Responding to the very last thing that the Minister said, he will have to tell us what those other ways are during the course of this discussion.
This has been a well-informed debate, as I assumed it would be. I think I was right in saying that this issue is at the heart of the Bill and how we move forward. My noble friend Lord Hunt—I thank him for his support —was quite right that this is the big issue. As the noble Lord, Lord Sharkey, said, this is the start of the discussion that we are going to have about attractiveness and where that lies and how it can express itself.
The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, put his finger on various important issues to do with clinical trials. He asked the key question, which I do not think the Minister answered. It is: if we diverge, what will that mean and how will it happen? I did not hear an answer to that question. The answer will determine what some of us do next as we move forward with this Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Kakkar, was completely correct when he said that it is vital that we get this right for the future of life sciences in the UK.
I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for his support for our amendments. He reminded us that we had this discussion during the passage of the main Brexit legislation, when we were told that it was not the appropriate place to such a discussion so the amendment was withdrawn. Now, at the last minute, this must be the place where we have these discussions and come to some conclusion on them.
The noble Lord, Lord O’Shaughnessy, is right. As we strike out on our own as a country, we will need new relationships and we will need to take advantage of what is on offer in the rest of the world. The transition will be very important because what happens in the meantime is vital. We will also need to ensure patient safety in this laissez-faire world, as the noble Lord explained, for example, if we decide to ignore the portal and strike out without it.
I do not doubt for a moment the Minister’s emphatic commitment to making this a success, but as we move forward, this Committee will need to understand much more than what the Minister has told us so far on the
risks and opportunities. My final request to the Minister is that we will need a cross-party meeting of some depth—possibly more than one—to discuss this matter with his Bill team and the MHRA. We had such a meeting. It feels as if it was aeons ago, but I think that it was in February, perhaps March. Anyway, it was before we went into lockdown. We absolutely will need meetings and discussions before we move on to the next stage of the Bill. On that basis, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.