Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission (Procedure) (Amendment) Rules 2007

My Lords, I start by offering my congratulations to the Minister for managing in this packed House to devote eight minutes to such minor sets of rules and spelling out to the packed House exactly what was in them. I do not intend to spend much time on them because now is not the time to discuss either of the parent Acts behind them; I refer of course to the Terrorism Act 2000 and the Act behind the SIAC procedure amendment rules. The Minister made it clear that these were designed for clarification and to meet some European Union concerns. I have no particular concerns to put before the Minister other than to query to some extent some of the language used in both Explanatory Memorandums and echoed by the Minister himself. Yet again we were told that stakeholders had been consulted. Now that we have moved on and his former boss, Mr Blair, is no Prime Minister, does he think that we could now drop the word ““stakeholders”” and find something slightly more elegant? Secondly, the Minister talked about a number of the stakeholders consulted representing a spectrum of those involved. I would love to know what a spectrum means on this occasion. Does he mean simply that he consulted all those who had an interest? If so, it might have been slightly better if that is what he said in his own words and in the Explanatory Memorandum. As I said, I do not have anything further to add at this stage, and I thank the Minister for his very detailed explanation of exactly what was in two fairly minor and brief sets of rules, which we have the privilege of debating at this time of night.