Infrastructure Bill [Lords] Debate

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Department: Department for Transport

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Andrew Miller Excerpts
Monday 26th January 2015

(9 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Andrew Miller Portrait Andrew Miller (Ellesmere Port and Neston) (Lab)
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My hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) is right that the clause providing for the electronic communications code is the shortest-lived clause ever—it survived just a week. The Government introduced it, but it is now being withdrawn from the Bill. As I argued in Committee, it is right that the Government should withdraw it, so I congratulate them on doing so—the code needs sorting out. Having said that, a huge amount of time has been wasted on it, meaning that we will not have adequate time today to debate many important details of the Bill.

The Minister knows that I am on his side on fracking. In principle, I want to see it go ahead in the right regulatory environment. The trouble is that he is putting the House in a difficult position by asking us to approve hugely important measures with just a couple of hours of debate.