London Local Authorities and Transport for London (No. 2) Bill [Lords]

David Nuttall Excerpts

Tuesday 6th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Bob Blackman]

Indeed, we will have a series of Bills; as with London buses, once we have enjoyed one, another will follow. I hope we will conclude discussion of the Bill in question next week, and I trust we will be able to start the debate on it at 7 o’clock.

That Bill has proceeded further than the Bill currently being debated, which has been in its gestation period for a considerably extended period.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend refers to the other London local authorities Bill. Will he give the House a brief explanation of why there are two separate Bills going through Parliament at the same time?

[Bob Blackman]

I thank my hon. Friend for that question and although I will not digress at this point, I shall explain further during my speech why there are not only two but three Bills going through almost at the same time.

It is fair to say that private Bills of this type have been promoted regularly by London boroughs for many years. That goes back to the days of the old London county council, of which many might mourn the loss, and to those of the Greater London council, and runs through to the advent of the Greater London authority and the Mayor of London. This is the third Bill to be promoted by the boroughs and Transport for London since TFL came into existence. Separately, the London boroughs have promoted no fewer than 10 London local authorities Bills of their own and TFL has promoted three of its own over the years.

It is therefore fair to say that Bills of this nature are not uncommon—far from it, in fact. I mention that because during our recent debates it has been suggested that London local authorities Bills are somehow different from or new in comparison with what happens elsewhere in the country. They are not new. This form of localism has been practised over many years and it has been so successful that Governments of all parties have taken sections from the provisions pioneered in London local authorities Bills and advanced them in national legislation. For example, the Localism Act 2011, which I strongly support, includes provisions on fly-posting that were first introduced in a London local authorities Act. That demonstrates that what happens in London can subsequently be taken forward nationally.

There has been a long wait for this Second Reading. When I was asked to take on this Bill, I was reminded that we reviewed its provisions at a council meeting in 2006 when I was deputy leader of Brent council, and we initiated this draft Bill when I served on the Greater London authority, although at that stage it contained many more proposals and clauses.

Finally, the Bill was introduced in the House of Lords as long ago as January 2008 and First Reading in this House took place on 28 March 2011. Before I move on to the contents and details of the Bill, it is right to explain why we have had to wait so long for it to come before the House. A threat to the Bill emerged after the House of Lords Opposed Bill Committee reported in March 2009. A group of bodies that represented sporting interests voiced concerns about two clauses that would have enabled London authorities to recover the costs of cleaning streets and imposing traffic regulation measures at sporting and other events. It soon became clear that the sports bodies had very strong support among peers in the other place and the promoters recognised that there was therefore a potentially serious threat not just to the clauses in question but to the whole Bill.

Unsurprisingly, the promoters embarked on a process of negotiation with the sports bodies. It has proved to be a very long process indeed. Without going into all the details, it is enough to say that agreement in principle was eventually reached before the general election of 2010. Although the promoters believed that agreement had been reached with the sports bodies in 2010, a further point of dispute arose, the conclusion of which was not achieved until the beginning of 2011. As part of the agreement, the clauses were removed.

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[Bob Blackman]

The promoters agreed to introduce proposals in Committee to exempt theatres from the legislation so that no street furniture will be adhered to such buildings, because of the nature and type of buildings concerned. I trust that my hon. Friend will be satisfied that that particular objection will be fully answered and that no further action will be taken.

Clauses 6 and 7, which deal with damage to highways, are uncontroversial. They will enable London authorities to recover the cost of repairs to the carriageway—not just the footway as the current law provides—where damage is caused by construction traffic. The measures will also enable them to require by way of a planning condition a deposit before construction work commences. That will be warmly welcomed across London, where construction traffic frequently causes damage not only to footways but to the public highway. It is often very difficult for local authorities to recover funding for dealing with that.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend refers to works traffic but will he confirm that clause 6 does not mention traffic? It merely refers to damage caused by work or any activity associated with work.

