I am grateful to the Minister for giving us a fairly thorough answer, but I find it a little difficult to accept some of what she has just said. As a Liberal Democrat, I am supposed to be
somebody with an optimistic turn of mind, so I should possibly hope that there will be an agreement—there will be a deal and it will be so wonderful that we can all live with it. There will be an implementation period, which maybe we would call a transition period, the rights of EU citizens resident here and UK citizens elsewhere in Europe will all be guaranteed, and life will be wonderful. But I am afraid that I was brought up to be a little bit cynical, and I am slightly concerned that what the Minister has said does not quite ring true. She has talked about a whole set of rights being guaranteed through the withdrawal agreement, but we have no guarantee that there will be a withdrawal agreement.
On several occasions this evening we have talked about the possibility of there not being a deal. If there were no deal, the discussion being put forward in the draft withdrawal agreement would lapse. In that event, the rights of the 3.6 million citizens would appear to vanish. On previous days at Report and, in particular, in Committee, we were told repeatedly that the Bill was to ensure legal certainty on the day we leave the European Union—not after some implementation period. I remain deeply concerned about the rights of EU citizens.
If it were not seven minutes to midnight, I would test the opinion of the House but, in the absence of any trigger from the Labour Chief Whip or, to my left, my own Chief Whip, it would be prudent not to do so. I understand that I cannot bring the amendment back at Third Reading, but we might expect an immigration Bill at some point, and many of these issues will be brought back again in that legislation. I am not satisfied that what the Government suggest really will guarantee the rights of EU citizens. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.