Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [Lords]
10:30 am
Paul Goodman (Shadow Minister, Communities and Local Government; Wycombe, Conservative)
So far. I know from the hon. Lady’s speech on Second Reading that she followed this Bill closely in the Lords. She and her colleague, the hon. Member for North Cornwall, will have a lot say as we go through the Bill. We also welcome the Government Back Benchers. We know how much they want to be here—how many times they will be on their feet, endlessly intervening and making speeches. In the case of the right hon. Member for Greenwich and Woolwich, that may even be true. He is here at the same time as my right hon. Friend the Member for Skipton and Ripon, and I am beginning to believe that they do not exist separately from each other. I look forward to the right hon. Gentleman’s interventions and to my right hon. Friend’s speeches, as they exchange their views like great mastodons bellowing at each other across a primeval swamp.
I also welcome the rest of my hon. Friends on the Committee, including my hon. Friend the Member for Ludlow, our Whip, who is almost the most important person in the Committee. That burden falls on the Government Whip, whose duty it is, in the chaos engulfing the Government, to apply a little order to the Committee.
I have no other comments on the programme motion, other than to say that, ideally, we would like longer. We always tend to believe in these Committees that we do not have enough time to scrutinise the Bill, but we shall let it have plain sailing.