[Bob Blackman]

One of the key concerns about damage to highways and footways across London from construction work is about recovering the costs of repair, which otherwise have to be borne by local council tax payers. Those costs should properly be charged to the firms carrying out the work—hence the rationale. However, I will refer my hon. Friend’s comments to the promoters to make sure that this issue is clarified in Committee.

Part 3 concerns builders’ skips and its main purpose is to decriminalise offences relating to such skips, such as putting them out without a licence or not properly lighting or protecting them. Such actions are a menace to road users of all types and the Bill enables the highway authority to require information about who the owner of the skip is in order to determine on whom penalty charge notices should be served. Clause 10 provides that the owner of the builder’s skip will be liable to pay any penalty charge arising from a contravention. Representations may be made against the imposition of penalty charges, and appeals made to an adjudicator, much like the existing parking regime in London.

Part 3 will also alter the powers of the highway authority to place conditions on giving permission for placing a skip on the highway and enable the authority to insist that the skip have lights or a guard, or a system of guarding, as an integral part of the skip. Once again, that is a key part of ensuring the safety of all road users.

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[Bob Blackman]

I was about to come to the aspect of disabling a skip on the highway. It springs to mind that local authorities might have a pound of skips filled with stinking refuse that would be unclaimed by any individual.

This is a particularly serious problem. Under the Bill, there is a power for conditions to be imposed on the provision of a skip on the public highway. That is the key point—if it is on the public highway. That will enable the local authority to insist that there are lights in place, or a guard or some other system, when that skip is placed on the highway so as to protect all road users. The local authority will be able to fix an immobilisation device—

[Mr Nuttall]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Bob Blackman]

May I answer the intervention from the hon. Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound)? The key issue is the fact that a penalty notice will have to have been served on the owner of the skip prior to the immobilisation device being placed on that skip. Quite how the immobilisation device will work I leave to the hon. Gentleman’s imagination and to the ingenuity of London local authorities.

[Mr Nuttall]

Leaving aside the fact that I am disappointed not to hear how a skip might be immobilised —I was genuinely looking forward to finding out the mechanism whereby that particular procedure will be carried out in London—is it not already an offence to have a skip on the public highway without its being lit by a marking light at night?

[Bob Blackman]

To clarify, the position is that these are already offences in law. However, as things stand, there is no capability for local authorities to do anything about them or take enforcement action in London. The purpose behind these measures is to enable local authorities to enforce the rules and ensure that penalties are served on those who indiscriminately place skips on the public highway outwith the proper conditions, without proper protection and without proper lighting. The difficulty that a number of London authorities have is pursuing skip owners. Unfortunately, not all skip companies write their name and phone number on the side of their skips. Identifying who is responsible for a skip is often a challenge. These clauses will help to clarify that and give local authorities the ability to deal with those skips. As to how they will be immobilised, I look forward to seeing diagrams of the ingenious devices that will be produced.

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[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

As always, it is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who speaks with knowledge and experience and represents his union with great skill. As the hon. Gentleman was making his case on behalf of taxi cab drivers, I wondered whether the union had considered recruiting pedicab drivers and offering them union membership.

[John McDonnell]

The RMT is an expanding union, and Bob Crow is not averse to recruiting new members. However, there is fundamental concern that pedicabs are increasingly proving an unsafe mode of transport in our city centre. It is a matter of principle for the RMT.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am sure it is, and I can understand that if I were a taxi driver I would be concerned about the matter. However, I am looking at it from the public’s point of view. Do hon. Members who represent London constituencies find themselves inundated by complaints at their surgeries from people who have suffered overcharging or unsatisfactory service by pedicab drivers? If there had been anything more serious than that, it would no doubt have been dealt with by the police.

It occurs to me that if this problem—if it is a problem—were to be dealt with just in the area covered by the 33 London authorities, there is a danger that pedicab drivers would relocate to Birmingham, Sheffield or Manchester, and we would have the same problem there. If there is a need for regulation, it should surely be proceeded with on a national basis.

