Port of Southampton

I thank the right hon. Gentleman and he has probably taken the first point that I was going to make. I can do three things today. First, I can speak to my counterparts in DEFRA and tell them how seriously we consider this matter. If the MMO does not have the expertise, capacity and confidence to make a watertight decision, we will offer it the officials to help it to do that. It is independent of the Department for Transport, but I am sure that we can provide secondments if we need to. The second thing we can do, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), is to say to Hutchison, ““You have made your point.”” There is no benefit in delaying this matter with a further challenge. As long as Associated British Ports does what it is asked to do with regards to the MMO and it supports the MMO decision, then that should be it. I cannot make it do that, but I am a constructive friend. I am sure that there are people who will be listening carefully to what the Minister has said about this delay. I am a friend of all the ports. I want competition, but this is not looking particularly good any more with regard to Hutchison. I fully understand its position. The law was not adhered to and maladministration took place, which is why the judicial review was minded to go down such an avenue. For lots of reasons, not least those relating to UK plc, jobs, infrastructure and the people of the Southampton area, we need to move on. Capacity ports need to be available. When outside investment considers UK plc, they may say, ““We would like to invest there””. However, their Google alert or some other agency may then say, ““Hold up a second, if you try to get consent down there, these are the sorts of problems you will get.”” I want Bristol to go ahead with its decisions. I want Liverpool, separate from the cruise business, to be able to go ahead with the deepwater port. I want Tees to go ahead as well. The Tyne is another one that should go ahead despite the issues relating to contamination. I was there only the other day. If all those ports go ahead, it will create the capacity that we need to get freight off the roads. As our economy grows, and it will grow, we need to ensure that we can be in the marketplace. We need to be a hub for these huge containers. Let us not underestimate the sheer size of the task that we are talking about. I stood at Felixstowe on the deck of one of the larger Maersk ships and looked down on the cranes that were trying to load her. Those cranes have now been replaced by even larger ones, which the Secretary of State must have seen when she was there the other day. We need to be in-step with a market that is world led. We have been world leaders in this field for years and years. We stepped back when previous Governments did not take ports and shipping seriously. I do take them seriously and I hope that this plan goes ahead for Southampton.