Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
10:30 am
Mr Keith Hill (Minister of State (Housing and Planning), Office of the Deputy Prime Minister; Streatham, Labour)
I beg to move,
That—
(1) during proceedings on the Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill, the Standing Committee do meet when the House is sitting:
(a) in addition to its first sitting on Tuesday, 14th October 2003 at 10.30 am, on that day 4.30 pm;
(b) thereafter, on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 9.10 am and 2.30 pm;
(2) the proceedings shall be taken in the following order, namely New Clauses and New Schedules standing in the name of a Minister of the Crown, remaining New Clauses and New Schedules, Clauses 5 to 11, Clause 15, Clauses 19 to 36, Clauses 44 to 53, Clauses 56 to 72, Clauses 79 to 90, Schedules 2 to 6, Clauses 1 to 4, Clauses 12 to 14, Clauses 16 to 18, Clauses 37 to 43, Clauses 54 to 55, Clauses 73 to 78, Schedule 1, and remaining proceedings on the Bill;
(3) the proceedings so far as not previously concluded, shall be brought to a conclusion at 5.15 pm on Thursday, 23rd October 2003.
I welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Hurst. I am sure that I speak for the whole Committee when I say how much I am looking forward to debating matters under the wise chairmanship of Mr. Pike, Mr. Hancock and yourself.
We will be discussing important subjects, both today and in future sittings. There is no doubt that the Bill, although many parts of it are technical, deals with important matters of great interest to many people outside this Room. I am pleased to say that those important matters now include Crown immunity, thus implementing a commitment upheld by Members on both sides of the House since 1994. I intend to proceed in the spirit of openness and clarity—and, I hope, with despatch. I am sure, however, that the Committee will understand that some explanation of the new matters before us will be necessary, and that hon. Members will be willing to listen to the Government's case. I am convinced that we are about to embark on a succession of constructive debates.
I hope that the first group of amendments show the Government's willingness to consider the amendments tabled by other members of the Committee. The first amendment could well be dubbed the Spelthorne amendment, in honour of a previous and, I understand, somewhat loquacious, member of the Committee. Before the sitting I provided the Committee with a series of documents to aid debate, and several copies of those documents are now available in the Library. I shall provide some of the detail that was unavoidably missing when the Bill was debated before, and I hope that we will be able to make good progress.