Clause 76 - Loss payments: exclusions
Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill
4:00 pm
Mrs Barbara Roche (Minister of State, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Hornsey and Wood Green, Labour)
Subsection (7) provides a power for the Secretary of State in England and the National Assembly for Wales to make regulations to amend the list of notices and orders specified in the Bill, in cases in which that is needed. There might be legislation in future that will need to be included in the list of orders or notices. For those who like less legislation, existing orders or notices may be repealed and replaced with others. Subsection (7) is perfectly reasonable and understandable, and should not worry the Committee.
I completely understand the points that the hon. Member for Ludlow makes. We have listened to Westminster city council, which is why we have tried to frame the clause as we have. As the hon. Gentleman said, we are talking about the loss payments, but that is only one element. The agency concerned will encourage people to bring properties into use, and there are Government programmes to deal with homelessness. We hope that the clause in part addresses the concerns that have been brought to our attention.
Question put and agreed to.
Clause 76 ordered to stand part of the Bill.