Clause 19 - Power to require information relating to network management
Traffic Management Bill
3:00 pm
Mr David Wilshire (Spelthorne, Conservative)
That was not a particularly good lesson. The trouble is that I cannot help warming to the Minister, especially when he is wrong, as he is now. My amendment does not say that information must be produced within three months. It says everything that the Minister says, plus a little more. All it says is that the specified period, which the Minister warmed to, should not exceed three months. He is absolutely right that that period might be a day.
The Bill says that the person concerned can specify how long things will take and can make a judgment about whether providing the information is simply a matter of looking something up in a file or doing a little research. In effect, my amendment says that however much the word ''specified'' is used, under no circumstances can the period extend beyond three months.
The Minister's enthusiastic response to ''specified'' did not state a period beyond two months, so he appears to accept that everything could be done within three months, otherwise he would have said that it might take six. He did not, however, so he seems to accept that three months is a long stop. In the circumstances, because he said how important it is to be quick, I am not prepared to withdraw my amendment.
Question put, That the amendment be made:—
Committee divided: Ayes 4, Noes 7.