Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I am indeed in a temper: a good temper, as I always am. When the Official Report is studied, it will be clear what the hon. Lady said and how little it resembles what she apparently means. When it comes to the Minister, however, I shall ask the question again—obviously I am not going to get a response, so this is the last time that I will ask it. Why was something right just in 2004? It was not right because I tabled it as an amendment or because the Joint Committee said that it wanted it, but something that the Government put down as a crucial element, using the following words, which I have already quoted:""Nothing in this section confers…power to recruit, appoint, discipline or dismiss civil servants"." One would have thought that that was a key protection, but now the Minister says, "It's completely unnecessary: it's understood; it's tacit. We no longer need to say that." What has changed? Why was that necessary then, probably on the advice of some of the same civil servants who now advise her that it is not necessary? I do not think it unreasonable for the Committee to be given an explanation about that. Simply to assert that something that the Government said was necessary is now not necessary is an insufficient argument. It is very regrettable that we are proceeding with the Bill on the basis of assertion and counter-assertion, rather than explanation and consideration of the underlying principles.