Martin Wrigley
MP for Newton Abbot · Liberal Democrat · United Kingdom
“Q11. US big tech has exploited us for far too long, so I am delighted that the Met police followed my advice and pushed Apple and Google to implement the stolen handset blacklist, curbing resales and cutting mobile theft by almost half.”
“It sounds like the Secretary of State is hearing a fairly unanimous view from members of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, which is good. Today’s ban is a welcome start, but it is only a start and is not sufficient.”
“Palantir appears to have a habit of avoiding competitive tender and scrutiny by using free trials and locking up the contract specifications after getting a foot in the door. I congratulate the London Mayor on stopping the recent potential contract offered by the Met police without a competitive tender process.”
“I was trying not to interrupt his flow— [Interruption.] Until I did. Throughout the files there are mentions of Palantir and Peter Mandelson, including a memo in which he tries to introduce Peter Thiel to No. 10 staff in June last year.”
“I absolutely agree with the hon. Member. We heard earlier how Kevin Dixon of Devon gives us excellent reports of what is happening with Healthwatch. The modern NHS must run on data, but critically, on data that carries the consent of patients.”
“The Government admit that but claim it is partial and fragmented. They also claim that the data will remain in the systems where it currently exists.”
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Every one of 380 lines we hold for Martin Wrigley, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 7 of 8.
“Does the Minister agree that we need to change the social contract for companies such that they no longer take all the benefits of limited liability and simply focus on shareholder value? Will he support my better business Bill—the Company Directors (Duties) Bill—which will have its Second Reading on 4 July, and meet me to discuss it? The Bill is backed by some 3,000 businesses, the Institute of Directors and others. As I mentioned, it would balance the responsibility of company directors with the interests of shareholders, employees and the environment; fundamentally change their basic responsibilities in how they run their companies; and therefore turn the purpose of the company to good, including that of the employees. It would prevent many of the circumstances that we are describing today.”
“My constituency is fortunate to have both Dawlish community transport and Newton Abbot community transport. They provide vital services for many people who would otherwise be isolated and lonely but, like many other volunteer groups, they are finding it hard to recruit. Recruiting drivers for their minibus services is a particularly. Anyone who took their driving test before 1997 automatically got a D1 minibus class licence, as I did. Since then, younger drivers have had to take a new driving test; the estimated associated training and costs are between £800 and £1,800. Will the Secretary of State work with me to add exceptions to D1 requirements to cover community transport and other volunteer community groups?”
“I also thank the Minister for the multi-year settlements that are in sight, stopping the hand-to-mouth and “Hunger Games”-type funding that has been the scourge of local councils across the country. I am, however, very worried about the timescales, the volume of work and the cost of the work required of local councils. I am particularly worried about what might happen with the projected 2027 elections if the timescales are not met. Will the Minister clarify the dates that we are looking at in this process? Which are fixed and which flexible? How will the process be managed as we go through, and should we not meet the fixed dates that are set out so far? What will happen with multi-year settlements for councils that are not involved in this first phase of reorganisation?”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Hobhouse. I would be delighted to invite the Lib Dem leader of Somerset council to elaborate on the condition in which he found the council when he took over, if I thought that the hon. Member for Broxbourne wished to read it; I suspect he would not. I thank the Minister and the Government for some things, such as for including the districts in the final invitation to participate in this process. I thank them for not allowing Devon county council in its outrageous attempt to stop the elections in Devon, knowing that 66% of the existing Conservative councillors now intend not to re-stand. I wonder why they wanted to stop the elections. They put forward a proposal that had no consensus across Devon whatever.”
“The issue with most such situations in the past has been not only a short period of time for councils to respond, which they typically have managed to do, but the prolonged period of radio silence once those responses have been sent to Government. Can the Minister assure us that the Government will respond quickly to the proposals, so that councils can get on with them?”
“It is clear that the hard-won amendment to include smaller sites with harmful content has been lost through its exclusion from the statutory instrument. In the Bill Committee, the Minister said that we must do everything in our power, and that there is much more to do. We have heard a lot about what needs to be done, and we urge the Government to do it. We urge them to look again at the exclusion of small but harmful sites and to continue to look at how we can improve the implementation of safety by design.”
