The hon. Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) is very generous with his description. I am not sure the Minister would entirely agree, given the amount of work that he has put in during his short time in his ministerial post to ensure
that the Bill has made such progress. It is a tribute to the hon. Member for South East Cornwall (Sheryll Murray) that she brought the Bill to us, steered it through Committee, and managed—very eloquently, I thought—to dissuade her hon. Friends from pressing their amendments. They were extremely generous in their acceptance of her commitments and the assurances from the Minister.
I will not detain the House, except to repeat that we have had some serious discussions on the pilotage issue. The hon. Member for Worthing West moved his amendments, and he and the hon. Member for Croydon South (Richard Ottaway) indicated their continuing interest in the development of the Bill.
There are other elements of the Bill that we have not even touched today—the tidying up of the issue of port constables and the important reforms to the benefit of the lighthouse authorities, for which the whole industry has been waiting for some time. Its members will have been watching and listening to this debate and wondering whether they would get a mention. The fact that the Government have successfully introduced those reforms will go down well with the whole shipping industry.
Once again, I congratulate the hon. Member for South East Cornwall. We are happy to support the Bill and see it pass to the other place.
2.7 pm