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Mr. Clifton-Brown: I am sorry to detain my hon. Friend, who is making a cogent case, but will he press the Government on one point? Hedgeline informs us that there are 10,000 outstanding cases which, if they all come to be conciliated immediately after the Bill is passed, will place a significant burden on local authorities. Local authorities up and down the land should have some form of commitment from Ministers that the Government will provide the extra resources required to resolve those cases.
Mr. Paice: My hon. Friend has been a Member of Parliament almost as long as I have and he knows as well as I do that Governments of all persuasions are remarkably good at giving local authorities extra jobs without giving them the resources to do them. I am conscious that even if the Government say that they will provide the extra resources, it only means that they will take the money from some other area in which they were supporting local authorities. None the less, my hon. Friend is right to point out that the measure carries a potential initial cost impact, because of the large number of outstanding cases. I have no doubt that that impact will be felt; then, as the legislation gradually settles in, use of it will decrease.
I hope that local authorities will use the powers cautiously and deal with real problems, but not enter into too much vexatious activity. I am not suggesting that they are likely to do the latter, but the power should be used sparingly, to address a problem when all else has failed. Having encountered several such cases in my constituency, I know that they can often be resolved by non-statutory means—obviously, statutory means have not been available until now. I hope that the legislative provision will be used relatively rarely, but I am glad that it will be there if all other means of resolving a case fail.
As I said, the Opposition do not oppose the Government on this matter. Indeed, we welcome the opportunity that the Government are taking to use the Bill to introduce these measures. We hope that they will fulfil the objective and reduce the postbag of most right hon. and hon. Members.
Mr. Pound: The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire (Mr. Paice) referred to gloating in connection with another group of Lords amendments. With some difficulty, I will resist the opportunity to gloat until the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) assumes his place.
In a typically wise, generous and positive contribution, the hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire referred to the Christmas tree effect. In fact, Christmas has come early, not only for me but for
the 10,000 hedge victims, who can now face the autumn shades closing in and the prospect of winter stretching before them with the knowledge that, when spring comes, daylight will be allowed to break through to gardens that for too long have been shrouded in darkness at noon, in the perpetual twilight of the garden blighted by the loathsome leylandii. We have the prospect of bringing succour, relief and daylight to those people.If I achieve nothing else in my short time in the House, which is entirely likely, the fact that I have been associated with this piece of legislation will not only be a source of immense pride for me but an opportunity that I will use to bore the pants off my neighbours, children and grandchildren in times to come.
The mood in the Chamber tonight is very different from the mood experienced earlier. These provisions were described—I rather think that the words are carved on my heart—by the hon. Member for Christchurch as representing a threat to this green and pleasant land far greater than the effects of the great storm of 1987, of Dutch elm disease and of the depredations of the Luftwaffe. The fact that we have moved beyond that to realise that before us is sensible legislation that will bring great relief to many people is a tribute to the House, and something for which I could not possibly take any credit personally.
Where credit is to be given, I remind the House of the sterling efforts of Baroness Gardner of Parkes and Baroness Hamwee, who have exhibited deft footwork in the other place. They struggled constantly to ensure that these sensible provisions are placed on the statute book, and they must be congratulated. While I am dishing out early Christmas presents—I hope that it is entirely appropriate to do so—I thank my hon. Friend the Minister in the most obsequious and generous terms for her contribution and her dedication. She has taken up the ball that was put down reluctantly by the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty). That is an immense tribute to her. She has taken it so close to success—I was about to say fruition but that may be an inappropriate metaphor in this context—and that is a great credit to her.
The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. Mullin) has been mentioned. I think that the House was aware that, if all else failed, he had a Bill on the stocks ready to be wheeled out. That prospect concentrated the mind of the House wonderfully. It has encouraged us in the glorious warmth and amity that we are experiencing this evening.
