Sustainable Communities Bill

I hope that that will not be necessary. This is a listening Government and I hope that the Minister, rather than intervening early, will listen and make a jolly good response by saying that, although he disagrees with some of the detail—that is for the Government to decide—he wants to give the Bill a fair Second Reading and will not oppose its being discussed in Committee and on Report and Third Reading. That is what private Member’s legislation, at its best, can achieve, and I hope that that will happen today. Unless I have got it wrong, the Government have, I hope, thought hard about this issue and have no intention of trying to block the Bill, which moves in a direction in which they want to go. I want to make one other point in passing before talking about what I see as the kernel of the Bill. I want to pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Jim Dowd). One of the most important things that happened recently was the publication of the all-party group on small shops’ report on the decline of small shops. It is easy to say that that was driven by the Association of Convenience Stores, which is a very good organisation, but the report explains more than anything else what is wrong. It does not necessarily provide a map for the future, but it is important to understand the causes of the problem. That is why so many organisations have signed up to the Bill. It is because we now understand the nature of the problem and the debate now is how to move forward from here.