Clause 37 - Crown application
Traffic Management Bill
Public Bill Committees, 29 January 2004, 5:45 pm
Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport; Harrow East, Labour)
This is a fascinating debate. I missed it when we debated the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Bill, because although the issue of Crown immunity emerged in the end, that was after my departure as a Minister for planning. I will not take revenge for that and have the debate now, although perhaps it needs to be had at some stage. What is in the Bill reflects section 167(5) of the New Roads and
Street Works Act 1991. For consistency, we wanted clause 37(2) to be identical to that. I will not go into the whole story of why the Bill should reflect the 1991 Act, save to say that, until the debate about Crown immunity and Crown employee immunity has been had in far wider forums than the Committee of the Traffic Management Bill—I will happily participate in that debate—it is appropriate that the Crown definitions in the 1991 Act carry on in the Bill. I will resist the urge to go into the Crown immunity debate at this time on this measure.