---

Business of the House

Can we have an early debate on the responsibilities that local authorities should observe when drawing up a contaminated land register? This is affecting several hundred of my constituents in the Bach Mill Drive area of Billesley. Birmingham city council identified the land there as contaminated, then sold it to property developers to build houses on. My constituents now face years of litigation, at taxpayers expense, while the value of their property goes through the floor. Surely it cannot be right that the city council can identify land that it owns as contaminated, then sit as judge and jury on the outcome. Surely that is unjust.