§ Viscount Simonasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the reply given on 11th November in another place by the Minister for Local Government to the hon. Member for Dorking (Official Report, Commons; col. 430) means that the Government now agree that Part X of the Local Government, Planning and Land Act 1980 was not intended to apply to privately owned statutory undertakers; and, if so, how they propose that the matter should now be satisfactorily resolved.
§ Lord BellwinPart X was intended to apply to land held by public bodies, which include for these purposes statutory undertakers as a class defined in Schedule 16 to the Act.
Likewise it has always been the intention of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for the 1098WA Environment to call for only such information about the land holdings of the bodies listed in Schedule 16 as he needs to enable him to decide the underused public land to be registered.
In another place my right honourable friend the Minister for Local Government and Environmental Services undertook to see whether that intention could be given statutory force by use of the order making power in Section 93 of the Act, to amend or delete an entry in Schedule 16, in respect of certain bodies embraced within the definition of statutory undertakers, by in some way identifying them in a separate class. He has since written to the hon. Member for Dorking explaining that this is a technical and complex matter which is being given very careful consideration.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before eleven o'clock.