Commons Bill [HL]

Clause 41 provides powers for the national authority to exempt certain works from the controls in Clause 36 provided that the works are for one of a specified set of purposes, listed in Clause 41(3), to which the noble Earl has referred. I shall come back to that later. Amendments Nos. 224 and 225 would add to the list of purposes. One of our objectives in this part of the Bill is to bring greater clarity to the types of works covered by the controls. We see Clause 41 as an important provision to help us achieve that. We accept that the list of purposes in Clause 41(3) is too narrow. We are considering how the list might be broadened and will listen very carefully to the suggestions put to us in Committee and elsewhere. I recall that at Second Reading the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, and the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, were particularly concerned that controls should not apply to minor management works. I propose to come back to the House on Report with an amendment to Clause 41. In preparing that amendment, we shall of course be very mindful of the concerns of noble Lords that we might be in danger of making the power to issue exemptions too broad. I hope I can reassure them that our objective is to ensure that primarily minor or temporary works needed in relation to a specific purpose can be exempted from the controls. We propose to list those purposes on the face of the Bill, which is the objective of the amendment we intend to table on Report. I remind Members of the Committee that government Amendments Nos. 223A to 223E provide that exemptions must be made by order, subject to the negative instrument procedure. The noble Earl, Lord Peel, referred to nature conservation. We are considering a list, and we will consider it carefully under Clause 41(3). In response to the noble Earl’s secondary question, this is the first time we have had such powers and we can implement them at any time. The national authority could do so of its own volition or after prompting by another person. Those are the trigger points. If further clarification would help the noble Earl, I shall answer any queries he puts to me.