My Lords, I think this is one area where the Minister will have to be in his giving mood, because there is very strong opinion on it across the Committee. What the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, said is absolutely correct: it is a “just in case” clause. What if this happens? What if that happens? If things happen, there is a process and a procedure and the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, said it quite explicitly: bring in laws to deal with it; bring in a Bill that addresses those specific concerns. If it is an urgent situation that we had not thought of, there are processes and procedures we can adopt.
As my noble and learned friend said, there is an opportunity here for what he calls “pesky lawyers”. I am always cautious—whenever I dealt with lawyers in my life I always took the precaution never to ask a question I did not know the answer to. That is the situation here. Because you cannot think of the circumstances, but there may be circumstances, you say, “Let us put it in the Bill”. I am sorry, that is not acceptable. There is a consensus across the board on this and it is even a clause on which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, said, the Constitution Committee and the Delegated Powers Committee are as one, as they are not on other clauses. So I fear this is one issue about which the Minister will have to think again.