COMMONS AMENDMENTS (Hansard, 29 March 1977)

§ Lord KIRKHILL

My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 2 and 3. With the permission of the House, I will speak at the same time to Amendments Nos. 6 to 9 inclusive.

I have moved consideration of these Amendments en bloc because they all relate to the drafting of Clause 4. The purpose of this clause is to strengthen the enforcement powers available to 802 planning authorities under the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act 1972. This will be achieved, first, by extending the scope of stop notices to include all breaches of planning control. Second, stop notices will be publicised by means of site notices, which will bring all those involved in unauthorised activities within the scope of the stop notice prohibition.

We are naturally concerned that the new provisions in the Bill should be effective and watertight. We received advice that the wording of Clause 4 as it left this House might not fully achieve what the Government had set out to do. Amendments were moved therefore in another place which I believe have greatly improved the drafting of the clause, and removed any possible loopholes which might have enabled people to escape the effect of stop notices. The apparent weakness in the wording of the clause arose over the relationship between stop notices and the new site notices. The old wording of subsection (4) stated that a stop notice should, have effect in relation to any person when it is served on him or when it is publicised in accordance with subsection (3) above". In other words, by a site notice. The old subsection (1), on the other hand, stated that a stop notice would prohibit any person "on whom the stop notice is served" from continuing the unauthorised activities. The intention of subsection (4) was clearly that a site notice should extend the effect of the stop notice on people as if they had been served with a copy of the stop notice itself. We were advised, however, that subsection (1) would be overriding as it stood. In other words, as the clause was drafted, stop notices would affect only those people served with them individually. This group of Amendments was tabled to put this right.

First, Amendment No. 2 takes out the overriding provision in the old subsection (1), which related the stop notice prohibition specifically to notices served on people. The new subsection (1) will have general effect in stopping the unauthorised activities. Amendment No. 3 is a minor consequential drafting Amendment. Amendment No. 6 revises the provisions of subsections (3) and (4) and inserts a new subsection (5). This provides that a stop notice shall cease to have effect in 803 relation to any activity when the enforcement notice is varied by the Secretary of State on appeal so that it no longer relates to that activity.

Amendment No. 7 provides that site notices will now have effect by virtue of the new subsection (7), which replaces the second half of the old subsection (3). Since under subsection (1) as amended the effect of a stop notice is no longer restricted to those served with it personally, publicity by means of a site notice will extend the prohibition to all those involved in the unauthorised activity. Amendment No. 8 deletes the old subsection (4) as a consequence of Amendment No. 6. Finally, Amendment No. 9 is consequential on Amendment No. 2 which gave stop notices general effect; that is, their application is no longer restricted to people served with notices.

I have explained this group of Amendments in some detail. I could see no alternative to doing so and I hope that what I have said has helped to clarify what seems to me to be a very complex question of drafting.