Clause 1. — (POWER TO CONTROL SPRAY IRRIGATION, 14 & 15 GEO. 6. c. 64.)

Part of Orders of the Day — SPRAY IRRIGATION (SCOTLAND) BILL [Lords] – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 17 July 1964.

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Photo of Mr William Ross Mr William Ross , Kilmarnock 12:00, 17 July 1964

I am a bit confused. We are defining what a control area is and we say that it means all streams and localities to which a control order relates It is now proposed to add: but does not include any underground stream or any body of water, whether underground or otherwise, which is not a stream". The last part seems quite unnecessary. If it is not a stream, it is not a stream.

Moreover, I wonder to what extent much of this is already covered by the existing interpretation of "stream". The definition of "stream" in the Rivers (Prevention of Pollution) (Scotland) Act, 1951, is that it includes any river, watercourse or inland water (whether natural or artificial) and any tidal waters to which this Act applies, except that it does not include either

  1. (a) any body of water which does not discharge into the stream, or
  2. (b) any sewer vested in a local authority; but any reference to a stream includes a reference to the channel or bed of a stream which is for the time being dry".
I should have expected the first part of this Amendment to be covered by that definition.

I am not quite sure of the actual sense of the Amendment or, indeed, of the desirability of it. We are to leave out underground streams and then we are to leave out underground bodies of water which are not streams. I presume that a stream is flowing water. I am not entirely sure that we are limiting what is done here to the point raised about boreholes.

I should like the hon. Gentleman to consider whether he has opened up possibilities by this strange definition, going beyond the point raised on Second Reading by the hon. Member for South Angus (Sir J. Duncan), who, I should say, has apologised to me for the fact that he is not here today and who, indeed, suggested one or two Amendments to me. I am quite sure that, if he had been here, the hon. Gentleman would have been with us in some of the points which we have raised, and he would certainly have been rather querulous about this Amendment.

It is so confusing that I am prepared to take the hon. Gentleman's word for it—1 have some respect for the draftsmen—but I doubt that it is really necessary. It is certainly not obviously necessary, and it may well be that, by the very confusion added to the existing meaning of "stream" in Section 35 of the 1951 Act, some difficulty of interpretation will be introduced.