With the leave of the House, I thank my hon. Friends the Member for North Herefordshire (Sir Bill Wiggin), for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), for North Devon (Selaine Saxby), for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), for Darlington (Peter Gibson) and for Bury North (James Daly) for being ahead of the curve in recognising the problems that may be coming to their constituents at some point in the future and that now is the time to deal with the problem.
I also thank the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Stalybridge and Hyde (Jonathan Reynolds), for his broadly supportive approach and, especially, my hon. Friend the Minister for recognising that we have taken a consensual approach in the formation and writing of the Bill to give the Government maximum flexibility to meet the anxieties that have been expressed in the debate. I am afraid that I cannot give my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme any advice on how it is possible to come top of the ballot for two consecutive years. Had I such a mechanism, I assure him that having won every lottery available, I would be hardly likely to be here on a Friday morning.
I hope that the House will recognise that I am unlikely ever to be categorised as a class warrior in this place, and I recognise that we need to have development and renewal of the infrastructure in our country if we are to become the competitive, green, efficient and energy-independent nation that we all want to see. This debate is not about those things, however. It is about natural justice. Where disputes arise, powerful multinationals cannot be the judge and jury of the compensation that our constituents may or may not get in a dispute.
The current system that my hon. Friend the Minister described is not good enough. It is not working adequately, so we need a different system that is, as I set out, clear, so that people unequivocally know what their rights are; fair, so there is a balance between the public good and individual interest; affordable, because it cannot be right for the powerful to use their financial and therefore legal might to bully others into submission; and, above all, enforceable, because, as we discussed at length during the passage of the Down Syndrome Act 2022, there is no point having rights in this country if they are not enforceable. We have today identified a problem that exists and is likely to become more widespread if we do nothing about it. We can act now to deal with an injustice and put it right. Ultimately, what else are we in Parliament for?
Question put and agreed to.
Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).