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Mr. Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con): As the Minister said, we have debated the principles. The group of 16 Lords amendments is a welcome improvement, but we still have reservations and wish that the Government had been able to go further to meet our concerns about the stealth tax that effectively lies behind the permit scheme.
If it were not for the constraints of time, we could spend longer discussing the detail. By my calculation, the other place spent 25 hours and 45 minutes discussing the Bill, during which time 109 amendments were
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tabled. With their guillotine motion, the Government have allowed us only two and a half hours to consider all those amendments, which is a mean approach. We must try to discuss as much as possible, so the time that we can spend discussing this group of amendments is inevitably restricted.
May I ask the Minister about the one-sidedness of the fixed penalty notices, because there is still an issue about the fact that the fixed penalty notices will apply to utilities only, and not to highway authorities, although the highway authorities themselves, through the works that they carry out, may cause as much, if not more, inconvenience to the motoring public?
The National Joint Utilities Group takes the view that this is a one-sided, arbitrary fixed penalty regime that does nothing whatsoever to ensure that there is any incentive for highways authorities carrying out works to do so in a reasonable time and with a minimum amount of disruption to members of the public. [Interruption.] I do not know whether the Minister is listening to the concerns expressed by the National Joint Utilities Group, but I hope that he will be able to explain exactly how the travelling public can be assured that when the highways authorities carry out roadworks they will not be able, with impunity, to block the highway by sticking their roadworks there for unreasonable lengths of time. If the Government believe that it is necessary to have a penalty regime, with fixed penalties that may rise to as much as £350, for utilities, why do they not believe that it is necessary for the highways authorities? I hope that the Minister will be able to allay remaining concerns on that matter.
I hope that the Minister will think again about the overall burden of cost involved in these permit schemes. In correspondence with my noble Friend Viscount Astor, the Minister in the other place said that he did not believe that it would be sensible to tie the costs down as narrowly as we wished. I should have thought that it was in everybody's interests that the costs of permit schemes and the costs of getting permits should be tied down as tightly as possible. That is why we regret that the Government have not gone further.
Mr. John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con): I rise to support my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope). He is letting the Government off very lightly, although I realise that that is because we are so short of time that we cannot discuss this properly and divide on it if we hope to deal with the other important matters before us.
I should have thought that the Minister would want to table rather more amendments to the permit scheme provisions, because we live in remarkable times. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told us that there is too much waste and bureaucracy and too many stealth taxes, yet here we see the Department for Transport going ahead as if the new doctrine had not come in. It is busily legislating for a very expensive stealth tax on the private sector, but it is not prepared to be fair-minded by recognising that the public sector is often the cause of delays, and is exempting it from the charge.
These clauses, even when amended as suggested by the Minister, will leave a bureaucratic, expensive and lopsided system. If the Minister knows what is good for him in his future career, he should listen rather more
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carefully to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and identify this scheme as a new example of the waste, intervention, bureaucracy and stealth taxing that we heard this week was no longer on the agenda.
Mr. McNulty: If I understood the hon. Member for Christchurch rightly, he wants 25 hours to discuss 19 amendments that everyone agrees with. That seems obtuse, to say the least. He did not mention all the time that we spent on Second Reading and in Committee—it was a good-natured Committee stage—and subsequently on Report and Third Reading.
Broadly speaking, I do not accept the points made by the hon. Gentleman. Nor, interestingly, does the other place, where all these amendments were ultimately secured without dissent. The first set of regulations on permit schemes will be subject to the affirmative order. I do not accept that the proposals are one-sided. We debated that extensively in Committee. If I understand the hon. Gentleman correctly, he wants a fixed penalty notice regime whereby the highways authority imposes on itself fixed penalty notices if it transgresses the permit system that it will be afforded the ability to impose on others. One part of the highways authority will therefore impose a fixed penalty regime on another part, and will doubtless take it to court if the notices are not paid. One part would then sue another for recovery of costs and other expenses stemming from the regime if they are not forthcoming. In Committee, we made it clear that we accepted—I am mimicking the hon. Member for Christchurch in case people did not notice rather than the National Joint Utilities Group or any other learned body that partook in our discussions—that it is a network management duty to ensure that highways authorities discharge their functions on roadworks and streetworks properly and respect the spirit of the Bill.
