Commons Bill [HL]

I am grateful to both noble Lords who have followed me along the line of querying the Government. The Minister is a lawyer; I am not. I am a very simple soul. But when he says we have a standard constitution and then he goes on to say that you can pick and choose and you are able to vary it, I begin to wonder what happened to the standard in the first place. Either you have a goal to aim for or you have a standard laid down. I am intrigued; but it is a minor point. The point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller, about whether it is elected, co-opted or appointed is a real issue. The Minister slightly chided me in saying that I should wait until the statutory instruments come through. As he knows too well, once the Bill has passed it has passed. Yes, he said that we can vote things down in the House, but I cannot think of the last time when we voted even affirmative regulations down. If his team could tell me when we did I would be impressed. I have struggled heavily to raise these issues with Ministers over the years on many different points. While we may win the argument, there is no question of having a vote that we will win. With due respect to the Minister, that is not quite fair. I realise that the draft regulations will go out to discussion, but we are putting the date back, and back, and back. I thought that the idea of having a Commons Bill was so that things could happen more quickly. I wonder whether the noble Lord is able to give us any more detail as to when the instruments will come in. Will it be in six months’ time, or a year?