Orders of the Day — Coal Mining (Subsidence) Bill – in the House of Commons am 9:30 pm ar 22 Ebrill 1991.
I beg to move amendment No. 6, in page 13, line 23, after 'if' insert `—(a)'.
With this it will be convenient to take Government amendments Nos. 7 to 9.
I have already said that stop notices are necessary in certain eventualities. The Waddilove committee recommended their continuation and an annual review of stop notices. That has been incorporated in the Bill. Furthermore, if ground stability is expected for 18 months ahead, stop notices need to be revoked.
It was pointed out in Committee that there was no absolute time limit for revoking a stop notice; therefore it is in principle possible even with annual reviews that stop notices could continue in force for many years if continuing underground mining was possible. For that reason, I introduced these amendments to put an absolute three-year time limit on stop notices. Henceforth they will be allowed to continue beyond that period only if the claimant or any other person does not object.
It may be sensible for all concerned to delay final repairs beyond that, but everyone's consent is needed for any further delay. I believe that a three-year period strikes the right balance between the claimant, who does not want to wait too long for those final repairs, and the British Coal Corporation, which might otherwise incur unnecessary repeat expenditure on repairs to a property or a house which may be damaged again. With that explanation, I trust that the House will accept the amendment.
I welcome the claimants' right to ask for a stop notice to be revoked after three years. In Committee we tabled an amendment to clauses 16 and 17 for the time limit to be six months less than that. We felt that it would not be right for the British Coal Corporation to keep issuing stop notices. Our timetable would have been two and a half years as opposed to three years. The Minister has clarified the criteria and the time scale.
We welcome the amendment and hope that such notices will not be used very often and problems will be sorted out much quicker than in the past. British Coal will know that the issuing of stop notices will not keep the devil away from the door—it will have to take action. British Coal would have a maximum of three years and then it would have to sort out the damage to a person's property.
In Committee I raised the issue that my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Mr. Rogers) had previously raised about the incredible stop notice that went on for years. I welcome the amendment proposed by the Minister.
No. 8, in page 13, line 47, at end insert—
'(3A) In subsection (1)(b) above "the relevant date", in relation to a stop notice, means—
(3B) The Secretary of State may by order substitute for the period mentioned in subsection (1)(b) above (whether as originally enacted or as previously amended under this subsection) such other period as he thinks fit.'.