Governance of Britain

My Lords, I thought that the noble Lord put the matter very well, as he often does, in relation to treaties and the balance between treaties being unamendable, whereby parliamentarians do not feel part of any scrutiny process, and micromanagement in the sense of Ministers having to report on a daily basis. I come back to the point to which the noble Lord referred, that because domestic legislation has to be changed there is ample opportunity at that stage for both Houses to undertake detailed scrutiny. It is certainly the practice that Ministers regularly communicate with appropriate Select Committees, whose work I pay tribute to. Equally, I accept the point made by the noble Lord on ““creative involvement””, as he put it. I am sure that in this debate we will want to consider that. I am a bit reluctant to describe the document as green or white. I would say that it is mainly green. There are some whitish areas, but it is a genuine consultation and, when the noble Lord has had an opportunity to read it, he will find that many options are put forward.