New clause 1 - Planning permission for high hedges
Planning and Compulsory Purchase (Re-committed) Bill
2:30 pm
Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight, Conservative)
First, I am grateful to all hon. Members on this side of the Committee for the support that they have given to the principle of my new clause. Secondly, I am grateful to the Minister for her thoughtful and reasonable response to it. We have more promises on record than we had before about the timing of the Government's response to the issue of this serious nuisance. The Minister has said that she is keen to get legislation, and that she will respond to the House of Lords on the Anti-social Behaviour Bill shortly. She expects that, if we are not satisfied, we will have the opportunity to reconsider the matter on Report. I am grateful for that.
My hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Sir Sydney Chapman) was helpful in describing how evergreens grow. His comparison of rights of way and rights to light was singularly appropriate. The hon. Member for Ludlow (Matthew Green) said that all three parties appear to have the same objective—I am sure that that is true also of Cross Benchers in the other place.
My hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold came up with so many criticisms that he was almost drafting a new Bill rather than responding to the new clause. That is his prerogative. It is clear that he is preparing himself to be on the Government Front Bench, responding to new clauses from the Opposition Members, and I am sure that he will fulfil that role very well when he gets the chance to do so after the next general election.
My hon. Friend raised some issues that I would have regarded as carping if they had been raised by a less generous Minister—so to speak. However, my hon. Friend is not less generous than the Minister, so I will not describe his comments as carping. He came up with the sorts of criticisms that Ministers sometimes come up with about how the new clause fails on a
number of technicalities, but in my view it is the Opposition's job to table new clauses and it is the Minister's job to tidy them up if we do not get them absolutely right. I offer that bit of career development advice to my hon. Friend, should he find himself on the Front Bench in the future.