'(1) Subsection (2) applies if—

(a) an old mining permission relates to land which is Crown land, and

(b) the permission has not been registered in pursuance of Schedule 2 to the Planning and Compensation Act 1991.

(2) Section 22 of and Schedule 2 to that Act apply to the old mining permission subject to the following modifications—

(a) in section 22(3) for ''May 1, 1991'' there is substituted ''the date of commencement of section (Old mining permissions)(2) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2003'';

(b) in paragraph 1(3) of Schedule 2 for ''the day on which this Schedule comes into force'' there is substituted ''the date of commencement of section (Old mining permissions)(2) of the Planning and Compulsory Purchase Act 2003''.

(3) Old mining permission must be construed in accordance with section 22 of the Planning and Compensation Act 1991.

(4) Crown land must be construed in accordance with Part 13 of the principal Act.'.—[Keith Hill.]

Brought up, and read the First time.

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

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government new clause 44—Old mining permissions: Scotland.

Government amendments Nos. 51 and 52.

I find this aspect of the Bill especially interesting. New clause 15 deals with a limited category of old mining permissions that were created by wartime interim development orders between 1943 and 1948 and regularised in the Town and Country Planning Act 1947. A special scheme was established in the Planning and Compensation Act 1991 to provide for the registration of those old permissions and for the approval of appropriate new operating conditions. Because Crown immunity applied to the 1991 Act, there is a possibility, albeit a remote one, that there may be permissions on Crown land that have never been registered or made subject to the requirement to apply for, and have determined, an appropriate modern scheme of working conditions. The new clause therefore restarts the clock for this class of permissions by substituting the date of commencement of this Bill, when enacted, for the essential date specified in the 1991 Act.

Government amendments Nos. 51 and 52 follow on from the new clause. Old mining permissions reviewed

under the 1991 Act are then subject to later reviews at 15-year intervals under schedule 14 to the Environment Act 1995. That Act was not subject to Crown immunity, but it remains necessary to amend it to deal with the possibility that the Crown exemption under the 1991 Act was misapplied. It allows any modern working conditions erroneously applied to mineral sites on Crown land to be redetermined correctly. This could have happened if the permission were held by a leaseholder who registered the permission not realising that the Crown was exempt. We therefore need to provide for redetermination.

I fully confess that I do not expect that many, if any, permissions will fall under the scope of the amendments, but it is impossible to be sure. My Department will contact other Departments and Crown bodies with a possible interest to alert them to the provision and to the time limits that it contains.

New clause 44 makes the same changes to Scottish planning legislation as new clause 15. It is thought that the changes in amendments Nos. 51 and 52 are to some extent already dealt with in existing Scottish planning legislation. However, the Scottish Executive are considering what further amendments might be needed to give effect to the policy intention, which is the same for Scotland.

On a point of clarification on new clause 15, as I understand it, the new clause comes into effect on the commencement of the relevant provisions in the Bill. Therefore, while I take the Minister's point that there are unlikely to be any extant mines in that situation, it seems that if there were, and if the provisions were to apply to them, the time scale would be very short. How is the Minister to alert all the bodies that might possibly be able to take advantage of the provision?

Can the Minister clarify why amendment No. 51 does not follow the format that is in the legislation? It seems particularly odd that it is changing the format, because amendment No. 52 follows the same format. Can the Minister explain why amendment No. 51 is needed? I am not clear what amendments Nos. 51 and 52 do. It seems that they, too, relate to the outstanding mineral permissions. I would be grateful for clarification as to the first review date and the time scale for the application of the provisions.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for asking a couple of pertinent questions, which I hope to answer. It is an interesting subject. We are working in the dark with regard to old mining permissions. We do not know whether there are any such permissions relating to our Departments or to Crown land, the Crown estates, the Royal household, or the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall. Nor do we know whether any were incorrectly registered and gained new conditions when the Crown exemption applied. It is possible that mineral leaseholders might have done that not realising that the landowner had Crown exemption. Minerals are frequently worked by leaseholders and they hold the permissions. If that is the case, we might need to provide for redetermination if new conditions under the law, as amended, are required. We have therefore provided a general order-

making power that we can use if we find any outstanding problems. It is a safety net, because we are dealing with a theoretical situation and cannot anticipate issues that might arise.

Will the Minister help me out? He spoke of mineral workings on Crown land. I assume that that includes mineral workings beneath Crown land. As he knows, the sea bed is the property of the Crown and many coal mines extend beneath the sea bed.

None that are still working.

Some that are working and some that are not. Can the Minister tell me to what distance beyond the low tide mark the legislation applies?

The hon. Gentleman has been most inventive in the course of the Committee. I have an idea as to the answer. Let me tentatively flag up that it might be the exclusion zone claimed by the UK and most other countries, which extends for 200 miles from the coastline. The hon. Gentleman will recall that that was confirmed by the United Nations law of the sea conference in the mid–1970s. Is that correct?

Yes.

That is my offering, though I do not claim that it is necessarily correct; I might be advised differently in due course. The hon. Member for Cotswold asked a couple of questions. One was about how I would seek to inform those with an interest. As I have said, we would certainly be in touch with other Departments and with the Crown to ask them to check whether they had any record of such matters and, if so, to alert the appropriate parties. It is conceivable that our own exchanges on the matter might receive wider currency. This Standing Committee is followed avidly by the mass media, and they might provide another means of communicating the information.

The hon. Member for Cotswold asked about commencement. There is no problem with the time scale; the measure will be brought into force by the commencement order. The first review date is 15 years from the date of determination of the commission of the conditions. Finally, he asked about the style of amendment No. 51. It is a paving amendment—we have seen similar amendments in the course of our proceedings—to change the existing provisions of the Bill to accommodate the addition of amendment No. 52. I hope that that satisfies the hon. Gentleman.

I am still not entirely clear. The nefarious, well-disguised Crown bodies that might have the extant mines somewhere within their portfolios having been found, how long will new clause 15 remain in operation? Will it continue for ever more or will there be a cut-off date by which, if the mines have not come forward, it will cease to have effect?

Coal mines are already covered by the planning Acts. As to the duration of new clause 15,

perhaps that is a matter on which I can write to the hon. Gentleman.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause read a Second time, and added to the Bill.