[Stephen Pound]

May I open a window into the world of the London MP’s surgery? We do get complaints about pedicabs. They operate in other cities, principally Oxford, but my constituents have two objections to them. The first is the potential for a lethal incident, and the second is the absolute lawlessness and scofflaw attitude of the operators. Recruiting them into a trade union when they are not a member of a trade would be extremely difficult. People object to pedicabs and worry about them, and they want action.

[Mr Nuttall]

That may well be so, but given that pedicabs have been operating for so many years—certainly for nine years, although one assumes they were operating before that—I would have expected a long list of cases in which people had sued pedicab firms after incurring injuries. I heard an hon. Member say earlier from a sedentary position—or it might have been in an intervention—that pedicabs are a danger.

[Mr Scott]

My hon. Friend might find that there has been litigation against drivers when pedicabs have tipped over. The people who travel in those vehicles—I use the word “vehicles” very loosely—wonder what pedicabs are insured for. If people get seriously injured, as some have been, they find that the vehicles are not insured at all. These vehicles are a menace on our roads.

[Mr Nuttall]

I simply repeat the point I have made: if they are a menace in London, or indeed in Oxford, the matter should be dealt with on a national basis and not in a piecemeal way through a London local authorities Bill. As we have heard, pedicabs will not be dealt with in any way at all. We now hear that, having spent all these years on the one clause that might go some way towards dealing with something that someone is concerned about, it will not be dealt with by the Bill. I shall come to that shortly.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for his introduction and for acting on behalf of the promoters in the House. He has been passed the baton by our hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green (Mike Freer), who, I notice, is not in his place. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East will look to make the same scintillating speed of progress as our hon. Friend the Member for Finchley and Golders Green made with the London Local Authorities Bill.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East referred to the fact that 10 Bills have been promoted by the London local authorities. I do not know over what period, but I assume it is since the Greater London council was abolished—[Interruption.] I now hear that some were introduced before the GLC was abolished. My hon. Friend said that it was not uncommon for a Bill to be promoted in that way, but if I were a London council tax payer, I would ask why some of those Bills were not consolidated and dealt with in a rather more organised way than the current piecemeal and haphazard approach.

We debated a Bill that deals with three or four things last week and we will debate another one next week, and the London Local Authorities and Transport (No. 2) Bill, which we are debating now, deals with six or seven different matters. I cannot see why they could not be brought together in one Bill, but I can see that it provides a good deal of work for the parliamentary agents who draft Bills and prepare the various petitions that are lodged in opposition to them.

What is common to all those London Bills is that each brings with it more regulation, more red tape, more bureaucracy and more rules for Londoners and visitors to London. This Bill has had a very long gestation period indeed. The petition for it was lodged as long ago as 27 November 2007. We have already heard this evening that the discussions and planning go back some years even before that.

The petition was lodged as long ago as four and a quarter years, and First Reading took place in the other place on 22 January 2008—incidentally, the day after the then Transport Minister, the right hon. Member for Doncaster Central (Ms Winterton), wrote a four-page letter to point out that the Bill was defective in many ways. So, even before it reached the First Reading starting gate, the right hon. Lady had written to the Chairman of Committees, Lord Brabazon of Tara, a four-page letter stating, in a nutshell, that the Bill did not comply with the European convention on human rights, not just in one particular but in several particulars. One would have thought that with all their experience of promoting Bills, the London local authorities would at least have got these matters right before drafting the Bill. Nevertheless, the Bill received its First Reading on 22 January 2008.

Not much happened after that, as we have heard, and on 17 November 2008 the other place resolved that the Bill’s promoters should have leave to suspend further proceedings on the Bill until the next Session. This House concurred with their lordships in their resolution on 19 November. Not much happened until Monday 9 March 2009, when a Select Committee of five noble Lords began a three-day hearing into the Bill’s contents and to listen to the petitioners’ objections. There were three petitions in the Lords, which for reasons of brevity I will not go into, although later I will touch on the Commons petitions.

The petitions were dealt with at length over three days, and the result was 119 pages of evidence. One would consider that pretty detailed analysis but unfortunately most of the evidence related to matters not before the House today. The Bill considered by the other place contained many more clauses than this Bill. I think it contained 38 clauses, whereas this Bill has 23. That is quite an attrition rate in the number of clauses in the four years since the Bill was originally introduced. The Committee reported to their lordships on 2 April 2009. Again, however, unfortunately for today’s proceedings, much of what was considered in the report from the then Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) has been removed from the Bill in the other place. The hon. Gentleman is now the shadow Minister and is in his place this evening, and I am sure he will recall signing the said document and will no doubt be able to recall its contents exactly. There is very little left worth commenting on from that report and from those three days of detailed examination of the Bill in the other place.

On 29 October 2009—more than six months after that report was presented to their lordships—the House of Lords resolved for a second time to give leave to the promoters to suspend proceedings on the Bill and, if they saw fit, to proceed with it in the following Session. This House concurred with the resolution of their lordships on 3 November 2009. I have to give the promoters of these Bills one thing: they are nothing if not determined. It will therefore be no surprise to the House to hear that the Bill was duly reintroduced, on 19 November 2009.

Yet again, it would appear that nothing happened for several months—according to the official Parliament website, that is—until the Bill was for some reason reintroduced on 28 June 2010. However, as we heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East, there was in fact a great deal of activity behind the scenes. Great chunks of the Bill were being removed and it was slimmed down to its current state. [Interruption.] I think I said earlier that it had 38 clauses; in fact, it had 39 in those days. Following what we might refer to for present purposes as the Select Committee stage—obviously the procedure is different with a normal public Bill—clauses 4 to 14 were removed, and amendments were made to clauses 16 and 21. Also, clauses 26 and 27 were removed on Third Reading, to which I shall turn shortly. Either way, the Bill was losing clauses at quite a swift rate.

Third Reading took place in the other place on 28 March 2011. It is perhaps worth noting how few people took part in that debate. After four years, one might assume that this Bill had been considered by dozens and dozens of their noble lordships and baronesses; in fact, nothing could be further from the truth. The Bill was considered by just five noble lords in Committee. On Third Reading, it was discussed by just six more. So, as far as I can see, a total of just 11 noble lords took part in the debates on the Bill in the other place.

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has made an interesting point about the number of Members in the Committee in the Lords. If there were only five present, was there a quorum?

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[Mr Nuttall]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. If it is in order, I will name the five noble lords in question. They were Lord Dahrendorf, Lord Faulkner of Worcester, who was the Chairman of the Committee, Baroness Fookes, Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall and Lord Methuen. I venture to submit that five was the full membership of the Committee, and all five attended the first, second and third sittings. I apologise for not referring to Lord Dahrendorf as the late Lord Dahrendorf, as he has passed away since those proceedings took place. Indeed, so has one of the contributors to the Third Reading debate, Lord St John of Fawsley. He passed away a few days ago. As I have said, very few lords took part in the discussions on the Bill in the other place, and the Third Reading debate lasted for only 48 minutes. For the avoidance of doubt, I should say that the Bill’s previous readings were purely formal and were simply recorded in Hansard. There was no debate on First Reading or when the Committee reported on 2 April.

It is perhaps worth noting the comments of Earl Attlee, who spoke for the Government in the Third Reading debate in the other place. The amendments that had been moved earlier by Lord Jenkin of Roding sought to remove clauses from the Bill. It is slightly confusing, because the Bill has been reprinted since it was originally introduced, and clauses 16 and 17 to which I am referring were those that were in the Bill at the time, and not those that appear in the Bill before us today. The provisions that were causing concern at the time related to the problems, as Lord Jenkin saw them, that had been put forward by the London Cycling Campaign. He went through a number of other petitions. As I say, I shall not go into them here today.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Why not?

