Philip Dunne (Ludlow, Conservative)

I should like the Minister to clarify two aspects of the clause. First, does it, or previous clauses, cover local authorities wishing to amend, rather than revoke, a byelaw? Secondly, subsection (2) provides a power to local authorities in relation to byelaws that they have made. I accept that separate clauses will give power to a Secretary of State to revoke a byelaw. However, revoking a byelaw set up by some other authority, perhaps in respect of bridleways open to all traffic, which are an issue in my constituency, or re-routeing a footpath, is often highly controversial even though it may be appropriate given the changes in agricultural techniques since it was originally introduced. Could amendments of that nature, or revocations of powers that may not have originally been made by the relevant authority, be revoked or amended under the clause?

Phil Woolas (Minister of State (Local Government & Community Cohesion), Department for Communities and Local Government; Oldham East & Saddleworth, Labour)

The clause is in the Bill for two reasons. The first is that we need to give the power to make a byelaw revoking one previously made by the authority,  where, for some reason, there is no other power to do so, either because the byelaw has become obsolete or it is not known from where it derived. That is why we have put in a fall-back for the Secretary of State, which appears to be, on the face of the Bill, contrary to the general direction of travel.

As the hon. Gentleman’s example shows, some byelaws were put into place by bodies that no longer exist. It is not intended that amendments to byelaws should be covered. The process for a new byelaw requires the revocation of the old one and we believe that putting this power down to local authority level is the sensible way to approach the issue.

The clause also gives Ministers in Wales, as well as the Secretary of State, the powers to revoke byelaws that have become obsolete or unnecessary under the process that I have described. It is our intention—and it is important to put this on the record—that the power will be used only where the power to revoke the byelaw, or the identity of the authority which should otherwise revoke it, is unclear. In other words, it might not be known where the byelaw comes from and the authority that should revoke it may be unclear. In those circumstances, we have this tidying-up exercise.

In summary, the clause is designed to cover cases where the aim is to get rid of a byelaw but it is not clear, as I have said, who can do that. That is the answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question.