My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak to the amendments that I have tabled. They appear forbidding in number, but I encourage noble Lords to recognise that a large number of them are intended to put back into the legislation, were the Bill to be passed, the structures, duties and powers of the registrar in order to make the job of the registrar effective. I am not intending today to revisit the argument about the scope of the definition of what should be the subject of the register for lobbying, nor about who the lobbyists in question have to contact in order to be within the scope of the registrar.
I do not agree with the Bill—I make that perfectly clear—but the purpose of our Committee stage should at least be that, were the Bill to make further progress, it should be in a form capable of being enacted. I hope that noble Lords will understand the motivation behind most of my amendments. Some are trying to circumscribe it a little and ameliorate some of its rather expansive terminology, but most are in order to make it effective, if it could be so.
I should draw attention to my register of interests. I do not actually undertake any consultant lobbying but I suspect that what I do would be captured under the proposed register. I think that that is probably true for most Members of this House, frankly. It may not be—we need not argue about that—but it is probably best that we all make a declaration in any case that we might find ourselves in such a position.
I can be very clear about the first amendment. It is simply to make it so that the Minister in question can be a Minister from the Cabinet Office. As your Lordships will recall, I was a Minister in the Cabinet Office and I was the Cabinet Minister responsible for the Bill; I was the Lord Privy Seal. But actually the Minister in question who will be making appointments and undertaking other duties in relation to this Bill is very likely to be a Minister in the Cabinet Office and not a Secretary of State. It would therefore be more effective for the description to be that of a Minister. I beg to move.