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend says, “Why not?” from a sedentary position. I commend the Third Reading report to all interested Members, as it sets out the problems that their lordships saw with the Bill, to some of which they drew this House’s attention. Indeed, they invited this House to look at it again to deal with the problems they had identified in our further consideration.

Earl Attlee said on Third Reading:

“The Government are committed not to create new offences unless it is truly necessary to do so.”

One problem is that the Bill seeks to create new offences. I would accept that in one respect—responsibility and liability in respect of skips transferred from the police to local authorities—but the general thrust of the Bill is to create more rules and more regulation. Earl Attlee went on to say that the Government had not reached a final conclusion about the matter. He said:

“The Government’s position on increasing the burden on business is very clear and we will be considering”—

we should note the future tense—

“whether, in our view, the Bill would create an unacceptable burden on business in order to make our views known before the Bill reaches Committee stage in the other place.”

We may hear more about the Government’s view when we hear from the Minister later.

According to what Lord Attlee said, I understand that the Government had notified the Bill’s promoters that some clauses could be improved or altered by minor amendments, particularly regarding the affixing of street furniture to buildings. One specific suggestion was made—that the owner of the building should be served with a notice, giving the exact date on which the work would begin, and setting out the terms of the use of electric vehicle charging points installed and operated under the Bill’s powers. The noble Lord went on to say:

“We will be seeking to reach agreement on amendments with the promoters before Committee stage in the other place as it is then that the Bill can next be substantially amended.” —[Official Report, House of Lords, 28 March 2011; Vol. 726, c. 1034.]

I emphasise the words “substantially amended”. Clearly, on Third Reading in the other place, the Government had serious reservations.

[Mr Bone]

My hon. Friend is gracious in giving way. I draw his attention to clause 16 on gated roads, where we seem to be creating an offence that does not need to be made. I see these barriers all over the country. Surely we do not need another law; if they were interfered with, that would presumably be criminal damage in the first place.

[Mr Nuttall]

I have not yet reached the subject of gated roads, but it is probably possible to pick at random a part of the Bill that creates a new offence, rule or law, to which is attached a fine not exceeding level 3 on the standard scale.

As my hon. Friend says, there are gated roads all over the country, and if that is a problem in the capital city of our great country, it is no doubt just as likely to be a problem on a country road somewhere out in the shires. If the correct way of dealing with the problem is to introduce legislation that creates a criminal offence—which is what we are doing here—it is surely correct to deal with it by means of legislation that covers the whole country, not just the capital.

Many things have happened since the Bill’s introduction in the other place as long ago as 27 November 2007, four and a quarter years ago. For instance, we have had a general election, and the Localism Bill—now the Localism Act 2011—received Royal Assent on 15 November last year. I am sure that several London local authorities have undergone a change of political control since 2007, and I wonder to what extent the promoters of the Bill considered those changes.

The Localism Act gives local authorities a general power of competence. It has completely changed the regime in which authorities operate: they no longer have to seek specific authority from this place to go off and do something, because the Act allows them to do it unless another Act tells them that they cannot. To what extent has that been taken into account by the promoters? Moreover, residents have been given the power to institute local referendums. If this is the problem that some Members think it is—as we heard earlier—I am sure that some residents will be hot on the heels of local councillors with petitions asking for something to be done about it.

After many years of delay, things speeded up after the Bill’s Third Reading in the House of Lords on 28 March 2011, and it appears to have been given its First Reading in this House on the same day. I believe that that is the only occasion on which anything to do with this Bill has ever happened speedily. It has, however, attracted four new petitions, from Bugbugs Media Ltd, Reliable Rickshaws Ltd, the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers, the Society of London Theatre, the Theatrical Management Association, and the London Cab Drivers Club. As my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East said, the promoters of the Bill managed to achieve the rare feat of upsetting the petitioners on both sides. They could not really win. Whatever they did, they were bound to upset somebody. I suspect they have probably reached the right conclusion by deciding to upset both sides and withdraw clause 17.

