European Union Bill

I am grateful to the Minister. The most endearing feature of the debate was that it was the first of our debates in Committee where we all agreed on something. We all agreed that the grouping was insane. The Opposition Front Bench said that the grouping was insane, and the Minister said that the grouping was unfortunate. One wonders where the grouping comes from. Clearly nobody in the Chamber was in any way responsible for it. It came down from above. Perhaps it came out of Brussels or some dreadful place like that. It was a difficult debate because of the amendments seeking to subtract, the amendments seeking to add and the amendments of very different weights. At the end of the previous short debate, there was, as the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson, pointed out, a very significant move by the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire, who indicated that he might be prepared to go away and think about something said in the debate. I urge the coalition to share this insight. It would be extremely good if the Minister too would consider at the end of these debates whether there might not be something that he would be prepared to think about further. He has very kindly said that he would be happy to explain, meet informally and discuss, but that had slightly the ring of the schoolmaster: ““If you guys only do your homework, you will in the end understand the wisdom of the Government’s Bill””. I am not sure that that is quite going to do the trick. I think it will be necessary to come back at a later stage to the scope of Clause 6, but for the moment, I withdraw the amendment. Amendment 30 withdrawn. Amendment 31 had been withdrawn from the Marshalled List. Amendments 32 to 39 not moved.