Clause 17 - General consideration of licence applications
Water Bill [Lords]
11:00 am
Mr Norman Baker (Lewes, Liberal Democrat)
Without wanting to labour my point, I accept that there must be circumstances in which the agency can stop something immediately; that must be right in extreme circumstances. To take the power of planning law as an example, which the Minister is quite keen on this morning, let us imagine that a council issues a stop notice to prevent activity from continuing. Subsequently, that stop notice is challenged and the council is seen to have acted improperly or unjustifiably. The person on whom the notice has been served can claim compensation for loss of business or earnings during the period in which the notice was in force. Can the Minister confirm that if, in a parallel situation, the agency stops abstraction in extreme circumstances, and subsequently that action is successfully challenged, the person on whom the notice was served is equally able to claim compensation for the interruption to his business?