“Member for Hitchin (Alistair Strathern) impressed upon us the urgency and importance of the children’s safety codes. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) cited the astonishing fact that 83% of 10 to 15-year-olds have phones—that is an amazing proportion—and also mentioned cyber-bullying. Other hon. Members spoke about other areas, but the same things came up. As a member of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee and, until recently, a tribunal member with the telecoms regulator—that responsibility has now moved to Ofcom—I have seen the importance of the codes of practice and how long it takes to revise them. Thirty years in the telecoms industry showed me how tough age assessment can be. I have also spent time delivering app stores, but before the age of Google and Apple phones.”
“Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) about lawful but awful content and about how we should not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. I think there is a feeling that the Act does what it does, but that the interpretation has not been what was hoped for and that there is still much more to do. We heard from the hon. Member for Livingston (Gregor Poynton) about the “legal but feasible” loophole, and also about bringing in safety by design, which became a consistent theme throughout the rest of the conversations. My hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding) talked about the design to protect children and the framework’s lack of mitigation on livestreaming, and said that seven-year-olds and 17-year-olds are treated the same. That is clearly not right. The hon.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) on securing this debate. We have heard some consistent themes coming through. We have heard about Ofcom perhaps misinterpreting what the House intended with the Act. We have heard about the importance of the Ofcom code of practice, how it is constructed and how it drives online platforms’ behaviour. We have heard from the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) about the importance of conformity across different platforms. We have heard that regulators might not be fulfilling the expectations of this House. We have also heard from the hon.”
“If the Government fully support our concerns about small but harmful sites, will the statutory instrument be reworked to bring them back into category 1, as the Act states?”
“Learning from the successful Y2K, or year 2000, prevention of systems failures, what progress has the Secretary of State made in considering post-quantum cryptography to prevent the so-called Y2Q—year to quantum—end of privacy, and what support is being provided for the development of quantum computing in the UK after the recent announcement of the Willow chip?”
“I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I thank the Deputy Prime Minister for allowing the people of my constituency to vote in the Devon county council elections this year, and I congratulate her on seeing through the tired Tory administration, which was seeking to avoid the voters’ verdict. May I ask her for an assurance that when she sends out her invitation to the two-tier areas, that will include district councils as well as the county council, so that we get a representative view from across the entire area?”
“The amendment was to ensure that small sites dedicated to harm, such as sites providing information on suicide or self-harm or set up to target abuse and hatred at minority groups, like we saw in the riots in the summer, were subject to the fullest range of duties. When Ofcom published its advice, however, it disregarded this flexibility and advised that regulation should be laid bringing only the large platforms into category 1.”
“806.] He confirmed that the legislation would now give the Secretary of State the discretion to decide whether to set a threshold based on the number of users or the functionalities offered, or both factors, with the change ensuring that the framework was as flexible as possible in responding to the risk landscape. That has been thrown away in this new legislation. The Minister just said that we must do everything in our power, and yet the Government are throwing out a crucial change made to the Act to actually give them more power. They are getting rid of a power by changing this.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Christopher. I am disappointed in this statutory instrument. I recognise the Minister’s acknowledgment of the small sites, high-harm issue, but the issue is far more important and we are missing an opportunity here. Can the Minister set out why the regulations as drafted do not follow the will of Parliament, accepted by the previous Government and written into the Act, that thresholds for categorisation can be based on risk or size? That was a long-argued point that went through many iterations. The then Minister accepted the amendment that was put forward and said: “many in the House have steadfastly campaigned on the issue of small but risky platforms.” —[ Official Report , 12 September 2023; Vol. 737, c.”
“Was the Minister aware of the previous Government’s commitment that Select Committees in both Houses would be given the opportunity to scrutinise draft Online Safety Act statutory instruments before they were laid? If she was, why did that not happen in this case? Will she put on record her assurances that Online Safety Act statutory instruments will in future be shared with the relevant Committees before they are laid? For all those reasons, I will vote against the motion.”
