Schedule 1 - Capital finance: parish and community councils and charter trustees
Local Government Bill
3:15 pm
Mr Christopher Leslie (Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office; Shipley, Labour)
That was a very interesting speech by the hon. Member for Cotswold, but only because if I did not know better, which I do, it would seem as though he were walking through the Bill and looking at the amendments for the first time without being quite sure how they fit the schedule. However, I know that that could not be the case.
Schedule 1 largely re-enacts the substance of schedule 13 to the Local Government Act 1972, and the wording that the hon. Gentleman said was unintelligible comes largely from that Act. Although I was not around at the time—I was born in 1972—I think that the Act was introduced by a Conservative Administration. [Interruption.] As my right hon. Friend the Minister for Local Government and the Regions points out, at that time the country was about to be plunged into a three-day week and perhaps the parliamentary counsel had difficulty writing the provisions clearly and intelligibly as he worked under candle light.