New Clause 8
Flood and Water Management Bill
12:00 pm

Huw Irranca-Davies (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Marine and Natural Environment), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Ogmore, Labour)

On a point of order, Lady Winterton. I will not detain hon. Members too much longer, but I just want to say that I always enjoy working in Committee. It is where a lot of the detail is done. I have particularly enjoyed our proceedings because we have genuinely improved the Bill, and will improve it further when we bring it back at its subsequent stages. I wish to thank the hon. Members for Vale of York and for Brecon and Radnorshire for their constructive and positive engagement. Even though we have disagreed on some areas, we all want the Bill to succeed and to be in the best shape.

I also want to thank the business managers on both sides of the Committee—the hidden people, including my hon. Friend the Member for Telford—who make the machinery turn. I want to thank you, Lady Winterton, and your colleagues, Mr. Chope and Mr. Martlew, for your great help in achieving such progress. I really want to thank all members of the Committee who have all contributed to the Bill over the past few days of our deliberations, and who will continue to do so to make sure that it is a prime piece of work. They have shown a lot of passion because of their own circumstances, insights from their constituencies and their expertise. The Bill has been a good example of proceedings—[Interruption.] I cannot take interventions on a point of order.

I also thank the people not in the room, but who have been listening to or watching our debates and who have lobbied for the Bill in all its parts. We would not be here if it were not for the pressure that we have had from our constituents throughout the United Kingdom. They will continue to work with us. I wish also to thank briefly members of my team, who are hidden away and who provide me with moments of great inspiration. They do a tremendous amount of hard work. They have also made themselves fully available to other hon. Members throughout the course of the Bill to tease out questions and to answer questions outside our proceedings. I thank the Clerks who have transcribed all my difficult  Welsh pronunciations, as I do the Serjeant at Arms and the police who have maintained order among us—a disorderly rabble. We very much look forward to the next stage and to seeing further progress. We wish this vital Bill speedy progress through this place and, hopefully, into another place.

Anne McIntosh (- Shadow Minister, Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; Vale of York, Conservative)

Further to that point of order, Lady Winterton. May I thank you, Mr. Chope and Mr. Martlew for presiding over the proceedings in such a positive way? I should like to congratulate the Minister on getting the Bill through in this form, despite our best endeavours and to thank all members of the Committee—especially my colleagues, who have given me a lot of support, which is much appreciated—for the good spirit in which the proceedings have been conducted.

I should like to echo the Minister’s thanks to the business managers. I think that we were almost short of time, so there is still a lot to debate. I should like to thank the Clerk and his colleagues for all their assistance in ensuring that we kept within time and good order. I should like to thank the Doorkeepers, Hansard and the police. May we especially recognise the work of DEFRA officials in introducing these proposals in very difficult circumstances, given the time pressure that we were under?

I think that this is the first Committee on which my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich, North has served, so I hope that she has enjoyed the proceedings. Like the Minister, I enjoy the cut and thrust of Committee work. It rather saddens me that this will probably be the last Committee on which I serve as the hon. Member for Vale of York, as my much underwater constituency will disappear at the election—[Interruption]—not entirely underwater, despite acts of God and other such issues. I am very sad to say that Vale of York will disappear at the next election. The fact that we have had so many episodes and experiences with water has given me a certain insight that I might not have had otherwise.

I should also like to echo the Minister’s remarks and thank all the outside organisations for the interest that they have shown in our work, and we look forward to the next stage of the proceedings.

Martin Horwood (Cheltenham, Liberal Democrat)

Further to that point of order, Lady Winterton. I should like to join in thanking all members of the Committee for the positive atmosphere in which proceedings have been conducted. I thank the Minister and the Bill team in particular for their open and collaborative approach and, I am sure, for a lot of hard work behind the scenes. I suppose that we should also thank the Minister for recently expanding the bounds of acceptable parliamentary language to include some choice Anglo-Saxon words.

I should also like to thank the Officials and Officers of the House for keeping us on the straight and narrow. I thank you, Lady Winterton, and certainly Mr. Martlew—I am not quite sure whether we should thank Mr. Chope, given that his two Divisions on the Floor of the House interrupted our proceedings somewhat, but it would be generous to thank him for his work in the Committee, too.

I should particularly like to thank my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire for his support and expertise on all things Welsh and rural in particular. I should certainly like to thank my outstanding office team of Victoria White, Harriet Shone and Tom Jenkins, without whose hard work hon. Members would not have heard nearly so much from me. So I suppose that I should finish by thanking all hon. Members for their patience.

Ann Winterton (Congleton, Conservative)

As the tail-end Charlie of Chairmen and speaking on behalf of Eric Martlew and my colleague, Christopher Chope, I congratulate the Minister and other members of the Committee on proceeding with great good humour, based on a lot of hard work and good sense, and I am sure that the people of this country would be proud of the fine democratic tradition that they have followed. It is also apposite to thank our Clerk and the Clerks Department for keeping us on the straight and narrow, although we had a bit of a scramble every now and again, the police obviously for keeping everything safe, the Hansard writers and all those who are associated with the work of the Committee. All that remains is for me to say, “Order, order.”