“What assessment have the Government made of the different harms occurring on small, high-harm platforms? Have they broken this down by type of harm, and will they make such information available? Have the Government received legal advice about the use of service disruption orders for small but high-harm sites? Do the Government expect Ofcom to take enforcement action against small but high-harm sites, and have they made an assessment of the likely timescales for enforcement action? Will the Government set out criteria against which they expect Ofcom to keep its approach to small but high-harm sites under continual review, as set out in their draft statement of strategic priorities for online safety?”
“Absolutely—I am. The Secretary of State’s decision to proceed with this narrow interpretation of the Online Safety Act provisions, and the failure to use the power they have to reject Ofcom’s imperfect advice, will allow small, risky platforms to continue to operate without the most stringent regulatory restrictions available. That leaves significant numbers of vulnerable users—women and individuals from minority groups—at risk of serious harm from targeted activity on these platforms. I will set a few more questions for the Minister. How do His Majesty’s Government intend to assess whether Ofcom’s regulatory approach to small but high-harm sites is proving effective, and have any details been provided on Ofcom’s schedule of research about such sites?”
“The Minister raised the issue of age verification, which is good. However, she did not say how “harmful to adults”, “harmful to vulnerable minorities” and “harmful to women” are categorised. Children are protected in this case, but those other groups are not. Also, in response to the answer that the Minister just gave, the difficulty is not the Ofcom powers; it is the obligation on the provider. If we have not put a provider into category 1, it does not have the same level of obligation as category 1 companies do. No matter what powers Ofcom has and no matter what fines it imposes, it cannot get such companies to give those commitments to a category 1 level if they are not in that category. Removing the section is not giving Ofcom the tools it needs. The Minister was absolutely right earlier when she said that there is much more to do.”
“What this change does is remove the powers to stop those small sites that promote misogyny and racist hatred and those things that are very harmful, and which we saw examples of in the summer. The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee is looking into those events at the moment, as I know, because I sit on the Committee. However, those powers are being thrown away, and an opportunity is being missed, because the powers for setting the thresholds have been misinterpreted. I beg the Minister to take a moment and look again, because the Government are getting this wrong.”
“I do not have the benefit of having gone through the Act in its entirety, so I appreciate the input of hon. Members on this subject. It is that one word: “or”. Amendment 245 entailed moving from a test of size “and” functionality to a test of size “or” functionality. That is not, as far as I can hear from what the Minister has said, what is causing the problem; it should be giving the Government the opportunity to keep that in there. In setting these categorisations on just size, they are ignoring that. The Minister also mentioned that the Act did not give the Secretary of State the power to allow somebody else to put organisations or sites into these categories; no, that is not what is being asked. It is about a recommendation from Ofcom for the Secretary of State to bring those smaller types of sites into the category.”
“I thank my hon. Friend for securing this important debate. The distinction between Crown post offices and franchised post offices cannot be drawn heavily enough. In my constituency, we lost Crown post offices in Newton Abbot and in Dawlish, and the one in Teignmouth—which I believe is the last in my constituency; all the rest are franchises—is now under threat. Does he agree that the franchise system can provide a useful service but is absolutely no substitute for the full Crown post office service, which must remain?”
“I draw the House’s attention to my entry on the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. At Teignbridge district council, I oversaw the commencement of council house building for the first time in 30 years. Will the Secretary of State meet me and others to discuss what can be done to make it easier for other councils to build more council homes?”
“I draw attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Talking of localism, district councils provided a useful amount of local accountability. How will the Minister ensure that local accountability continues when the regional identity may be different? May I also ask about the future of towns and parishes, which are not mentioned at all, and neither are national park authorities? How will those be empowered to have more local responsibility?”
“The first four phases of that plan have been done and are now in place. One massive benefit was the new bridge at Dawlish, which made both platforms accessible without steps—something that we still need in too many other stations, including Teignmouth.”
“It is estimated that the Plymouth economy alone lost £600,000 each day the line was shut. Since 2014 a lot has changed, but the dependence on the railway has, if anything, increased. Please do not think of tourism as the only industry in Devon: remote working has blossomed, and it is clear from Office of Road and Rail statistics that the overwhelming majority of rail journeys from Exeter and the other main stations are to and from London. Why do we need a debate on the topic? The answer is that this vital railway link is again under threat from a number of different sources. After the 2014 storm, the then Prime Minister promised that money was no object and that the line would be made resilient. A five-phase plan was drawn up and work began. The new sea wall was built, and Dawlish railway station had a rebuilt sea defence as well.”
