I was not in full flow; in fact, I was near the end, noble Lords will be pleased to hear. That is another helpful suggestion. It shows the advantage of debates in this place—we come up with helpful suggestions. I can only say that I wish that Ministers were as ready to accept helpful suggestions as I am, because this place would work a lot better if they were. To be fair, the Minister of State for Scotland was helpful when we discussed the British Transport Police. He came to this House and said that he would take the matter away and look at it further. One good thing is that yesterday the Scottish Government announced a delay in the implementation of British Transport Police integration. That says a lot for the wisdom of this House; it says a lot for the positive intervention of the Minister; and it indicates that, if we put some pressure on the Scottish Parliament, we can influence it. However, it should also be able to influence us.
As I said, under the Sewel convention, the UK Parliament will not normally legislate without the consent of the Scottish Parliament, although it depends what you mean by “normally”. However, this issue is
so material to the work of the Scottish Parliament and indeed the Welsh Assembly and the Northern Ireland Assembly that this is one area on which we should not legislate without their consent. I beg to move.