I resigned. However, she is very welcome and I wish her all the best.
What worries me about this—and I hope that the Minister can give us concrete assurances—is that, on the Brexit agenda, it seems to be in the DNA of Whitehall not to have regard for the devolved Governments. The only reference I can find in the Bill to the Welsh, Scottish and Northern Ireland devolved legislative bodies comes right at the end, when it says that it applies to them. At the very least it is essential that a requirement to seek legislative consent and to consult is written into the Bill, because of course health policy is devolved to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
The Government have form on this issue in the way that they approached the Brexit legislation earlier in the process. As your Lordships will recall, there was a crisis and a real confrontation with the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Government—and there might well have been with the Northern Ireland Assembly if it had been up and running. It must be in the DNA of Whitehall, because it has simply done it again. That really worries me. I hope the Minister can give reassurances which mean that we do not have to vote at Report on something very similar to these amendments. If a major concession is not made, we will need to do that and seek to defeat the Government.
I endorse what the noble and learned Lord, Lord Wallace, and the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, said. I ask the Minister to give very specific assurances, spelling out that, if she does amend the Bill—and I hope she will assure us that she will—she will do so only having agreed those amendments in precise terms
with the Welsh Government and the Scottish Parliament, and having consulted officials in the Northern Ireland departments.