Dame Meg Hillier

Indeed. I have seen that, too. There is a property on Pentonville Road that was demolished and then rebuilt, and is now the headquarters of the Royal National Institute of Blind People. Looking at it, one can see the shape of the old building, but sadly it does not have all the character. There is nothing that quite protects a building. Is an unlimited fine enough when it comes to buildings that are of such important heritage? Perhaps the Minister could respond to that. Even if the Bill does not pass today, perhaps there is scope for the Government to consider some of the thrust of the proposals and desires of the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire, over which there is clearly some agreement across the House, in a future planning Bill. If the Bill were not to go through today, I would certainly be very happy to work with the hon. Gentleman on such issues. I suspect there may be wider support for that. The other area around planning is about listed buildings. Pubs that are formally designated as listed buildings are afforded additional protection in the planning system, with listed building consent needed to demolish or undertake any works of alteration or extension that affect the listed building’s character or appearance as a building of special architectural or historic interest. Of course, failure to obtain listed building consent is an offence. Again, I ask the Minister whether the sanctions are enough where there is wilful action to interfere with buildings—the Crooked House is a terrible example of what can happen here—whether listed, as I have highlighted, or not. I think we need to consider whether there are any tweaks that could be made to future planning law. As I hinted at in my interventions on my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme, I want to move on to cover what we consider heritage to be. As the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire rightly points out, he has tried to provide a definition in this Bill, and I am not knocking his attempt to do so. However, if we are talking about pubs, heritage is more than just the building, because pubs are not just a building. I think about the pubs that are emerging in my constituency; they are our modern heritage. I lose count of the number of microbreweries I have in my constituency—I would be very happy to arrange a visit to some of them. We are the crucible of craft brewery. At one point, there were five craft breweries in one ward in Hackney Central, although the famous Five Points brewery—named after the five-point roundabout in Hackney Central, where the Pembury Tavern is based—has now moved to another part of Hackney. It is now based in Victoria ward, I think, where it has a wonderful premises and a brewery on site. It was originally set up by Ed Mason. These modern spaces are not just about the space and what they are brewing. In many cases, they are working hard to bring in heritage hops, and some of my microbreweries have relationships with Kent farms. They are trying to create British beers with British hops. They are really working through how to retain the heritage of the beer industry, not just the venue. They are groundbreaking, but also looking backward historically. I think that that heritage is important, too. There could be challenges that mean that those pubs, bars and breweries find it hard to survive. We know all of the challenges that face our high streets, from business rates to energy prices—things that are putting hospitality businesses under great pressure. I mentioned Hackney Church Brew Co., which is also under an arch, in Hackney central, near to the church itself— Proceedings interrupted (Standing Order No. 11(4)).