My Lords, I thank noble Lords who spoke in support of our amendment. I agree very much with the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, about the creative role that smaller companies such as HCT can play. I also very much welcome the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Cameron, about the need to rural-proof and about how amendments of this kind can help that process. I assure him that the particular needs of rural communities have been a common theme throughout our debates, and indeed further amendments have been tabled picking up that theme.
I thank the Minister for recognising in the debate and in the draft guidance the validity of some of the issues that we have been raising. I think that our
differences always related to the profile that the social value Act would get if it was buried away in the guidance notes. We still have concerns about that and would still like to look at other ways of raising the profile of the Act within the Bill. In the meantime, there is obviously scope for us to look again at the draft guidance and whether there is anything more we can do around that. However, on the basis that the Minister has gone some way to meet our expectations, I do not intend to push the amendment to a vote.