“Getting from Exeter to Paddington in a couple of hours makes a huge difference and enables many people to work part in London and part in Devon—including myself, even before I was an MP. The value of the railway to the economy was demonstrated during the 2014 Dawlish storm incident. From a Transport Committee record, we know that the storms on 4 February and 14 February 2014 caused a 100 metre breach in the sea wall at Dawlish and a 25,000 tonne landslip between Dawlish and Teignmouth, which was exacerbated by a further landslip on 5 March. The incident closed the line for eight weeks. An immediate repair cost of £35 million, including 300 engineers—the much-lauded “orange army”—got the line running again, but the interruption cost the local economy an estimated £1.2 billion.”
“I beg to move, That this House has considered railway services in the South West. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Dr Allin-Khan. The south-west is hugely reliant on the mainline railway—it is an economic lifeline. As I am the MP for Newton Abbot, which includes Dawlish, Teignmouth and Kingsteignton—all towns with strong railway heritage—the railway is a fundamental part of my life and community. Devon and Cornwall are notoriously underserved by transport: there is one motorway and just two national roads. The road network in Devon is largely minor roads full of potholes. The mainline railway is the key economic lifeline for the entire region.”
“The line has been closed on a number of occasions over the past years. The previous large cliff collapse was in the winter of 2000-01, according to the “West of Exeter Route Resilience Study”. I ask the Minister to reassure Network Rail and my constituents that that vital project will not be quietly forgotten, but will be completed to protect the economic wellbeing of the south-west and my constituents’ access to rail services. However, there are other threats too. The Great Western main line not only runs from Paddington to Exeter, Plymouth, Penzance and the far west of Cornwall, but covers Swindon, Bristol, Cheltenham and Gloucester, to name but a few, not forgetting Cardiff, Swansea and south Wales.”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. When I met Network Rail in the autumn, it said that the design team for the fifth and final phase of the work would be reassigned if the funding was not forthcoming soon. That would put the project back, and significant extra funds would be required to get it back up to speed. A few months ago, I asked the then Transport Secretary about the funding for the critical final phase of the Dawlish rail resilience programme, which is the largest piece of work. It deals with the landslips that caused the line to be closed long beyond the short time it took to repair the sea wall breach. She looked shocked to learn that the funding was not already there. Although she did not promise the funds, she indicated that the project would be a high priority.”
“Their announcement of a resumption of the project to tunnel to Euston is to be welcomed, but the 14-platform station at Old Oak Common—eight platforms on the surface and six for HS2 underground—will impact south-west rail services for another six or seven years as it is constructed.”
“The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we need more services on all these lines to support our constituents. However, everything I have outlined will be interrupted by the creation of the HS2 link to Old Oak Common. High-speed rail is a welcome improvement to our nation’s infrastructure, but the implementation of that project has been handled poorly in the past. It has ignored the largest benefit—connections within the northern powerhouse—and the focus on delivering faster rail between London and Birmingham has delivered unwanted side effects. The decision to terminate the HS2 services at Old Oak Common, three miles west of Paddington, was quickly overturned by the incoming Government.”
“It has been somewhat unclear—some misleading averages have been quoted—but having met with GWR and Network Rail, I understand that stopping at Old Oak Common will add some five to 15 minutes to every single journey. Adding 15 minutes on to the fast train—of around two hours—from Exeter to London is significant, and even more so on the quicker trains from Cheltenham or Bristol. Travel to Birmingham is already available via Bristol. Looking at journey times, it will usually be faster to go to Birmingham via Bristol, unless users are further east than Swindon or Westbury. Stopping at Old Oak Common will bring little or no benefit to the majority of the long-distance rail users of the west, south-west and Wales. Can the Minister confirm that fast trains from the south-west should be able to go through Old Oak Common without stopping?”
