European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

I understand my hon. Friend’s difficulties. He is responding to new clauses and amendments on an amazingly wide range of topics that keep going into other departmental areas, but it is quite useless if the winding-up speech consists of the Minister saying in a series of statements that he is in no position to answer the questions. If there is an important Home Office question, as there is with the issue of child refugees, it would be normal for a Home Office Minister to be in attendance and to rise in some suitable way to answer the debate. My hon. Friend is reading very competently his carefully prepared brief, which concludes at every stage by saying, “I hope that the amendment will be withdrawn.”