Street Works (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 2007

That is a fair point. I misunderstood the question. The answer to that point may just have been handed to me. The provisions of the draft order will not be applied to other works on streets—for example, road works or work carried out by private developers. The order will apply only to street works because work carried out by others in streets is controlled by separate legislation. It would not be appropriate to use street-work legislation to apply the provisions of the order to those parties. When resources become available, the department proposes to review legislation concerning the works of private developers and others outside street works on roads and to introduce appropriate measures to control them better. In other words, we would need to look at other legislation. The noble Lord makes a fair point and I am sorry that I misunderstood his original question. The figure of £80 was raised in relation to individual household bills. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, referred to an Irish news article in that regard. At the moment, it is impossible to say what extra costs will be added to utility bills. That will not be known until the regulations and codes of practice are developed in consultation with the utility companies. There is quite a bit of work to be done once this legislation gets on to the statute book. It will not happen overnight but will take a couple of years. A regulatory impact assessment will also be provided at that stage to ensure that the measures are good value for money.