My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, particularly as on this occasion, as quite often, I find myself in agreement with him.
When I listened to the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, I initially thought that there was something in her argument. Then I pondered again for a moment or two and decided that this was not an acceptable way of going forward, particularly as we could get into the position of mentioning a lot of other agencies and public bodies, all of which might have a similar claim to being included in the Bill as some of these have. It is going too far. When this issue got to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, we were quite puzzled by it all. I noticed that the media—certainly the national newspapers —had fun at the expense of the list.
I do not think that we can justify it. If we said that every public body had the right to be included in the list, that would be absurd. We should confine ourselves to bodies that deal with fighting serious crime and terrorism—major national and security issues. As I said, I think that this has gone too far. When I first heard about the list, I was not inclined to take it too seriously, but then I saw it on page 4 of the Bill. It does not seem to be a good idea, and I very much hope that we will pass one of the amendments that cleans up the list and makes it smaller and more sensible.
7.15 pm