I understand my right hon. Friend’s point, but I wonder whether we are in danger of straying into another topic. There is an issue about the operation of the mechanism for implementing the changes and taking
us out of the EU. I keep confidently hoping that the Government will be able to respond positively to that by having an adequate sifting mechanism for Parliament. Even when that has taken place, the changes envisaged for EU law are, as far as I can see, of a semi-permanent or permanent character. They are about the nature and quality of the law that we have decided to bring in, rather than the manner in which we have decided to do so. New clause 55 is very similar to new clause 25, tabled by the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy), and they seek to look at the matter in slightly different ways. The question is how the Government will respond.
That raises, perhaps, a more fundamental issue about the process of debate in this House, on which I hope the Government will be able to provide some reassurance this afternoon. I do not know how other hon. Members found it, but I found yesterday hugely instructive, not because it led to some votes—it did so, but let us leave the votes out of it—but precisely because it gave us the opportunity to have a cogent and sensible debate about problems on which, as we proceeded, we began to perceive that there might indeed be a degree of consensus. The problem is that we always run up against the sense that if the Government come to the Dispatch Box and say, “This is very interesting, and we will think about it,” but we do not do something about it then and there, we may lose our opportunity ever to do something about it. We will, of course, have the opportunity of Report stage, should the Bill have one.