Sustainable Communities Bill

I congratulate the hon. Member for Ruislip-Northwood (Mr. Hurd). In the years to come, I am sure that the Bill will be cited in politics textbooks as an example of how a new Member can change the law. He deserves every credit, as does the hon. Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Julia Goldsworthy), my co-sponsor. We have got to know each other rather well. I thank the Minister and his team. It was helpful that we were able to resolve problems in a friendly manner. Politics is about not only the cut and thrust of debate, but getting things done. A lot of work has gone on behind the scenes. While that seemed to take a long time, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and we now have a good Bill. I thank the Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for West Ham (Lyn Brown), who has been the meat in the sandwich on more than one occasion. I now understand what a PPS does. She is obviously going to go places; I told her yesterday that she had every prospect of real promotion. After dealing with us, the job of prisons Minister might be an easier role. She spent an awful lot of time trying to make the Bill happen. Like others, I pay tribute to the Local Works campaign. The campaign has come from without to within. We sometimes like to think of ourselves as the fount of all knowledge and those who create all the ideas, but the Bill has genuinely come from the grass roots. Local Works and the New Economics Foundation have pointed out why we need to get hold of ghost-town Britain. It is to their credit that they have worked towards the Bill for such a long time and I am immensely humbled to have been part of the process.