The right hon. Member for Dundee, East (Mr. George Thomson) will be departing from the House for reasons which are well known and most of us welcome his new appointment and congratulate him on it. He will be greatly missed, not only in Dundee but in the whole of the Tayside area, where he has earned enormous respect over many years as the representative of his constituents and also as one who has served the area with great distinction.

I accept that this has nothing to do with the matter in hand and I now refer to that. I should make it clear that I am here tonight entirely as spokesman for Angus County Council, at its request. The right hon. Gentleman has described the sequence of events and it is true that the county council, having decided to lodge formal objection to the Bill when it was originally placed in the form of a draft order at the end of 1970, withdrew its objection in the spring of this year. It is fair to explain that what occurred was that in the first place there never was, and there is not now, any objection by Angus County Council to the whole of the proposals in the Bill.

The area about which we are talking consists of about 70 acres within the old Dundee-Newtyle railway line which has been scheduled for housing redevelopment. It is entirely accepted by the county council and all its members that this area should be incorporated in the City of Dundee, very much for the reasons the right hon. Gentleman advanced. Over and above this area, the rest of the area we are discussing, that is three-quarters of the area, forms part of the green belt. At the time the draft order was placed the county council took the view that there was no case for the extension of the city boundaries of Dundee to include this part of the green belt for the purpose of housing since, as it was scheduled for green belt, obviously it was not available for housing. Further, there was the feeling that since, at that time, reform of the whole local government structure was impending, it would be better for the tidying-up of the boundaries between the County of Angus, the County of Perthshire and the City of Dundee to await that reform.

It would be fair to say that there was some hope at the time in Angus County Council that Dundee Corporation would have second thoughts and decide to limit its extension to the area within the old Dundee-Newtyle railway line, for which planning permission for housing development had already been granted and which was not a matter of controversy.

The next stage was that in the spring of this year, following publication of the Government's White Paper on the reform of local government in Scotland, the county clerk decided that, since the parishes of Liff and Benvie, within which the whole of this area we are discussing falls, were earmarked for incorporation in the district of the City of Dundee, the expense of a Parliamentary inquiry would not be justified. Hence the council withdrew its objection. The only other objection from an individual had already been withdrawn.

However, as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, the local county councillor for Liff and Benvie was far from happy with this decision. He approached me in the early summer and asked whether, as both objections to the extension order had been withdrawn, there was any further action he or I could take to delay or block the passage of the Bill. My hon. Friend the Under-Secretary replied to my inquiry about the matter that when the Bill came forward it would be open to me or anyone else to object to its passage. I informed the local county councillor that in view of the decision of the county council to withdraw its objection I did not feel that I could in all honesty oppose the Bill unless requested to do so by the county council—in other words, unless he could persuade the county council to reverse the withdrawal of its objection.

At the end of July the county council met and decided to support the local county councillor in asking me to oppose the Bill. In the light of that I agreed to object to the formal passage of the Bill. It should be emphasised that in coming to that decision, in effect to reverse the withdrawal of its original objection, it was motivated basically by two anxieties. First, I think there was an anxiety that if the Bill went through, and this portion of the green belt around Dundee were incorporated within the boundaries of the city, thereafter there might be moves to erode the green belt by using some of the ground presently in the green belt for housing development.

The second anxiety, which I know was very much in the mind of the local county councillor concerned, was that if the Bill went through unopposed and without any discussion this might be taken as the thin end of the wedge for acceptance of the proposition in the Government's White Paper on the reform of local government in Scotland to incorporate not merely this area but the whole of the parishes of Liff and Benvie and the rest of the Monifieth landward area in the new district of Dundee. This is a proposal to which the large majority of the people in the area are strongly opposed, and their county councillor is representing them in objecting very strongly to the proposal.

It is therefore my purpose tonight to deal briefly with these two anxieties. First, I think it is very important for local opinion in the area to make it clear that even if the Bill goes through there will be no possibility of any erosion of the green belt area included within the scope of the city boundary extension resulting from the Bill through its being rescheduled for housing or other development without the prior authorisation of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. I am assured by the county clerk of Angus that if any suggestion for rezoning any part of the green belt were advanced it would certainly be opposed by Angus County Council. Under those circumstances, there is a very full safeguard for the preservation of the green belt even if the Bill goes through.

The second point that it is important to make clear is that I have made it absolutely clear to my constituents in the area that whether or not the Bill goes through I should certainly seek to do my best to oppose any suggestion, as contained in the White Paper, that the Monifieth landward district and the borough of Monifieth should be incorporated in the Dundee district. It is the desire of the vast majority of the people in the area that they should be incorporated in the Angus district. I know that that is also the desire of the Angus County Council.

I would therefore enter the caveat that if the House decides to give approval to this Bill tonight this would in no way, in my view, prejudge the decisions which we shall have to take later, next year, on the shape and boundaries of Dundee City district, and it would continue to be our intention to oppose any idea of incorporating these parishes and the rest of Monifieth landward district in the city district of Dundee.

Having said that, I am conscious of the arguments which the right hon. Gentleman advanced for the House to give a Third Reading to this Bill tonight, and of the fact that there may well be some strength in his argument that matters would have been better debated at an earlier stage. I have explained the reasons why this did not occur, but in the light of all the circumstances, for myself I would not be inclined to press this matter to a Division tonight.