My Lords, in moving Amendment 47, I wish to speak to the other government amendments in this group. Part 2 of Schedule 9 removes the current requirement for the Secretary of State to approve local highway authority permit schemes. A permit scheme allows for better control of works in the street that can cause traffic disruption. That includes works in roads and pavements by utilities and authorities’ own works. The changes would remove only the requirement for the Secretary of State to approve schemes, enabling highway authorities to bring into operation their own schemes to their own timetable by council order.
Government Amendments 47 to 58 to this part are technical in nature and deal with the relationship between the Infrastructure Bill and this Bill. The Infrastructure Bill will create a new strategic highways company and will allow the new arrangements for permit schemes to apply to the strategic highways company as well as local highway authorities. In relation to Part 3 on road humps, this measure essentially
removes the Secretary of State’s powers to place road humps on roads he does not control, mainly local authority roads. In practice, this has not been done for some time so this is a tidying-up measure. The powers of Welsh Ministers under this section are retained. However, there are two roads in Wales for which the Secretary of State remains the highway authority, and that is the two Severn crossings. The purpose of Amendments 59 to 61 is to ensure that the changes proposed to Section 90B of the Highways Act 1980 by Schedule 9, Part 3, do not apply to these two roads. I beg to move.
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