Clause 31
11:00 am
Bob Neill (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Bromley and Chislehurst, Conservative)
Further to that point of order, Mr. Atkinson. I add my thanks and observations to those of the Minister. For once, he and I are entirely in accord, with just one exception.
I and all my hon. Friends are grateful to you and Mrs. Dean for your courtesy. I am also grateful to the staff of the House, the Official Report and the officials. Some of the questions that we have bowled up have been dealt with courteously and efficiently.
I hope that all right hon. and hon. Members agree that this has been a rigorous but good-natured Committee. We are fortunate, as the Minister rightly said, in the breadth of experience that has been brought to bear. That means that although our scrutiny of the Bill was short compared with that of some of the other Bills with which the Minister for Local Government and I have had to deal recently, it has none the less been constructive, and I am grateful for that.
I thank the Whips on both sides for the expedition with which they have dealt with our proceedings—I am told that it is always prudent to say that. I thank both Ministers for their courtesy throughout, and the hon. Member for North Cornwall, who speaks for the Liberal Democrats. All in all, ours has been a civilised Committee.
This is, I think, the first time that I have managed to get through a Committee without any football references, perhaps because the situation of my team and that of the hon. Member for Wigan means that we need to be neither defensive nor unduly triumphant. That is probably why we passed through without any of the analogies that we sometimes hear.
I am sure that all my hon. Friends will agree with those remarks, which I have made on a most considered basis.