Local Democracy, Economic Development and Construction Bill [HL]

In my international experience, "consensus" is not well defined. In the United Nations, where I spent a number of years, consensus was described as the point at which no one changes their opinion but recognises that they have agreed as far as possible. That became the consensus. The truth is that there will always be contrary views. As I have said, 99 per cent of the companies in the industry are SMEs. That is about 250,000 firms. With all due respect to the noble Lord, I understood him to say that the SEC Group represents some 60,000 firms. Sixty thousand into 250,000 suggests that there are one or two other groups outside that area, so we would look at more than those companies. I mentioned that several organisations have commented and given the Government the benefit of their views which, as I said, did not always conform by any means with the views of the SEC Group. They included the National Specialist Contractors Council, the Construction Clients’ Group, the Federation of Master Builders, the British Property Federation, the National Federation of Builders, the UK Contractors Group and the Civil Engineering Contractors Association. There is a very broad group, which is why the Government, having held that consultation, and given that the contracts cover many of the participants from those organisations, are of the view that resisting the amendments at this stage is the correct course of action, and I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.