Orders of the Day — Local Government (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:13 pm on 25 November 1981.

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Photo of Mr Timothy Raison Mr Timothy Raison , Aylesbury 4:13, 25 November 1981

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

This is the second Bill designed to relieve local authoritites and both Houses of some of the burdens of promoting private legislation. Over the years, but particularly of course during the nineteenth century, the statute book has become more and more cluttered with literally hundreds of private Acts giving local authorities necessary regulatory powers. Many of those powers have been superseded by public general legislation and many have fallen into disuse. For others, however, there is a continuing need.

With the reorganisation of local government in 1974 there came the opportunity to clear the statute book of superfluous or obsolete provisions and allow the new authorities to start afresh. They could take to themselves only those powers that could be justified in modern times, and make them readily accessible in new legislation.

Section 262 of the Local Government Act 1972 provided that all private legislation promoted by local authorities applying before 1 April 1974 outside Greater London, which had already updated its legislation, should cease to have effect on the metropolitan counties at the end of 1980 and in the non-metropolitan counties at the end of 1984. Incidentally, the Government are planning to postpone the latter time limit until 1986 to give councils more time. We are not generally proposing to postpone the year 1984 for other purposes.