§ 3.7 p.m.
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of the Environment (Lord Bellwin) rose to move, That Private Business Standing Order No. 216 (Hybrid Instruments) be dispensed with in relation to any further proceedings on the order.
§ The noble Lord said: My Lords, the House might find it helpful if I were briefly to sketch in the background to the Motion. As the House knows, the original order designating the urban development area 966 and setting up the London Docklands Development Corporation was laid last November. It was declared hybrid, petitioned against and 10 of the petitions were referred to a Select Committee of this House. The Select Committee, under the chairmanship of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Cross of Chelsea, sat for 50 days.
§ The committee reported on 5th June and recommended that the principle of an urban development area and an urban development corporation should be accepted for London docklands and that the Royal Mint site should be excluded from the UDA. The committee also commented that, as the original order was not open to amendment, the House could proceed in either of two ways: it could refuse to affirm the order and ask the Secretary of State to lay an amended order incorporating any changes proposed, or alternatively it could affirm the present order after having exacted an undertaking from the Secretary of State that he would, as soon as possible, lay an amending order to exclude areas which the present order includes.
§ Today is not the time to debate the Select Committee's report; we shall have ample opportunity to do that next week when the main order is presented for approval. I should, however, say now that the Government accept the committee's recommendations in full and we aim to put them into effect as quickly as possible. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the Environment therefore laid an order on 18th June, the effect of which, if approved by the House, will be to amend the original order so as to remove the Royal Mint site from the proposed urban development area in line with the Select Committee's recommendation.
§ This amending order has been declared hybrid by the Chairman of Committees. In the normal course of events a 14-day period for petitioning and the other procedures relating to hybrid instruments would now ensue. But in view of the fact that the intention of the amending order is to carry out the recommendations of the Select Committee, made after an exhaustive inquiry into the matter, we are submitting that it would be inappropriate for Standing Order 216 to apply to this order. If the House agrees, the effect of suspending Standing Order 216 in this case will be to allow the amending order to be debated as soon as it has been before the Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. The Government's intention is to arrange for the original designation order and the amending order to be debated together on Wednesday of next week. My Lords, I beg to move.
§ Moved, That Private Business Standing Order No. 216 (Hybrid Instruments) be dispensed with in relation to any further proceedings on the order.—(Lord Bellwin.)
§ On Question, Motion agreed to.