I am mindful of time and know that other Members want to contribute, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope), so I will wrap up—also the Whip is giving me the evil eye, but only in her most endearing way.
I defer to the knowledge of my hon. Friend the Member for Taunton Deane (Rebecca Pow), and know that Somerset suffered the most appalling trauma of wide-scale flooding about five years ago. I do not think that it is mutually exclusive for us to be removing sunken boats, dredging and doing important infrastructure work that needs to be done, but it needs to be done in a more systematic way, and I am unconvinced about this private Bill, which seeks to be quite innocuous but is potentially quite draconian in what it imposes on people whose rights have been established for many hundreds of years.
It has been a pleasure to have this opportunity to represent Mr Taylor and some of the other people. If we are not here to represent unfashionable views of our constituents, we are wasting our time. In the course of the debate about this Bill, I hope that the petitioners and others with a key interest in the Middle Level will have the opportunity to have a cordial, productive meeting with the Middle Level Commissioners, and that some of those comments will be taken on board in Committee, so that the Bill will be improved. I hope that we can regularise the legislative necessity of the Bill while keeping faith with the people who are the lifeblood of the area—the pleasure boat users—because we need to look after their interests, too. I hope that we will find a mutually beneficial compromise in the near future.
6.55 pm