I am incredibly grateful for the support from all around the House. I am particularly grateful to my noble and learned predecessor and my noble and learned successor for supporting me in this matter.
The response from the Minister was incredibly disappointing. It was bombastic and technical and failed to address the essential issue, which is: what about the “one knock” manslaughter case? The answer that came in the end appeared to be, “Actually, we intend to cover that.”
The Minister made one good point on the drafting. He is absolutely right that my draft covers only 17 year-olds because it refers only to page 4. I would have had to submit the same draft in relation to pages 5 and 6 as well, which, if I had got page 4 in, I am sure would not have made much difference.
This is such an important issue that I would have been tempted to obtain the opinion of the House. All around the House there has been support for it, but the only encouragement I get is the technical point the Minister made. It may be that when this comes to the House of Commons, the Government will consider that they could improve my drafting and get to the same result. In those circumstances, with regret, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.