Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

I declare an interest as president of the Specialist Engineering Contractors’ Group. My noble friend laid great stress on the concept of consensus across the industry. He also pointed out that 99.9 per cent of the businesses involved in the construction industry are SMEs. I get the impression that a number of organisations comprise a relatively small part of the industry compared with the number of SMEs—the people who have not been properly looked after in this respect. What does he mean by consensus? Is it the agreement of a group of trade associations or the majority of businesses in an industry? At the moment, I get the impression that a number of small trade associations are quite well represented in terms of their influence in the industry, but the businesses affected, the SMEs, constitute a far bigger majority but have only one umbrella organisation looking after them. Therefore, the consensus is not well defined.