Bournemouth Borough Council Bill [Lords]

The lessons that Leeds and Reading learned when they introduced their Bills was that if a reasonable concession could be made to enable them to make progress, it was probably sensible to make it. It is a pity that the two Bills we are considering were introduced in the other place, and were then subject to quite a lot of comment there. They were the subject of petitions in the House, and proceeded to an opposed Bill Committee. That Committee imposed a number of amendments on clause 5 which, although they are far from perfect, we discussed last Thursday. That process cost time and money—leading counsel was engaged. It would have been much better had there been some forum in which we could have tried to find a way through. "Better late than never" is a good expression. We are where we are, but as I said to a wider audience on the radio programme last week, somebody who is representing a minority opinion in the House has relatively little ability to influence things, other than by appealing for reason and using the weapon of delay. I am grateful to my hon. Friends for facilitating the concentrating of minds by making it clear that we were prepared to deploy the weapon of parliamentary delay.