Violent Crime Reduction Bill

Perhaps I may briefly add my voice to those who support this amendment. I believe that this is a case of the cock-up school of history being proven correct. We have seen it: let us do something about it. I am afraid that I was unable to get to most of the meetings due to other duties. However, I thank the Minister for his invitation. The feedback I got was that basically everyone has accepted that it was a straightforward cock-up. They got it wrong in the original legislation. As the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, said, it was designed to deal with another problem and it has brought in others by accident. We now have an opportunity to correct it. If the Minister can give us an assurance today that the problem will be dealt with by a government amendment or, better still, by helping the noble Lord, Lord Pendry, to draft a correct amendment—that would be appropriate considering the amount of work he has put into this—we would be much happier. We have all identified a real problem caused by a mistake. Let us just correct it and move on.