Network management duties are, quite rightly, not imposed on private contractors and utility groups, but are a function of the local highways authority which, as the relevant public body, will be charged with the efficient and expeditious carrying-out of streetworks. We can set hares running, but it will not be in any highways authority's interest to start digging a hole in the road and leave it there for two or three months, as hon. Gentlemen suggested, doing nothing. It is foolish to suggest that the authorities would act with impunity because they are not charged for permits and are not fined—the Opposition have flogged that point to death. The utility groups accept that balance will prevail, and are represented on a series of working groups that will be set up according to regulations and guidance in the Bill.
I shall not even bother to grace the tosh about stealth taxes with a reply. Not only have the Opposition fabricated unrealistic and unnecessary rhetoric to the point of ridicule but their criticisms have become a tiresome standing joke. The amendments were agreed by the House of Lords without dissent and, as the hon. Member for Christchurch said, they tidy up the permits system in the Bill and deal with many of the concerns expressed by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I therefore hope that they will be warmly welcomed as a way of tidying up a complex part of the Bill. All the Lords amendments improve the clarity of the Bill, so we are happy to accept them. They
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should have been welcomed by the Opposition, so that we could debate the matters of substance in the Opposition amendments in the two following groups. The amendments in the current group, however, are worth while and improve the permit scheme. The House of Lords fully endorses them, and I urge the Commons to do so as well.
Lords amendment agreed to.
Lords amendments Nos. 17 to 36 agreed to, the Commons being willing to waive their privileges in respect of Lords amendments Nos. 28 and 29.
Lords amendment: No. 37.
Mr. McNulty: I beg to move, That this House agrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): With this we may discuss the following: Lords amendments Nos. 38 to 42, 44 and 51; Lords amendment No. 52 and amendment (a) thereto; Lords amendments Nos. 53 to 56, 93, and 96 to 98.
Mr. McNulty: Regulations will make provision for appeals from utilities against an authority that has given a direction about the placing of apparatus. Lords amendment No. 37 makes it clear that regulations may also make provision about the person who may determine any such appeals.
Lords amendment No. 38 makes some useful changes to the giving of notices by undertakers under sections 54 and 55 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991. Among other things, there will be a requirement that if the notice of the starting date of works becomes invalid under section 55, an undertaker must provide a further notice containing such information as prescribed. Failure to do so will be an offence. Lords amendment No. 93 adds this offence, as a consequence, to the list of possible fixed penalties.
Under the 1991 Act, if an authority wishes to restrict street works after substantial roadworks it must notify relevant persons at least three months before the substantial roadworks start. Lords amendment No. 39 provides for flexibility for regulations to prescribe the period instead. Lords amendment No. 40 provides that regulations may also prescribe certain descriptions of persons who must be notified of the restriction.
Lords amendment No. 41 amends clause 50, which amends several provisions in the 1991 Act. Under the Act, certain actions are required when an undertaker sends a section 55 notice. The amendments mean that those actions are also required when the undertaker sends a notice under schedule 3A in relation to works to be carried out before substantial street works. Lords amendment No. 98 deletes the provisions in schedule 3A, which allow for cases where overrun charges are applied to work carried out before the restriction. Those provisions are no longer needed due to amendment No. 41.
Lords amendment No. 96 widens the existing power in the Bill to prescribe the notification requirements in relation to restrictions on further works under the new schedule 3A provisions. Regulations could prescribe the
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form of such notification and the information that must be contained. Lords amendment No. 97 clarifies which works are exempt from notification arrangements set out under section 55 of the 1991 Act in relation to schedule 3A.
Lords amendments Nos. 42, 44 and 51 to 55 apply to clauses 53 to 55 of the Bill. Those clauses insert new sections into the 1991 Act, which provide the basis for regulations to enable street authorities to require undertakers to resurface a street, or part of a street, or contribute to the cost of that resurfacing.
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