European Communities (Employment in the Civil Service) Order 2007

My Lords, I am grateful to all noble Lords who have participated in the debate, which ranged a little more widely than I had anticipated, but was none the worse for that. I hope that I can respond to the considerable number of questions that have been posed to me while indicating that this is an important issue subject to proper scrutiny. I want to emphasise to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, that my opening remarks were protracted in order to do my best to reassure the House on certain matters, particularly on the question of consultation. I hear what he says, and there is always a judgment about whether reservations that have been expressed may be significant or insignificant. However, I assure the noble Lord that, when consultation is carried out with the civil service unions on a matter of such importance to them—the criteria for posts—and when we say that there was broad assent to the concept of the order and what it implies, I say that in the full knowledge that, if there had been serious reservations, we would not have dreamt of presenting the legislation in those terms. I want to reassure him that the consultation was full and effective. Inevitably, questions were raised on the margins, as one would expect, but there is broad support for what the measure does. The noble Lord mentioned the fact that inadequate answers were given at the other end. He will recognise that it is a convention in both Houses that if the questioner—Member of Parliament or noble Lord—does not stay until the end of the debate, it is not likely that he will be vouchsafed the courtesy of much of an answer. That is an important point. He indicated that that was part of the problem.