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Mr. Jamieson: The expert way in which you read out the amendments, Madam Deputy Speaker, makes them sound impressive, but they are, in fact, all drafting amendments and the Government agree with them.
Mr. Greg Knight: I do not necessarily oppose the amendments, but want some clarification.
Amendment No. 36 deletes clause 40(2). Why does the Minister think that that is the right thing to do? Amendments Nos. 43 and 45 are similar but not identical. They relate to the resurfacing notice. Amendment No. 43 removes "serve" and inserts "give",
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so a street authority may give a resurfacing notice rather than serve one. Amendment No. 45 removes "serve with" and inserts "given".
Every lawyer knows that "serve" has a specific meaning. If someone is served a writ as part of legal proceedings, he has to be physically touched with it. It does not matter what he then does with it. He could rip it up. I have dealt with cases in which a young articled clerk has gone to serve a writ on someone. He has touched the individual with it, has been chased down the drive and the writ has been thrown into the back into the articled clerk's car. That does not matter because the individual has still been served. In my days as an articled clerk, I spent many a weekend trying to earn a few extra pounds from my employer by serving writs on less than salubrious characters who had come into conflict with my firm's clients.
Does the replacement of "serve" with "give" imply that the Government are trying to achieve something less than a personal service, perhaps by placing an advert in a magazine or The London Gazette? Alternatively, does giving the notice simply mean telling a junior employee who happens to be on site about it, rather than issuing an official notice to the contractor, sent to that contractor's registered office? If there is a lessening of the test of service, why is that appropriate? Lords amendment No. 59 removes the term "penalty charge". Again, will the Minister say why that is an appropriate course of action?
Lords Amendment No. 70 seeks to delete from the Bill the word "guidance" and to insert the word "guidelines". I wondered what the difference was between those two words, and to refresh my memory I consulted the "New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary", which states that guidance is
"the action of guiding; leadership, direction",
"directing or standardising principle, laid down as a guide to procedure or policy".
Clearly, the most appropriate word to use in the Bill is "guidelines". The Government spend a lot of money on parliamentary draftsmen who, I suspect, certainly get paid more than a Member of Parliament and perhaps more than the Minister. Why is this change being made at this late stage? It seems, on the face of it, to involve sloppy drafting, and I look forward to the Minister's response.
Mr. Jamieson: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his remarks. His first question was on the minor technical amendments relating to the fixed penalty notice in the Bill. Lords Amendment No. 35 corrects an error in clause 40. The Bill incorrectly states that schedule 4B
"makes provision about fixed penalties for fixed penalty notices",
but it should read "for fixed penalty offences". Lords Amendment No. 36 also amends clause 40. It is unnecessary to refer to the power to prescribe notices in relation to fixed penalties under the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, because the power is already implicit in the existing provision in section 97 of the Act. The provision should therefore be deleted.
The right hon. Gentleman asked about the difference between serving notices and giving them. I believe that their lordships probably got more exercised about this
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than we did. The difficulty was that both terms had been used in the Bill. I am advised that, in legal terms, they are one and the same thing. These amendments are therefore tidying amendments to ensure that we use the same terminology throughout. Had we not put this minor matter right, there could have been some confusion about the two terms, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly suggested. However, they mean the same thing, so this is just a matter of consistency in the Bill.
I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman made a tour into our excellent Library—we heard earlier about our chief librarian, who is retiring, and about the excellent service that she provides—to look at the "Oxford English Dictionary", albeit the shorter version. He rightly said that the term "guidelines" more accurately described the directing role of the appropriate national authority. "Guidance", the term that was previously used, suggests a broader discretion than we had intended.
This is therefore a group of fairly minor but nevertheless important amendments, and I pay tribute to the right hon. Gentleman for his fastidiousness in having looked through them so carefully and asking questions about some of them.
Mr. Knight: With permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, may I say that the Minister has satisfied us on all the matters that we have raised? I am most grateful to him for his comprehensive reply, and we shall not seek to divide the House on any of the amendments which may, by all means, be put together.
Lords amendment No. 1 agreed to.
Lords amendments Nos. 2 and 3 agreed to.
Lords amendment: No. 16
Mr. McNulty: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
Madam Deputy Speaker: With this, it will be convenient to discuss Lords amendments Nos. 19 to 34.
Mr. McNulty: These are all amendments to the permit powers that were alluded to earlier when we were discussing the Ways and Means resolution. Lords amendment No. 16 clarifies that the power for regulations to provide for the review or variation of permits can also cover applications for variations to a permit—for example, where a person wishes to apply for conditions attached to a permit to be varied.
5 pm
Lords amendments Nos. 19 and 22 clarify that the powers for an order to modify or disapply primary or secondary legislation are limited to the extent allowed for by permit regulations, and they were tabled in response to the report by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee.
Lords amendments Nos. 20 and 23 delete the existing powers in the Bill covering the variation and revocation of permit schemes operated by local and national
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authorities respectively, and Lords amendment No. 21 is consequential on Lords amendment No. 23. Lords amendment No. 24 replaces those deleted powers with a new clause, which makes it clear that schemes may be revoked or varied by order and that a single order can apply to more than one scheme. It also provides that an order can also make specific provision to disapply and modify primary and secondary legislation, provided that that is in accordance with permit regulations.
Lords amendment No. 25 allows for wide provision in regulations for the determination of disputes in relation to permits. Regulations will allow for the facilitation of dispute resolution and any system of appeal for permits thought necessary. Regulations could also provide for the appointment of people to hear disputes, and the scope could extend to systems such as adjudication and mediation. Lords amendment No. 26 makes it clear that if regulations provide for adjudication, then the consent of the Lord Chancellor would be required to the making of the regulations or the appointment of persons.
Lords amendment No. 27 allows permit regulations to make provision for permit offences to be fixed penalty offences. The offences themselves will be defined in permit regulations. Lords amendment No. 31 is consequential and provides a definition of "fixed penalty notice".
Lords amendments Nos. 28 to 30 make further provision for the payment of permit fees. They set out the cases in which regulations can make provision for the charging of a fee, and they also provide that the national authority should try to ensure, so far as reasonably practicable, that fees payable in connection with permit schemes do not exceed costs as may be prescribed. Those amendments were referred to earlier in the Ways and Means resolution.
Lords amendment No. 30 enables regulations to provide for the keeping of accounts. Lords amendment No. 32 allows for permit regulations or a permit order to provide for regional variations, for instance, to apply different arrangements for permit schemes in London as against the rest of the country.
Lords amendment No. 33 provides that the first set of permit regulations would be subject to affirmative resolution. Lords amendment No. 34 is consequential on that, and amends clause 38(4) to make it clear that subsequent regulations would revert to the negative procedure. These amendments were also tabled in response to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee report.
Given that we have already discussed the core elements of the amendments in the Ways and Means resolution, I urge the House to support the amendments.
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