Now, and if not now, probably more purposefully in the future when circumstances change, personnel change and Government change. It is a road down which this Government should not have trod.
I started by indicating what I believe was right in the NDNA. I am culminating, having canvassed on the issues where I think the Government have erred in the presentation of the Bill, and it cannot have our support if it remains in this state. The Government have got themselves in a position where, having engaged with parties across the spectrum and with various aspirations, that is now crumbling, and I think that is hugely regrettable. I do not want that to be the end to this process, so I do hope that after Second Reading there will be a willingness to engage in a way that there has not been over the past four, five or six months, when officials and Ministers have ignored, baulked at or just fundamentally disagreed on what they think the Bill means and what we believe it means. We cannot proceed on that basis.
In asking whether the glass is half full or half empty, and highlighting the question of what is in the glass, I want to be in a position where we can raise a glass to the provisions in this Bill. It is the same position I was in when I stood in this Chamber, worked on and brought through—having brought in a private Member’s Bill myself—the provision about the statutory duty for the armed forces covenant. I brought that forward myself, we got it into the NDNA and it was delivered by this Government. Similarly, other provisions were secured in the NDNA, and we want to see them delivered. So I hope that we will be in a position where we can raise a glass, with a fully functioning Executive, to the progress that has been made. However, given the way the Government have brought forward this Bill and are advancing the aims of it, I am sorry to say that I do not see that happening any time soon.
3.31 pm