The Secretary of State for the Environment Order 1970

Enactments relating to water

9.—(1) In the Water Acts 1945 and 1948 as amended by or under any other enactment and in the Water Resources Act 1963 as so amended any reference to the Secretary of State (including any reference which is to be construed as such a reference) shall have effect as a reference to the Secretary of State for Wales; but in the Water Resources Act 1963 the references (as originally enacted) to the Minister of Transport in section 19(4) (d) and (e) and in paragraph 4(e) and (f) of Schedule 7 shall have effect as references to the Board of Trade or Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

(2) For purposes of the Water Act 1948 the “appropriate Minister” shall be—

(a) in relation to statutory undertakers being statutory water undertakers, in the application of the Act to Wales the Secretary of State for Wales; and

(b) in relation to statutory undertakers carrying on an undertaking for the supply of electricity, gas or hydraulic power, the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry; and

(c) in any other case, the Secretary of State for the Environment.

(3) In Schedule 7 to the Water Resources Act 1963—

(a) in paragraph 16 there shall be omitted sub-paragraph (a) and sub-paragraph (c)(i) together with the preceding “either”, and in sub-paragraph (b)(i) for the words “as so applied” there shall be substituted the words “as applied by section 19 or section 20 of this Act or by Part III of this Schedule”; and

(b) in paragraph 17, at the end of sub-paragraph (1) there shall be added the words “in relation to a case falling within sub-paragraph (b), and a reference to the Minister acting jointly with the Board of Trade or Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in relation to a case falling within sub-paragraph (c)(ii)”, and sub-paragraph (2) shall be omitted.

10.—(1) In section 28(1) of the Gas Act 1965, in the definition of “Minister concerned with water resources” the references in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c) to the Minister of Housing and Local Government and to the Secretary of State shall have effect respectively as references to the Secretary of State for the Environment and to the Secretary of State for Wales, and the reference in paragraph (d) to the Secretary of State shall have effect as a reference to the Secretary of State for Scotland.

(2) In section 15(8) of the Gas Act 1965, and in paragraph 7 of Schedule 4 to that Act, in the expression “the Minister and the Minister concerned with water resources”, the reference to the Minister shall have effect as a reference to the Secretary of State for the time being discharging the functions expressed to be conferred on the Minister by that Act; and regulations under paragraph 7 of Schedule 3 to that Act shall be made jointly by that Secretary of State and the Secretary of State concerned as planning Minister.