Clause 42 - Directions relating to
Traffic Management Bill
3:30 pm
Mr Tony McNulty (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Transport; Harrow East, Labour)
I assure my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw that the key difference between the current positions that he describes and the world as it will be if the Bill prevails and becomes an Act is that a local authority would not act in such a fashion if that impinged on what clause 16 provides about network management duty. At present, local authorities do not need to ensure, although many do, that the execution of their own works is carried out effectively and efficiently in the way outlined by that clause.
I shall disappoint my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes, North-East, but not because I want to berate him for reading John Grisham. I quite enjoy John Grisham, whose work is far better than some of the other lighter-weight literature that one reads over holiday periods, especially from disgraced former Tory peers. It is not for the Bill to determine or change in any way the body of law relating to tort or contract law, so I cannot change the Bill or make changes to contract law to reflect what is in the Bill. It happens the other way round. It is up to those who enter into commercial or private street works contracts to reflect the changes in legislation that the enactment of the Bill will bring about. It is not for the Bill to take account of contractual relationships entered into by utilities or others.