Northern Ireland Act 1947

2Power as regards certain transfers of property of public utility undertakers and local authorities

(1)No law made by the Parliament of Northern Ireland providing for the transfer, to an authority charged with the duty of providing or authorised to provide any public inland transport facilities or port facilities or charged with the duty of supplying or authorised to supply electricity or gas, of the property of persons carrying on public utility undertakings (being property held by them for the purposes of their undertakings) shall be void—'

(a)as regards the transfer of property of persons other than local authorities, on the ground that a provision of the law with respect to the amount to be paid thereunder in respect of the transfer or the manner in which or the time at which that amount is to be satisfied contravenes the restriction imposed by section five of the principal Act on the making by the Parliament of Northern Ireland of a law so as to take any property without compensation ;

(b)as regards the transfer of property of local authorities, on the ground that the said restriction is contravened, if provision is made by the law—

(i)for recouping them sums required to be paid by them in respect of loans raised by them for the purposes of the undertakings in question (or, in the case of loans raised partly for those purposes and partly for other purposes, fractions of the sums required to be paid by them in respect thereof ascertained by reference to the proportions of the loans that were applied for the first-mentioned purposes); or

(ii)for the transfer to the authority of their debts and liabilities as former public utility undertakers.

(2)No law made by the Parliament of Northern Ireland providing for the transfer, without compensation, to an authority or person of property held by local authorities for the purposes of, or in connection with, any functions of theirs otherwise than as public utility undertakers shall be void on the ground that it contravenes the said restriction if the transfer is effected in conjunction with, or as a consequence of, the transfer to that authority or person of those functions.

(3)In relation to the Electricity (Supply) Act (Northern Ireland), 1931 (section thirty-two whereof provides for the transfer to the Electricity Board for Northern Ireland, upon the acquisition by them of the electricity undertaking of a local authority, of the debts and liabilities of the local authority as former undertakers) and to the Electricity (Emergency Supplies) Act (Northern Ireland), 1942 (paragraph 2 of Part II of the First Schedule whereto contains the like provisions as respects an acquisition by the Ministry of Commerce for Northern Ireland), subsection (1) of this section shall be deemed to have come into force immediately before the passing of those Acts respectively; and in relation to the Public Health (Tuberculosis) Act (Northern Ireland), 1946 (section nine whereof provides for the transfer to the Northern Ireland Tuberculosis Authority of functions of councils under the Tuberculosis Prevention (Ireland) Acts, 1908 and 1913, and property of councils used for the purposes of or in connection with those functions) and to the Public Health and Local Government (Administrative Provisions) Act (Northern Ireland), 1946 (divers provisions whereof provide for the transfer of functions of local authorities and section twenty-eight whereof provides for the transfer of property of local authorities enjoyed in connection with functions transferred), subsection (2) of this section shall be deemed to have come into force immediately before the passing of those Acts respectively.

(4)In this section—

(a)the expression " local authority " means the council of a county, county borough, borough, urban or rural district, the board of guardians of a poor law union and the commissioners of a town, and includes a combination of local authorities ; and

(b)the expression " public utility undertaking " means a railway, light railway, tramway, road transport, water transport, canal, inland navigation, dock, harbour or pier undertaking and an undertaking for the supply of electricity or gas, and " public utility undertakers " shall be construed accordingly.