I stood up before the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, sat down as I knew he was coming to an end. He mentioned, and I accept entirely, his position that the Government may have excluded the Charter of Fundamental Rights because
of uncertainty. But for many people it is an indicator of something else: that Conservative Party manifestos over a number of years have promised that the Human Rights Act would be removed. On many occasions, we have heard leading Conservatives say that we should remove ourselves from the European Convention on Human Rights, too. The absence of the Charter of Fundamental Rights from the Bill suggests to many that this is part of a journey taking us out of any international arrangements dealing with the protection of human rights, and that that is the real purpose.