Let us return to the question of the cost to the London council tax payer. The organisations concerned—private limited companies, trade bodies and, indeed, trade unions—have been put to expense in having to raise these petitions. I dare say the solicitors and parliamentary agents were not acting for nothing; they could have been acting on a pro bono basis, and if they were I am sure someone will rise to tell me so—but the hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington is not doing so. I therefore assume these people were being paid rather handsomely for their good services. These Bills are by no means a no-cost option, therefore.

Over the past four years there has been an attrition rate of four clauses per year. However, only 10 minutes after the start of the opening speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East, we heard that another clause is to go. We have made good progress, therefore: the first clause went in 10 minutes. If we carry on at this rate, the Bill will be gone in a couple of days—but if we carry on at the same rate as things have been moving since the Bill started its life, we may, sadly, have to wait another six years before it withers away to its natural end.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. If this Bill had not been objected to and had instead received its Second Reading on the nod, it would not have been possible for its promoters to reflect upon clause 17 on pedicabs, for example. They have now had the opportunity to reflect on that, and have reached a different conclusion from their original one.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend is right. What has happened with this Bill gives the lie to the notion that these proceedings are meaningless and we are just going through the motions. Although only 11 Lords were involved in the proceedings in the other place, very substantial changes have been made to the Bill, and we do not know what might happen after the Bill has been examined in more detail. The three hours that have so far been allocated to Second Reading may well turn out to be rather brief when one considers the history of this matter and how long it has already been going on and what little progress has been made in four years. Any thoughts the promoters might have that a Third Reading could be concluded within three hours may prove to be somewhat optimistic.

We heard in the opening speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East that despite the fact that the Bill has been on the go for so many years, there are still a number of areas where we have no idea what is being put before us. There is no draft of the agreement relating to the affixing of lamps to theatres. There is no draft of the code. There is no idea of how skips are going to be immobilised. I would have thought after all these years, such basic points would have been covered and the details would be before us tonight.

It seems to me that the Bill is half-cooked and the simplest thing at this stage would be for the promoters to withdraw it and for it to be reconsidered in the light of the Localism Act 2011, the comments made in the other place, the reservations expressed by the Government and the comments that I shall now make.

The Bill is down to just six parts. Part 1 deals with preliminary matters, part 2 effectively deals with the attachment of street lamps and signs to buildings and damage to highways as a consequence of adjacent works, part 3 deals with the law relating to builders’ skips, part 4 deals with two matters to do with road traffic—that is, gated roads, which were referred to in an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone), and pedicabs—part 5 deals with charging points for electric vehicles and part 6 deals with the London Local Authorities and Transport for London Act 2008.

Part 1 contains the standard preamble, giving details of when the Bill will take effect, and states that the Bill

“may be cited as the London Local Authorities and Transport for London Act 2009”—

but perhaps 2012 might be optimistic. I shall therefore deal with the provisions on the attachment of street lamps and signs to buildings in part 2, which is the first substantive aspect of the Bill. The explanatory memorandum, which the promoters have helpfully provided, states that clauses 4 and 5 would alter the London authorities’ existing powers to attach street lamps and traffic signs to buildings by bringing them more in line with those of the City of London corporation. It is a “decluttering” measure, making it easier for the authorities to require that signs and lamps are attached to buildings. I would submit that it is not so much a decluttering measure as a moving of clutter from one part of the highway to another in such a way that there might well be some practical difficulties with how it operates.

The requirement in clause 4(4) is:

“Not less than 56 days before the London authority propose to begin the work to affix an attachment or a traffic sign to a building they shall serve notice in writing on the relevant owner of the building of their proposal to affix it.”

