Criminal Defence Service Bill [Lords] (Programme) (No. 2)

I, too, am surprised by the need for the Government to table a programme motion on this Bill. Judging from the reports of the Committee stage, everything was extremely amicable, and the Minister herself said earlier this week during Constitutional Affairs questions that the Opposition had been pretty supportive of the Government’s proposals. If we are to have a programme motion, presumably the Opposition will support it, because there are so few amendments to be discussed on Report that we could go on to have a Third Reading debate that would last longer than the Report stage and possibly even the Committee stage.