Trade Bill

My Lords, following the excellent speeches we have just listened to, beginning with my noble friend Lord Stevenson, I support this group of amendments and appeal to the Minister seriously to consider reversing the ERG amendments, not just for the detail and well-founded points and reasons that have already been made, but because the Government did not choose to accept them. They were foisted upon them, because of the arithmetic and politics of the situation, and wanting bigger fish to fry. As a result, we have a defective Bill, even by the Government’s own objectives. I ask the Minister seriously to consider on Report, rather than facing a possible vote and even defeat given the cross-party support that exists, getting the Bill back to where it was before the ERG plundered it.