I am so grateful to the Minister for responding with his characteristic courtesy and patience. I think I can help him, because I think the problem here arises from the Government own cake-eating, if I can put it like that. The general proposition in the Bill is that we will now decide on a blanket basis that people are to be removed, regardless of their circumstances, because of the means of their arrival, not because of the circumstances of their past and their persecution. Fair enough; that is the thinking behind the Bill. Then the Government say, “Here is the schedule of safe countries”, again on a blanket basis. Then the Government say, “But only for men”—so they have already adopted the approach that there are some countries that are safe for men but not for women. But then when my noble friends and other noble Lords in the Committee say, “But gay people are a vulnerable group in many parts of the world, just as women are”, the Minister is, I think, forced into the Government’s position of saying, “But women are not a precedent”.
That logic is not standing up to scrutiny, in this Committee at least, so I hope that, after Committee and before Report, the Minister might just consider that issue of gay people, or LGBT+ people, in particular. We all know, in this Committee, that just as there are some countries that may be safe for men but not women, there are many countries that are not safe for queer people either. Rather than playing on this sticky wicket, which he, with his characteristic grace, handles with great aplomb, perhaps before Report, the Government could think again.