My Lords, as your Lordships have heard from my noble friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon and the noble Lord, Lord Bew, this is not identified as an inconsistency by our counterparties in relation to this matter.
The Government’s legal position is that our legislation is necessary and justified, and we make that assertion without prejudice to our position in relation to Article 16—again, as your Lordships heard from my noble friend Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon earlier. Article 16 is expressly limited. It is the Government’s view that it would not solve all the societal and political issues identified, including those identified today in some of your Lordships’ contributions to the earlier debate, whereas the Bill provides a comprehensive solution to those problems.
The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem—who in another context is my learned friend—referred me to the examples I cited when winding up at Second Reading of cases which set out the doctrine of necessity. The Canadian fisheries case concerned the Convention on Cooperation in the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries, which was a treaty. The Hungary-Slovakia case to which I also referred was a dispute about an agreement between the two parties for navigation of a river and the construction of infrastructure. In any event, I think the answer to his point is that the concept of necessity and its application in these circumstances is admitted within the articles of state responsibility.