“I agree entirely that the impact of Old Oak Common is immense, and will not be just during the construction phase. The six or seven years of delays and cancellations at weekends and Christmases have been covered in this Chamber before, so I will not repeat the list of weeks and weeks of diversions to Euston and significantly reduced services. I have already started to receive complaints from my constituents about the inability of Euston station to cope with the volume of passengers when the trains cannot complete their journeys to Paddington. But the piece of the plan that adds insult to injury for the millions of passengers from the south-west, is the idea that every Great Western Railway train will stop at Old Oak Common, even after construction is completed.”
“I am sure my Cornish colleagues could elaborate. I ask the Minister to consider what might be done to show my constituents, and the population of the wider south-west, that they have not been ignored. I am asking for us to receive some benefits from new investment, not just delays to accommodate fast access for others to the midlands and the north. I am specifically asking for more train carriages for more local services; full metro services with no greater than half an hour between scheduled trains; monitoring and accelerating the roll-out of the Access for All programme; reliable wifi across the entire route; electrification to improve journey times to Cornwall; fast trains from Wales to the west to the south-west not stopping at Old Oak Common; and commitment to complete the Dawlish rail resilience programme.”
“A constituent told me that her young daughter was left in tears, having been denied access to a train with her group, which triggered an anxiety attack. On the London services, mobile phone coverage is barely useable for much of the journey. While for some that may be a blessed relief, it means that wi-fi connections are not reliable—a huge issue in a world where so many people rely on good connections to usefully work on the train. I consider myself fortunate, going to Devon. If I were to continue the journey in Cornwall, the train speed would slow down considerably—as my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George) just mentioned. Journey times could be significantly reduced by even partial electrification, as hybrid trains on the line could speed up faster and climb some of the hills quicker.”
“My hon. Friend makes a very good point. It is even harder for those down in Cornwall than it is for those in Devon. Both of these significant impacts are examples of the historic lack of investment in the railways in the south-west. In the south-west, we can often feel like second-class travellers—watching our services get worse so that other services can be made better. Local rail services in Devon are few and far between. Rather than a few minutes between services—as we enjoy here in London—we are lucky if we have one or two trains an hour. Trains are often made up of fewer carriages than planned due to faults or breakdowns. Schoolchildren travelling locally between towns have been unable to get on to services because they are too full, due to their having only half the expected number of carriages.”
“That option has been ruled out in some of the conversations I have had, and I like the fact that it is now open. Having that as a commitment, even without the full timetable, will reassure my constituents that fast trains will still be able to go through to London. The £165 million Dawlish investment is also very much welcomed. I refer back to the £1.2 billion cost of the closure. So it is £165 million versus £1.2 billion. To me, it is obvious that that investment needs to be continued. I end by thanking you, Dr Allin-Khan, and congratulating you on chairing your first Westminster Hall debate. I also thank everybody else who was present for the debate, and I look forward to having more conversations with Rail Ministers about the future of railways in the south-west, because we are only just beginning this journey.”
“We all understand that we cannot fund everything at once—I do not think that anyone is asking for that—so I understand it when the Minister says he cannot fund everything now. What I want is a promise that this work will be funded in the future, when money is available, so that we can make sure that it is progressed and not forgotten. That is absolutely vital. On HS2 disruption, it was interesting to hear that the purpose of Old Oak Common is to transfer passengers from HS2 to the Elizabeth line. That is a clear focus, and it shows that no real interaction is intended with GWR’s south-west and Wales services. On the idea of stopping trains, again, I do not think we expect a complete timetable at this stage; we would just like the confirmed option that some trains will not stop.”
“Parsons tunnel to Teignmouth— I am afraid it is pronounced “Tinmuth”, and not like Tynemouth, which is somewhere else; it is very confusing because Teignbridge is pronounced “Teenbridge”, so the pronunciation is most unique—is absolutely vital. It was the collapse of that section that closed the railway for eight weeks; it was not the breach of the sea wall that closed it. It had happened 15 years before, and it will happen again; those cliffs are not protected. Without the fifth phase, the resilience work that has been done to date will be wasted. What Network Rail needs is not funding today but the promise of funding in the future, to ensure that the design team is there and ready to go when funding is available.”