Of course, the owner might not necessarily be the occupier of the building. The Bill is silent, as far as I can see, about the definition of an owner. I would submit that the owner would be the owner of the freehold, but I can understand that someone might argue that the owner could be taken to mean a leaseholder or tenant of the building. There might therefore be some legal argument about that clause, which I suspect will need to be considered in more detail in Committee.

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend will have heard what our hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) said about the promoters’ intention to offer an exemption from clauses 4 and 5 for the Society of London Theatre and the Theatrical Management Association. Does he think that that exemption needs to go much wider than just the organisations that have petitioned against the Bill because the points that they make about natural justice and listed buildings could apply to a much larger group of building owners than that particular group of theatre owners?

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend makes a welcome and interesting observation. It seems to me that the theatres are being given special treatment because they have particularly deep pockets. They have been able to employ parliamentary agents to prepare and submit a petition, which is before the House, and they have been using a firm in Westminster to prepare representations regarding their concerns. There is a danger that other owners of buildings in London may be somewhat jealous of the fact that London theatres have managed to wangle an exemption from the measures for themselves which many others would no doubt welcome if they could benefit from it. That raises the pertinent point that if it is appropriate for the London theatres to be exempt, why is it not appropriate for other buildings to be exempt?

We know from the petition, dated 26 April 2011, that the Society of London Theatre and the Theatrical Management Association are concerned about the effect that the measures could have on their members. They quoted the Wyndham report, which studied the economic impact of London’s west end theatres. Tony Travers of the London School of Economics was commissioned to do the report, which revealed, in 1998, that the total economic impact of west end theatre on the UK economy had been £1.1 billion in the previous year. More recent data imply that the figure is now approaching £1.5 billion. Some 41,000 jobs depend on west end theatre—27,000 directly and 14,000 indirectly. Those organisations went on to say that, crucially, they operate on very tight profit margins and that anything that could add to those costs is a matter of concern. I am sure that many other organisations and bodies throughout the capital city would say, “Those concerns apply to us as well. We operate on tight margins and anything that might add to our costs would be extremely detrimental.” It is therefore difficult to see at first sight why west end theatres should be treated differently from other organisations that have not petitioned the House in the way that those societies did. Equally, however, one could say that they took the time and trouble to do so and therefore it is only right that they should be granted some form of special treatment.

[Mr Chope]

Obviously we can hope that the members of the Opposed Bill Committee will, at the appropriate moment, press the promoters to explain why they believe that a specific exemption should be given to a particular group rather than more generally.

[Mr Nuttall]

Yes. I hope that, when the time comes to consider the clause in Committee, some explanation for that is given. Perhaps the code of practice will be available at that stage. It is perhaps a matter of some regret that that document is not available for consideration by the House today to enable us to see how effective that particular code is likely to be.

That deals with clause 4, very briefly. Clauses 6 and 7 deal with damage to the highway caused in consequence of works done on land adjacent to the highway. At first sight, I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East that it seems perfectly reasonable that the taxpayer should not be required to pay for damage caused to the public road by those carrying out works on land adjacent to the road, but I wonder whether there is not a better way to do that. I am particularly concerned about small builders, and perhaps people who are not builders at all, but who own land and are carrying out the works themselves. It might come as a surprise to them when they apply for planning permission to build a small extension on their property that they are asked to stump up before commencement of the works in case any damage might be caused to the highway, when the chances are that, although that is a possibility, it will not happen.

I am pleased that clause 7 now appears in the Bill.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend talks about the merits or otherwise of this part of the Bill, but is not that slightly superfluous? The point is that we all have places in our constituencies where we might be concerned about damage being caused by adjacent works. If that issue needs to be tackled, surely the point is that it should be tackled nationwide and not in a Bill that applies only to London.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point. My constituency of Bury North—no doubt in common with his constituency of Shipley, and, indeed, I would be so bold as to venture to suggest, every constituency represented in the House—has at one time or another, and perhaps even at this moment, contained at least one property, although I suspect it could be many properties, with a skip outside it. Therefore, if skips are causing a particular problem in London, I would venture to suggest that similar problems are being caused in every constituency in the land. Indeed, not many days ago I had a skip outside my own property as we were having some small works done. So not only was there a skip in my constituency, but there was one outside my drive.

