Control of Office and Industrial Development Bill

Part of Ballot for Notices of Motions – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 14 April 1965.

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Photo of Mr Richard Thompson Mr Richard Thompson , Croydon South 12:00, 14 April 1965

We ought to press the right hon. Gentleman just a little bit further on these two Amendments which were so ably argued by my hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Mr. Awdry). The right hon. Gentleman sat through a great part of the proceedings upstairs, and he will recall the many attempts that we made to amend subsection (4).

All these attempts had one thing in common; they were wholly unsuccessful. But we are applying our energies to this matter because this subsection is cardinal to the way in which the Bill is interpreted. It lays down, for the benefit of officials and the courts—if this were ever tested in the courts—the criteria which officials are to apply when confronted with an application for an office development permit, and because we wanted to get these criteria right and fair—by no means overlooking the cardinal objective of the right hon. Gentleman, which, as expressed here, is to promote the better distribution of employment in Britain—we spent a lot of time on our unsuccessful Amendments.