Will those government officials who are dealing with the strictly government parts of this Bill—I am bound to say that it is hard to know what the government parts are, because the Liberal Democrat party seems to be opposing the Bill vociferously—also therefore be making their advice available to the spokesman for the other part of the Government, the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine? When we discussed this last week, the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, said that for the purposes of this Bill she was very clear that she was speaking as spokesman for the Conservative Party. That party is indeed a party of government, but the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, is speaking as the spokesman for the Liberal Democrat party, which is also a party of the Government.
This is a serious point, not a trivial one. As it happens, since it is a constitutional issue, I think that it is wrong that the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, is sitting on the Bench. I am sorry to say that. I think
that she is an excellent Minister—she is diligent and hard-working and serves this House very well indeed—but for the purposes of the Bill it would be more appropriate if the noble Baroness sat on the Back Benches. Alternatively, if we want to take a precedent, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, was joined by the noble Lord, Lord McNally, on the government Front Bench to deal with the Leveson inquiry, and they were both on the Front Bench together. That way the Government were represented on the Front Bench, because those are the two parties. We have a problem here: either the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, should be sitting with her Back-Benchers—and we would be delighted to hear her because she is always cogent and good—or else the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner of Margravine, should be joining her on the Front Bench.