Consumer Insurance (Disclosure and Representations) Bill [HL]

My Lords, as I have stated throughout our proceedings, we on this side of the House fully support the Bill as a measure which makes a major improvement to the relationship between insurer and insured in consumer insurance. We have sought to improve the Bill, making clear elements of the drafting which were unclear or which, on careful examination, did not correspond to the declared intentions of the Law Commission and therefore required amendment. Accordingly, in Committee I proposed the amendment to which the noble Lord has referred and which in due course the Committee passed almost unanimously, the only dissenting voice being that of the Minister himself. Before dealing with the substance of the Minister’s amendments, I first ask him whether he consulted the Companion before tabling them. Paragraph 8.133 states that, "““an issue which has been debated and voted on in committee can be reopened, provided that the relevant amendment is more than cosmetically different from that moved in committee””." When we look for the meaning of ““cosmetically different””, earlier in the same paragraph it is stated that amendments must not be identical or of identical effect. Consequently, the Minister cannot argue that this amendment has identical effect. If he does, he must withdraw the amendment.