My Lords, I apologise for having failed to speak in the debate on Second Reading. I had to leave London early on Friday to attend a memorial service the following day. I was pleased to see that the normal operation of the usual channels was restored on Thursday, although I deplore the fact that the closure Motion procedure was excessively and improperly used. Indeed, I would guess that it was used more times than in the previous decade or more—I would like to know. The result was that I was unable to speak either in the debate on the amendment to the business Motion moved by my noble friend Lord Forsyth or in the debate on that tabled by my noble friend Lord True. Of rather more significance than my ability to speak, however, is the fact that the use of the closure procedure denied both my noble friends the right to reply to the debates on the amendments that they had moved.
As my noble friend Lady Neville-Rolfe illustrated so well at Second Reading, the nature of business in the UK Parliament and the UK Government seems to be increasingly last minute. It is simply unacceptable to try to rush through a Bill of such huge importance without proper time to consider its implications. It makes a mockery of our parliamentary democracy. The Bill received a Second Reading in the other place by the narrowest of majorities: just one vote. It is deplorable that many noble Lords thought it was nevertheless appropriate to suspend the normal procedural rules of this House—