My Lords, really, this is something of a hangover from day one—something I think the noble Baroness, understandably, would best like forgotten. I am still not clear why, when Clause 3 has been so heavily condemned, we are not saying, “Let’s get rid of it and try something else.” The undertaking the Minister has just given about consultation is welcome, but we should not need it, because we should know what we are getting into: it should have been discussed in Parliament, in detail, going through the full process. Also, an undertaking to consult comes back to the old point: I am sure this Minister will stand by it—she is an honourable person, as she has shown in her conduct over this—but we do not know who is coming next; we do not know who is giving the orders next.
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I refer noble Lords to my earlier comments that it is not this Secretary of State but the nasty one round the corner. This is why we have things in legislation that we can discuss and refer back to. Clause 3 in this Bill removes that safeguard and means that we do not actually know what we are doing. It also gives an awful lot of power to anybody who takes on that position.
If we are to continue in this way, the sittings of this House and indeed Parliament as a whole are going to get a lot shorter, because there will not be much to do. If it is all going to be by regulation, which they do not want us to vote against—I know I am repeating myself, but why not?—what else can we do? There will be a series of negative Motions, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, pointed out, to which the Government will say, “Oh well, never mind” and
move on. We have got to get something more solid down here about what the Government’s intentions are. At the moment, we are in the position of not knowing whether we disagree with them or not. We suspect it, but we do not know, and we do not know what is coming next time.
When the Minister goes back to her department—and I think the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, going back to the Chief Whip may be even more applicable here—will she make sure that they know just how unsatisfactory we are finding this? Otherwise, we are just going to have a bit of a carve-up on Report, and then we will be accused of being unconstitutional, and then we can chase each other round the Houses, and then everybody remembers that the Bill is a Lords starter. I hope, if we are not going to be wasting our time, that we actually do have something solid that removes Clauses 1 and 3 from the Bill and replaces them with something sensible.
Having said that, observing the convention that we do not deal with these things now but on Report, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.