We should pay tribute also to my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South (Mr. Cunningham), who introduced a Bill similar to mine. I pillaged many of his ideas with no acknowledgement whatsoever, but I am glad to acknowledge him tonight. I do not say that because he is sitting behind me.
I must also refer to my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Lynne Jones). I particularly regret that the hon. Member for Solihull (Mr. Taylor) has other urgent business this evening. He and I are occasionally confused with each other. How two
tonsorially challenged right wingers can possibly be confused in that way is beyond me. However, I consider that I am blessed by the comparison with the hon. Gentleman. He introduced an excellent Bill and allowed me to steal from it in the same way that I pillaged the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South. The devotion and dedication of the hon. Member for Solihull to this legislation is much to his credit. I remember his speeches when his Bill came before the House on one of those benighted Friday mornings of tender memory. They persuaded many people of the efficacy and strength of the Bill. I hope that I have included most hon. Members in the Christmas card list.I shall take up the point raised by the hon. Member who I think represents Cotswold. Is it all of the Cotswolds?
Mr. Clifton-Brown: Most of it.
Mr. Pound: I refer to the Member who represents most of the Cotswolds, the hon. Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown), who talked about the burden on local authorities. Burdens on local authorities are a subject close to my heart. During my 16 years on Ealing council, I was acutely aware that I frequently added to those burdens. However, in the absence of any legislation, there is a huge burden on local authorities. When people have a dispute with their neighbours about hedges, there is no way in which the local authority can help. At the same time, the average member of the public does not believe that the local authority can help. As a result, hours and hours of officer time are spent telling people, "We can't help you." In many instances officers cannot provide that piece of information. They then have to provide reasons and justifications. There may well be a backlog. The hon. Member for South-East Cambridgeshire was entirely right and typically generous and far-sighted in his assumption that that peak will pass and that we will drift down into the sunlit uplands of a world without leylandii disputes.
David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden): Down to the uplands?
Mr. Pound: I am sorry. Drift up to the downlands. We may either drift down to the uplands or up to the downlands as we choose.
I wish to underscore the point that was made with great clarity by my hon. Friend the Minister. She referred to the provisions as an essential adjunct to the Bill. If there be criticism of this modest piece of legislation tonight—if there is, I have yet to hear it—it may come from those who cavil at the way in which this section of the Bill has been brought to the Floor of the House. They may say that it is not directly applicable to antisocial behaviour. I remind the House, if it needs reminding, that two people are dead as a result of fighting and feuding over hedges. There has been one murder and one suicide. The issue is that serious.
In addition, 4,000 members of Hedgeline and 10,000 people who have reported their problems to Hedgeline are in dispute with their neighbours. I profoundly hope that, once the Bill has passed through the consultation period outside the House and starts to firm up in people's minds as imminent legislation, many sensible
people will say, "Let's not wait for the Bill. Let's get together, talk and sort it out." There will always be an irreducible minimum. Some people will always use high hedges as a weapon of war in a neighbour dispute. Some people will use these missile-shaped trees as missiles against their neighbour. I accept that that will happen, but it also happens in boundary disputes and disputes about parking access, for example. We are familiar with all the neighbourhood problems that we read about in our postbags.Call me naive or call me innocent, but I hope that when people realise that Parliament takes this matter sufficiently seriously to add to the 21 long hours that we have already spent discussing it by bringing it to the House in the form in which it is being considered, they will realise also that the issue is one of great seriousness. I profoundly hope that we will end these appalling disputes over the bizarre invention of Dr. Leyland in 1882. I frequently travel outside my constituency, usually at the request of my constituents, but in doing so I have discovered that a large number of local authorities are already setting in train the mechanism to implement the Bill. There are even companies such as Haygate Engineering, one of our most entrepreneurial engineering companies, that already offer safety platforms to enable local authorities to undertake the work. Councils up and down the country are welcoming the chance, not because they wish to act like some local government gauleiter and dictate how things should or should not be done, but because they have an immense problem and have not been willed the tools to address it.
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