(1)If the Secretary of State gives to the Corporation and the British Gas Corporation notice requiring them to consider together the relevant activities specified in the notice with a view to determining the extent (if any) to which those activities can, in the national interest, best be carried on by one or both of the corporations or any of their subsidiaries, it shall be the duty of the corporations to comply with the notice and to make to the Secretary of State, before such date as he may specify after consulting the corporations, a report upon their conclusions in consequence of complying with the notice.
(2)It shall be the duty of the Secretary of State to lay before each House of Parliament a copy of each report made in pursuance of the preceding subsection.
(3)The Secretary of State may, after considering any report made in pursuance of subsection (1) of this section and laying a copy of it before each House of Parliament and after consulting the said corporations about it, give to those corporations or either of them such directions as he considers appropriate with a view to securing that the arrangements which he considers are best in the national interest are made with respect to the activities in question ; and, without prejudice to the operation of section 16(2) of this Act, it shall be the duty of the British Gas Corporation to comply with any directions given to it in pursuance of this subsection.
(4)In subsection (1) of this section " relevant activities" means any activities in which one of the said corporations or any of its subsidiaries and the other of those corporations or any of its subsidiaries are engaged or might in the opinion of the Secretary of State become engaged; and the power to give directions which is conferred by the preceding subsection is without prejudice to the generality of the power to give directions which is conferred by section 7 of the [1972 c. 60.] Gas Act 1972.