Deregulation Bill

Lindsay Hoyle Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor-General (Oliver Heald)]

I beg to move amendment 58, page 157, line 11, at end insert—

‘Mining Industry Act 1920 (c. 50)

3A The Mining Industry Act 1920 is repealed.

3B In consequence of paragraph 3A, in Schedule 4 to the Mines and Quarries Act 1954, omit the entry for the Mining Industry Act 1920.

Mining Industry Act 1926 (c. 28)

3C (1) In the Mining Industry Act 1926, omit section 20 (which confers power on coal-mining companies to establish profit sharing schemes irrespective of the terms of their articles of association).

(2) The repeal made by sub-paragraph (1) is to have no effect in relation to any scheme still in existence that was established, and is being carried on, in reliance on the power conferred by section 20 of the Mining Industry Act 1926.’.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Government amendments 75 and 59.

Amendment 4, page 162, line 22, at end insert—

Part 7A

Civil Law

Defamation Act 1996 (c.31)

34A Omit section 13 of the Defamation Act 1996 (which allows an individual litigant in defamation cases to waive the ban in Article IX of the Bill of Rights on proceedings in Parliament being impeached or questioned in court).’.

The Joint Committees on Parliamentary Privilege in 1999 and 2013 both recommended the repeal of this hardly-used provision.

Government amendment 60.

Amendment 73, page 163, line 12, at end insert—

‘Part 9 Communications

Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988

37 The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 is amended as follows.

38 Section 73 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (Reception and re-transmission of wireless broadcast by cable) is revoked.’.

Section 73 was introduced in the 1980s to encourage cable roll-out as a competing platform to terrestrial (analogue) television. This has clearly now been achieved and cable is a highly-effective and well-resourced competitor to Sky and Freeview.

[The Solicitor-General]

This group contains amendments to schedule 18, which makes provision for repealing legislation that is no longer of practical use. Before I outline the amendments, may I say how much I welcome re-encountering the hon. Members for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) and for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), whose very helpful and constructive approach in Committee has improved the Bill?

The Mining Industry Act 1920 and section 20 of the Mining Industry Act 1926 will be repealed as they are no longer needed for mining and quarrying. Most of the Mining Industry Act 1920 has already been repealed, and we now seek to repeal the remaining provisions. That will not affect rights to ownership. The remaining sections are outdated administrative arrangements. For example, functions were originally conferred on the Board of Trade, but were long ago transferred to the Secretary of State through a transfer of functions. Sections 18 and 22 concern the powers to make drainage schemes for groups of mines, but they are now dealt with by negotiations between mine owners and other local landowners. Sections 25 and 26 are technical provisions.

Overall, the only matter that needs to be mentioned is section 20 of the 1926 Act, which provides for the establishment of profit-sharing schemes. It of course pre-dates the nationalisation and privatisation of the coal mining industry, as well as modern companies legislation. Such legislation should apply to coal mining companies in the same way as it applies to any others, so there is no need for any special provision. However, the amendment contains a saving provision, because it would clearly not be fair to undermine any existing profit-sharing schemes, and they will be allowed to continue.

Most of the Merchant Shipping Act 1988 has already been repealed. Section 37, which relates to the licensing of tidal works by harbour authorities, disapplies the requirements of section 34 of the Coast Protection Act 1949. That Act has already been repealed, so the saving provision is no longer of any practical effect.

Amendment 59 will extend the repeal of the Milk (Cessation of Production) Act 1985 to Northern Ireland. EU legislation in 1984 set up a system of production—the milk quota system—in which, in essence, each producer was allocated a quota. That will end on 31 March 2015, so the underlying EU legislation will cease to be effective next April. The amendment will allow the Bill to repeal and revoke all relevant UK legislation relating to Northern Ireland, as well as England and Wales.

Amendment 60 will ensure that the saving provision in paragraph 3 of schedule 18 to the Housing Act 1988 will cease to have effect in England, although it will continue to apply in Wales. The saving provision has become redundant in England. Essentially, sections 56 to 58 of the Housing Act 1980, which have been repealed, enabled landlords to grant assured tenancies for newly built or newly repaired dwellings. The vast majority of tenancies were converted in 1989 into new style assured tenancies under the Housing Act 1988. Sections 56 to 58 were repealed subject to a saving provision, which is now being abolished because there are no longer any assured tenancies under the 1980 Act in existence in England, and it is therefore redundant.

To turn to the non-Government amendments, amendment 73 would require the Government to revoke section 73 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) for raising that important issue. The effect of section 73 is that public service broadcasters cannot charge cable services for the inclusion of their channels on these services.

Section 73 is part of a much wider framework supporting the availability of television and investment in television programming in the UK. A variety of rules and regulations affect the production, availability and ease of discovery of public service programming and its relationship with the different platforms—cable, satellite, digital TV and terrestrial—that carry it. They include the obligations on public service broadcasters to offer their content to all relevant platforms, the rules governing payments by broadcasters for technical platform services and the powers for regulators to compel these services to carry public service broadcast content.

This is an area with many competing interests. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport produced a policy paper, “Connectivity, Content and Consumers” last year. The Government stated that their policy objective was zero net charges, where fees for access to the main platforms—cable, satellite, digital TV and terrestrial—would be cancelled out by charges made by the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5, so creating a zero net charge regime. That is close to the current market position, and it recognises the benefits to platforms, public service broadcasters and consumers.

Section 73 is an integral part of that picture, but the arrangement is under pressure. Online services rely on section 73 to exploit public service broadcaster content, but no benefit flows back to the public service broadcaster.