My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It has been a very interesting debate and, unsurprisingly, not everyone has agreed with each other or with my Bill.
I am not going to respond in detail to all the issues raised by the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, but he said that pre-legislative scrutiny for something like this was essential, which is not very different from my purpose in moving the Bill. We need to have a discussion. We can decide how it is done but we certainly need to debate it further. I have looked into the Duchy of Cornwall in a bit of detail and there is no way that a Private Member’s Bill could ever seek to change what is there because of all the historical issues that have been discussed today and probably many more. My purpose was to start a debate on it and I think we have had a good debate.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, for his support. He said that if the Duchy was converted into a public trust it would not stop the debate. He is absolutely right. It would continue between all his different Members of Parliament in Cornwall, but at least there would be a public debate, which is one of the most important things.
It was not my intention to say that we should not do anything until we have a written constitution. It gives the impression of opening a can of worms almost and that is always a danger in doing something like this. Something could probably be done about the Duchy and some of the other issues if there was a will to have further discussion, which could happen rather more quickly.
Finally, the Minister said that the Duchy was a private estate. From the information I have, this has never been debated and it has never been tested in court and I do not think there is any legislation to say whether it is. I think that probably needs to be reviewed because out of it—I tried to give a few examples—come a number of anomalies that need sorting out. We have had a very useful debate which I wish to continue.