendments from the Opposition, because I do not think a single Amendment has been accepted from our side. This is a little discouraging. We have put forward some very constructive suggestions, but not one of them of substance has found favour with the Government. So to my mind, courtesy has hardly been matched by depth of thought.

My Lords, I am sure that the Government are well aware that not only noble Lords on our side, but noble Lords in other parts of this House, are still not happy at the way in which the Government have tackled the whole problem of the central organisation for water in this country. I am sure that it is entirely unconstitutional, and perhaps "cast a shadow" would hardly be an appropriate way of putting it, but if we say we hope that the noble Lord, Lord Nugent of Guildford, may enjoy any new responsibilities that may perhaps come his way, I am sure we shall not be misunderstood. I should like to stress to the Government—and if the noble Lord is listening, so much the better—that, in our view, unless the National Water Council really exerts itself, particularly in the field that we have discussed so much, that of research and planning, it will not fulfil the expectations which the Government have for its success. In particular—as noble Lords know, I have been worrying about this aspect ever since the early stages of the Bill—if the National Water Council do not protect scientific and planning staff from the kind of intellectual emasculation suggested in the Paper recently circulated by the noble Lord, Lord Sandford, then I do not believe that scientists of the first standing will be prepared to work for the new water organisation.

I think this is a really serious matter. There are some noble Lords in the House who may not have been following the Bill with close attention, but I would ask any of them who is concerned with scientific research to obtain from the Printed Paper Office the Paper to which I have referred and, after reading it, to ask themselves whether they would not feel distinctly uneasy if they were concerned in scientific advice to Governments and expected to work under the kind of conditions outlined in the Bill and which were criticised most formidably by the noble Lord, Lord Zuckerman, just a week ago on the Report stage. The only other point I would make is that we on this side are still unconvinced of the need for a Water Space Amenity Commission in England. We think that it will simply add to correspondence and paper work. We are not happy about metering, but obviously we have not succeeded in convincing the Government.

I should like finally to refer to my own country of Wales, where water is still one of the most "inflammable" substances there is. I am grateful indeed to the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare (because I know he has many other preoccupations at the moment, with social security matters and so on), for the interest that he has shown in matters concerned with the Welsh parts of this Bill. In the one serious Amendment which I moved and which was not accepted, it seemed to me that while the noble Lord might have won "on points", as it were, so far as water organisation was concerned he showed a lamentable grasp of the political realities of Mid-Wales. With that, I should like once again to thank noble Lords in all parts of the House who have taken the trouble to work seriously on a Bill which is going to affect the water organisation in this country for many years to come.

On Question, Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

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