“I thank the Backbench Business Committee for giving me the opportunity to have this debate, and I thank colleagues from across the House for participating. We have heard some fairly clear messages, and I thank the Minister for responding to some of them. There is certainly some hope in some of the responses that have been given. It is clear that the south-west and Wales have been disadvantaged over a long period through lack of investment in the railways. Although large sums have been talked about, they have clearly not been used down in the south-west. I thank the Minister for recognising the importance of the rail network and for the news about increasing some of the capacity on local services, which is most welcome. The Minister said that a resilient railway is crucial, and that is exactly right.”
“Yes, there is a choke part of the lines going into Paddington, but HS2 will be going to Euston, via tunnel, and the Elizabeth line is already going to Paddington, so we gain no benefit. I understand that the ongoing plan for all trains to stop at Old Oak Common has been under discussion, so surely it is now time to revise that decision and stop this bizarre plan in its tracks. There is an alternative. Fast trains should not stop at Old Oak Common. In addition, the south-west must see benefits, and not just be second class to midlands traffic. At the very least, we need a commitment to complete the Dawlish resilience works, and to have other schemes, including partial electrification on the route to Cornwall, to speed up the line to Penzance.”
“Following the failures of the last Government on HS2, Old Oak Common might have made sense as a terminus to HS2 from the north. It is no longer that and now does not make any sense at all. A 14-platform station that duplicates connections from Paddington and Euston is neither wanted nor needed. We know that the trains can go to Euston; we have already seen that at weekends. The new tunnel will make that faster, no doubt. I do understand that the station is being built—it is likely too late to redesign it—but after a period of six years of construction delay, it is adding insult to injury to then have a delay of between five to 15 minutes on every train on the GWR network going into and out of London.”
“I was listening very carefully, and I think the Minister just said that not all trains will necessarily stop at Old Oak Common. Could she confirm that, please?”
“I beg to move amendment 1, in clause 3, page 3, line 29, after “hospitality” insert “, manufacturing”. This amendment would add manufacturing businesses to the types of business that could qualify for use of the lower multiplier.”
“We have tabled this amendment to explore the possibility of including manufacturing businesses. Manufacturing is important, and we know that it is struggling. By adding manufacturing businesses, we might be able to help them in the same way as we intend to help hospitality, retail and leisure. Manufacturing is a vital area that we have lost too much of in the past however many years. This relief would be a small help to enable manufacturing businesses to recover. That is why we would like to add the category of manufacturing to the provision.”
“I am a little reassured by the Government’s intentions to support the manufacturing industry and look forward to their efforts to do so. I am certainly reassured by the support for the high street, which is very important to all. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“That is why we would like to see the measurement included. As an engineer and a scientist, I believe in a feedback mechanism: something that measures what has been achieved against what has been required. We believe that was missing in the Bill, and we would like to see it, which is why we have asked for new clause 1 to be considered. The work is there and will be beneficial to one and all. I do not see it as a significant barrier to the Bill progressing, but as a positive feedback mechanism that will enable us to determine the effectiveness of the support on the desired areas and businesses, including high streets, which are so important. Question put and agreed to. Clause 4 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.”
“I rise to speak to new clause 1. I thank the Minister for his words. It is, as we are discovering, an incredibly complex and arcane way of creating taxes that will have an impact on many high street businesses. While the Treasury analysis will tell us how the multipliers have hit, and the numbers that are done from a taxation point of view, it will not answer whether the Bill has achieved what it set out to do, which is to provide the necessary relief. New clause 1 looks more at the impact on the businesses and whether the provisions had a measurable impact on economic growth. That is not the same as an analysis from the Treasury of the changes in the bills that are being presented to people; it is looking at the effect and impact, to see whether the Bill is achieving the desired outcome.”
“This has been my first Bill Committee experience, and it has been interesting and delightfully short. I am delighted to see it executed so effectively and efficiently. I thank the Minister for all his thoughtful and thorough explanations of the different bits and pieces, and I really hope that the legislation will provide good support to our high streets, which desperately need surety about their situation. I thank everybody involved, and I particularly thank the Clerks for their help in explaining to me how the process would work and helping us through it.”