My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Sherlock and to the Minister. I never received the letter last Thursday, although I recall there was another letter when we raised the question of the family test in relation to the policy we will be discussing on Wednesday about families with two or more children. That said exactly the same thing—I think it was almost the same sentence.
When I was preparing this over the weekend, I realised I had never received a letter about our fourth day in Committee, so I emailed the Minister’s office to ask whether there had been such a letter, and I have not had a reply yet. Perhaps the letter about our fourth day could be re-sent, because I have certainly not received it. Anyway, it sounded horribly familiar—that is, it did not tell us very much at all, as my noble friend said.
I did not really expect we would agree on this. The Minister has certainly not satisfied me that it is fair when we are not comparing like with like. That is really the nub of the argument. On the rights of the child, he simply repeated the very argument that the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Hale, had pretty much destroyed in the Supreme Court judgment. He brought up the old DHPs again—many moons ago I said this was the loaves and fishes argument. DHPs have to be extended to cover everything and they do not provide anyone with any kind of right because they are discretionary. Clearly we are not going to make progress on this but it is important that we at least keep maintaining why we believe that this is not fair. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.