HL Deb 22 November 1976 vol 377 cc1719-20

62 Page 17, line 9, leave out from "means" to end of line 12 and insert "premises which would be controlled premises but for the fact that the number of beds which they provide or will provide is smaller than that specified in section 12(2) above;"

The Commons disagreed to this Amendment for the following Reason:

63 Because the definition provided by the Amendment is undesirably restrictive for the purposes of the notification system under the Bill.

Lord WELLS-PESTELL

My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth not insist on their Amendment No. 62, to which the Commons have disagreed for the Reason numbered 63, which reads: Because the definition provided by the Amendment is undesirably restrictive for the purposes of the notification system under the Bill. The Amendment defines "hospital premises" as premises which would have been controlled premises but for the fact that they provide fewer than 100 beds in London, or 75 beds outside London. The purpose of the notification system is to provide the Board with a body of information about the scale and nature of private sector developments, to enable it to perform effectively its duties under Parts II and III of the Bill. The Government are consulting on a definition which goes slightly wider than the definition in the Amendment, which would provide the Board with valuable and necessary additional information. We have been through this on two previous occasions and I hope that the House will accept the Commons Reason for disagreeing to this Amendment.

Lord SANDYS

My Lords, I should like to comment upon this matter. We laid particular emphasis on this Amendment when we were discussing the definitions in Part III. When the Bill was introduced we believed that the definition of "hospital premises" was much too widely drawn and proposed an Amendment which was rejected. An alternative suggestion was then put forward. I think that the wording set out on the Marshalled List is still unsatisfactory. Therefore we revert to the original situation. We believe that the definition is unnecessarily widely drawn and that "controlled premises" is a much better definition.