The hon. Gentleman is right to say that it would be Liberal Democrat policy. Clearly, we are in a coalition Government rather than a Liberal Democrat Government, and people will make their decisions when it comes to the general election in which we will all be campaigning and voting in a few months’ time.
We have before us a Bill that will improve the lives of tenants and makes real the principle that a tied tenant should be no worse off than a free-of-tie tenant. The hon. Member for Bedford suggested an analogy with “The Lord of the Rings”. Perhaps I can posit an alternative scenario. I think that what we have had on this issue over the past few years is a rather intrepid fellowship—a group including MPs from all parties in all parts of the House, tenants, Select Committees, business groups, and campaigners. I will leave hon. Members to make up their own minds about who among them would be deemed to be hobbits, elves, dwarves or men—[Interruption]—and, indeed, who has been Gandalf at their head. The members of this intrepid fellowship have campaigned hard. In some ways, they probably feel that they have been on an epic journey, battling against the unfairness that has been repeatedly highlighted in Select Committee reports.
We need to recognise that the result of that campaign by all those individuals has been to achieve a great success. What we have is proposed legislation with a statutory code and a pubs adjudicator who can make that code a reality and ensure that if it is not abided by there can be arbitration, investigations, and ultimately, if necessary, penalties with real teeth. We also have the parallel rent assessments to make sure that the system bites. Now, going even further, we have the power to introduce the market rent only option if all that is ultimately unable to work. That is a huge success for campaigners who have worked on this issue for many years. I think that people should welcome what has happened.
I hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West will recognise that success, see how far he has come, and think twice about putting his new clause to the vote. In the Bill before us, we have a solution to the issue identified in the Select Committee reports and
a way to make sure that if that does not work we have the ability swiftly to implement a market rent only option. I commend this part of the Bill to the House.
Question put and agreed to.
New clause 6 accordingly read a Second time, and added to the Bill.