My Lords, I start by thanking the noble Earl for his very kind comments around the constructive work that we have all been doing together. I send our very best wishes to the noble Baroness, Lady Scott of Bybrook, who has been a remarkable workhorse on the Bill. Her door has always been open to us for any discussion and I thank her very much for that. Alongside her, a number of people need to be given a Levelling-up and Regeneration Bill endurance award, because it really has felt a bit like that at times: we have been ploughing through this since January. So, I thank her and the noble Earl, Lord Howe, but also the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield. People seem to have forgotten—we have been going on for so long—that she did an enormous amount of work in the early stages of the Bill, so we want to pass our thanks to her as well. We also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Swinburne, and all the visiting Ministers who have come in and talked to the different areas of their expertise.
We have done extremely constructive Cross-Bench work with the Government, noble Lords on the Government Benches, Cross-Benchers and our Liberal Democrat colleagues, particularly the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock. It is very good to have been able to work so constructively on the, unusually, many different issues in this Bill that we have had to discuss, tackle and understand. On that note, I also thank all the organisations and NGOs that have provided so much information, time and support to us in understanding some of the more complex areas. I have a whole book of all their different names, which would take too long to go through—if you took part, we are very grateful; thank you for making the Bill better than when it arrived here.
Many Back-Benchers worked incredibly hard on this and we should be very grateful to them. I particularly thank my noble friend Lady Taylor of Stevenage, who has been the most tremendous support to me all the way through. I could not have done it without her help. I also thank our team; Ben Wood in our office has worked incredibly hard and tirelessly on this Bill, through recess and weekends. We have asked so much of him and he has always delivered everything. My final thank you is to the doorkeepers, who have sat through a few late nights with us on this and have always kept a smile.
There are quite a number of outstanding issues that we will come back to after the Recess, on which this House believes that the Bill could be improved. I hope that, ahead of ping-pong, when we revisit these issues, the Government will continue to work constructively with those of us in this House who believe they are important to improve the Bill. Our door is always open. We look forward to hearing from the Government on some of those issues.
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