My Lords, I thank noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It is an interesting one because in the words, I think, of the noble Lord, Lord Browne, it is one that will not go away and will continue to raise its head. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Browne, for reminding noble Lords that at Second Reading I did preface my remarks quite clearly by saying that I was not seeking to pay huge amounts of money to deal with this matter in the manner that many people have demanded or asked. It is a question of trying to find an alternative approach, which is what I was seeking to do with this amendment and in my earlier statements at Second Reading.
As many noble Lords have mentioned, people are putting pressure on noble Lords and Members of the other House to come up with some solutions. The challenge is to think of a way in which an approach might be developed, and I put one before noble Lords in this amendment. I hope it was quite clear that the amendment was not seeking any approach beyond a quid pro quo with another Government so that the message would be clear to any other Government seeking to approach the United Kingdom on this issue. Quite a number have approached the United Kingdom over the years, including some quite surprising places such as Mongolia. If we are going to go down this route, we need to ensure that there is a clear message that there will be no additional costs to United Kingdom plc.
I note what my noble friend said about reciprocity only being looked at from a social security angle. However, that raises another point, on which I echo some thoughts back to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. If income comes to UK plc, providing the UK Government can redistribute accordingly, there may well be opportunities in any agreement beyond just simple social security. I think that has been consistently looked at as the approach for all these reciprocal arrangements, right back to the very beginning.