My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for his response to my amendment, to the other amendments in this group and to all noble Lords who have spoken on this group.
I am sorry that I have not been able to persuade the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, of the wisdom of this amendment—nor, it appears, the Minister, or his predecessor who answered this on amendment. I echo what the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, said about the quality of the scrutiny that the Bill has received around the House. However, I am a little disappointed at the level of the response to this amendment. I have not yet heard any reasons why it should be three years rather than five years; I have heard that it is preferred, but not why. The submission that I have made consistently in debates on the Bill is that gaming is going on—I do not think that anybody doubts that at the moment. I accept the point made by the Minister that five years is the outer limit and that it can come earlier than that. The fact is that when, quite rightly, a “must” obligation is inserted in the Bill and there must be a review every three years, it means that in the year leading up to the review people will inevitably be guessing and manoeuvring to do that. That will happen less often if the period is five years. It is a simple but powerful point and, since we are on the whole determined to try to encourage the settlement of cases and as much certainty as possible, this seems to be desirable.
My noble and learned friend has very helpfully said that his door is open, as indeed it has been throughout the passage of the Bill, and I pay tribute to him for his engagement generally. I suggested in Committee that I would try to bring forward some evidence to convince the Government, but I am not sure what more evidence I can give. Inevitably it is hearsay evidence, although we now also have the evidence of the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, but I will not give up. Given that my noble and learned friend has left that door open, I will continue to try to assemble better arguments or more evidence to support this amendment. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw.