I beg my noble friend’s pardon. I hope that he is not laughing at that. First, the point I am trying to make is that if I think this measure is a serious incursion, he should doubly think that is the case.
Secondly, I want my noble friend to think again because there is no reason why we cannot include sensible protection in this power without in any way upsetting its balance. Thirdly, I do not think anybody who wants to start a space station would think that they had carte blanche in that regard so long as the Secretary of State thought that was expedient. Fourthly, if we turn this on its head, what happens if such a measure is necessary and the Secretary of State does not think that it is expedient? It seems to me that the Government have to be much more specific about what these provisions mean before this House should accept them. Lastly, this is a matter for this House, which is supposed to be very much the guardian of the constitution. Quite a lot of legislation will come in front of this House where, whatever our views are—we may be very much in favour of space, for example—we have to stand up for the rights of the citizenry. I think that we are going to talk about that a lot. Above all, we have to talk about the danger of handing to Ministers powers which are expedient and not considerably restricted to the purposes for which they are needed.