Clause 43
Commons Bill [Lords]
2:00 pm
Paddy Tipping (PPS (Rt Hon Jack Straw, Secretary of State), Foreign & Commonwealth Office; Sherwood, Labour)
The hon. Gentleman is right to say that we need to clarify the point. This morning, under clause 38, the Minister was clear about the use of the words “temporary” and “minor”. I am keen to get that on the record. The problem is that we could have different views about the meaning of temporary and minor. I take temporary to mean weeks and months, rather than years. I have seen applications from bodies that are called temporary, but stretch into years. It would be useful to have an idea about what is considered temporary. We also need to discuss what constitutes minor.
This morning, the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (David Maclean) gave a number of examples of things that were clearly temporary, and the Minister told us that electric fencing would not be viewed as temporary. He is right. In many cases, clause 38 should be used. However, in response to the hon. Member for Meirionnydd Nant Conwy, he said that tank traps could be regarded as temporary. I am not sure that that is correct. We are talking about matters of judgment. I agree with the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire that the measure will create a lot of work, a lot of difficulty and a lot of angst. It is in our interests to be as clear as we can about what the clause stands for and what we mean by temporary and minor.