My Lords, the proposed amendment is to subsection (2) of Clause 7, which is about the,
“Secretary of State’s consent required for certain disposals for consideration less than the best that can reasonably be obtained”.
Subsection (2) is an amendment to Section 233 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. The new provision states:
“The Secretary of State may give consent under subsection (3) … in relation to any particular disposal or disposals, or in relation to a particular class of disposals”.
The next paragraph states,
“in relation to local authorities generally, or local authorities of a particular class, or to any particular local authority or authorities”.
The purpose of the amendment is simply to probe the Government’s intentions in relation to the particular class of disposals and in relation to broad categories of local authorities or, indeed, all local authorities. If the Government are putting this in legislation, they must have some idea of the kind of consents that will be given in a much broader way perhaps than exists at the moment. This could be extremely helpful to local authorities and very welcome.
I should say that I put down the final amendment to take out subsection (3) because I could not understand it. I looked at it and I looked at the legislation, and I still could not understand it. I thought that perhaps the Government can explain to me what it means. I beg to move.