We have had a good humoured and thoughtful debate, and I am grateful to everybody who has participated. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for North West Norfolk (Sir Henry Bellingham), who conceded that some of my amendments were sensible, if not the new clauses. I hope that if they are not accepted by the promoter tonight, they will be taken forward when the Bill is debated in the other place in due course, as it inevitably will be.
The issues we have discussed are of considerable concern to the petitioners. I am very grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight) for having got to his feet. It is quite unusual in these debates for the person who has got down to the detail in Committee to come here to explain his reasoning and the work that he did. I thank him and the other members of the Committee once again for the work that they did and the courteous way in which they dealt with the concerns expressed by the petitioners. He has set a useful new precedent: instead of hiding their light under a bushel, the people who get involved in the Committee stage should participate on Report, as he has done.
I am also grateful to the hon. Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) for showing sympathy with some of my amendments, although she cannot bring herself to support them yet.
I will not press all the amendments in the House tonight, because it will be much better for them to be dealt with in the other place, where the ideas can be developed and the responses from the petitioners and the promoter can be made available. However, I do think that amendment 14 bears further consideration. For the benefit of those who were not here for the debate, amendment 14 is in page 6, clause 4, line 11, at the end to add
“(8) No charge shall be payable in respect of the use of a waterway by a vessel being used by a person who is registered disabled”.
I only got one response on that from my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster), whom I thank for having gone through all my amendments seriatim, which is fantastic. He, like my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull, is assiduous in answering the points that have been made. It makes it much easier for someone summing up a debate if they know their points have been answered.
On the issue of disabled people, my hon. Friend the Member for Torbay seized on the fact that “registered disabled” is no longer a category of persons, but this amendment would apply to people who were registered disabled with the Middle Level Commissioners. Obviously, there is a registration system for people who have these boats and it would be able to include provisions as to whether or not someone is disabled, so the technical objection that my hon. Friend raised is not a valid one. If I had used a capital “R” and a capital “D” in my amendment, perhaps it might have been. I hope people will support the amendment on the basis that a lot of people are disabled and face considerable difficulties, and it would be reasonable for all other boaters to be prepared to cross-subsidise those who register with the commissioners as being disabled.
6.30 pm
I have only one other issue to raise in conclusion. I note from what has been said that there is a move to ensure that substandard vessels will be removed. I hope that that will not be done in a way that is harassing. I chair the all-party group on park homes, so I know that there is a lot of concern that people, mostly elderly people, find themselves harassed just because their park home has not been updated for 20 years or so. There is a danger that in the drive for what I might describe as the “gentrification” of the inland waterways we may be working against the interests of the people who have been resident on those waterways for many, many years and whose vessels are not up to modern standards but are, for their purposes, perfectly good. I hope that the commissioners and the promoters will not abuse the power we are giving them.
I shall ask the House to express its opinion on amendment 14 and whether or not we would like to give disabled people who are using these inland waterways in vessels registered with the commissioners the right to do so without having to pay charges. However, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause.
Clause, by leave, withdrawn.