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Industry and the Environment

I shall certainly do my utmost to achieve that. I am not sure whether the hon. Gentleman was in his place when I had a little dust-up with the hon. and learned Member for Harborough, but it very much part of the Government’s approach to legislation that Bills should be ready before they are introduced into the House. It is my hope that the Bill will be able to be scrutinised in the way that the hon. Gentleman suggests—[Interruption.] The Under-Secretary, my hon. Friend the Member for South Dorset (Jim Knight), has just volunteered to provide a briefing on the subject. I hope that that will be helpful. The hon. and learned Member for Harborough specifically asked me about night flights, the East Midlands airport and whether the civil aviation Bill would help. I am not aware that we are having a debate on transport issues in the Queen’s Speech, but I shall certainly draw his and his constituents’ concerns to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Transport, who will be sorry to hear about them. As to the speech of the hon. Member for North Norfolk, I rather share the view of the right hon. Member for West Dorset in that I thought that I was listening to a speech delivered from the Conservative Benches. The hon. Member for North Norfolk may take that as compliment, especially in his seat, but I certainly did not agree with some of his observations—the abolition of the Department for Trade and Industry, for example. I doubt whether the business community would welcome that. Only a few days ago, the deputy director of the CBI said that a Department for wealth creation was the best place to deal with regulation, trade and business issues. Only by handling such issues are we able to deal with problems relating to the growth of red tape that are often raised in the House. I do not believe that the clientele to which the hon. Member for North Norfolk referred would welcome abolition.