Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
10:30 am
Mr Matthew Green (Ludlow, Liberal Democrat)
I too welcome you, Mr. Hurst—and Mr. Pike—to the Chair; I am looking forward to serving under your chairmanship. Unlike the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown), I will try not to take up much of the limited time that we have available.
The Liberal Democrats welcome the Bill's return to Committee, because clearly it was not dealt with in its entirety in January. We welcome the Government's use of the intervening nine months or so to come up with some welcome new clauses, particularly on the issue of Crown immunity. I hope that we can move through those with some expedience.
I am sure that the new Minister will approach the Bill in a constructive manner. I fully expect him to listen intently to the issues raised, and I hope that we can move on to the new clauses and amendments that have been tabled by both the Opposition parties, because they raise some interesting points.
I am concerned that only three of us in this Room—the hon. Members for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman) and for Cotswold and myself—served on the original Committee in January. We are almost halfway through the process, and all the names have changed so we are starting all over again. We welcome the Bill's return to Committee, but we are concerned about whether we will get through everything in eight sittings. We would have preferred a longer time, but we will not seek to force that to a vote, preferring to see whether the Minister will live up to his promises of flexibility, and whether we can move through the issues and achieve most of our objectives. If we do not, we
will seek to persuade him that more time should be allowed later.