We have here part of a Bill with clauses 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15 all on the issue of skips. I see my right hon. Friend the Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) in his place. On Third Reading in the other place, his Liberal Democrat colleague, Baroness Kramer, highlighted the faintly ridiculous nature of all this discussion about skips. She said:

“I find it astonishing that the time of this House has to be spent on issues such as the lighting and guarding of builders’ skips. If ever there was an illustration of the need for the Localism Bill, and a more general grant of powers to assemblies and local authorities, this Bill is it.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 28 March 2011; Vol. 726, c. 1031.]

Since the noble Baroness made that speech, her wish has been granted and the Localism Bill is now law. For that reason, perhaps there is no need for the clause.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is very knowledgeable on these matters and he will know that on page 11 the Bill deals with the problem of skips that are not properly lit during the hours of darkness. So that the Bill does not become a solution looking for a problem, does my hon. Friend know on how many occasions there has been a big problem around the country of skips not being properly lit, and how many accidents have been caused by skips not being properly lit during the hours of darkness? Is this a big issue, as far as my hon. Friend is aware?

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend makes an interesting intervention. Although it is not a widespread problem, I suspect that there are occasionally cases where a builder might forget to put the appropriate light on a skip. Therefore there is a danger that if a skip is not lit during the hours of darkness, it could result in an accident taking place and a motor vehicle driving into the skip. Indeed, I cannot remember the details and I dread to think how many years ago it was, but when I was in practice as a solicitor, I was once involved in a case where a car hit a skip, and we had to take civil proceedings because there was no light on the skip.

[Philip Davies]

I knew my hon. Friend was knowledgeable about these matters. I predicted that he would know more about the subject than I do. I have seen nothing on “Panorama” about a big blight around the country of skips not having sufficient lighting or builders forgetting to put lights on them. Does he know how widespread the problem is? It has never been raised with me before.

[Mr Nuttall]

I have to say that the issue has never been raised at one of my surgeries, and it has obviously not been raised at one of my hon. Friend’s surgeries, but by the sound of it, it is a problem all over London, and even as we speak, cars are colliding with skips. Of more interest is the fact that clause 13 relates to the immobilisation of builders’ skips. I am disappointed that we have not yet been able to hear how those skips are to be immobilised, but I look forward to a future debate when we will find out how that will take place.

I referred in an intervention to clause 16 in part 4. The clause relates to gated roads, and I shall not comment further on that. As we know, clause 17 relates to pedicabs, and it has been placed on the record that the clause is to be withdrawn. Part 5 relates to charging points for electric vehicles. If legislation is needed because of a surge in the number of electrical vehicles, surely it should be considered on a national basis. This is the one part of the Bill where a case could be made for that. The idea that owners of electric vehicles in London will stop when they get to the boundaries of London is faintly ridiculous. As my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) has suggested, the correct way to deal with that would be through the use of planning legislation.

The Bill’s final clause is another new clause that was not in the original Bill. It would repeal provision in, and make minor amendment to, the London Local Authorities and Transport for London Act 2008. My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East might be able to confirm whether that Act had been a private Bill.

[Bob Blackman]

indicated assent.

[Mr Nuttall]

It was a private Bill. Well, there we go. That Bill had not been passed when this one began life, which is amazing, as this Bill is being used to correct that Act. I think I have demonstrated that there is merit in examining these Bills. My very final point shows that even as this Bill was beginning life, the House allowed a defective Bill to be passed. This Bill has been overtaken by events, as I have attempted to demonstrate, and the best thing for it, the promoters and the taxpayers and residents of London would be for my hon. Friend to withdraw it. If he does not, I strongly urge the House to vote against the Bill on Second Reading.