European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way again. In a sense, he unmasks my strategy. I have spent the whole time trying to be sotto voce about this, trying to get some common sense into the Government, which I have been unable to do. It is for that reason that, I very much regret, there really is no alternative to amendment 7. It may be inelegant—although I do not think it is—but it does the business. It would stop the Government doing something that they should not be doing. I could not agree with him more that clause 9 could be removed entirely. It would very sensible if the Government were to do that, but if I had suggested that they would have been upset with me, and it would have made the relationship and the negotiation even harder. In the spirit of conciliation I avoided that brutality and came with something different.