New clause 15 - Old mining permissions
Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
6:00 pm
Mr Keith Hill (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Streatham, Labour)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for asking a couple of pertinent questions, which I hope to answer. It is an interesting subject. We are working in the dark with regard to old mining permissions. We do not know whether there are any such permissions relating to our Departments or to Crown land, the Crown estates, the Royal household, or the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. Nor do we know whether any were incorrectly registered and gained new conditions when the Crown exemption applied. It is possible that mineral leaseholders might have done that not realising that the landowner had Crown exemption. Minerals are frequently worked by leaseholders and they hold the permissions. If that is the case, we might need to provide for redetermination if new conditions under the law, as amended, are required. We have therefore provided a general order-
making power that we can use if we find any outstanding problems. It is a safety net, because we are dealing with a theoretical situation and cannot anticipate issues that might arise.