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Lord Grocott: My Lords, my noble and learned friend rightly draws attention to the central importance of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty. I repeat that it is not fair to say that this Government have done nothing. I am sure that my noble and learned friend was not saying that. He was talking about the nuclear powers generally. We have taken a number of important steps. We have signed and ratified the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, we continue to promote its entry into force and we continue to press for negotiations to begin at the conference on disarmament on a fissile material cut-off treaty. Those are all important steps. I would not
be so presumptuous as to overstate the Government's position, but the steps that we have taken have been important and have been an example to other states. With people such as my noble and learned friend pressing me and the Government, further steps will be taken in the direction that he would welcome.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart: My Lords, in view of the meeting that is anticipated between Mr Putin and President Bush in the summer, at which those matters will be further discussed, is it the Prime Minister's intention to raise the issue of nuclear non-proliferation with President Bush at his Texas meeting shortly?
Lord Grocott: My Lords, the relationship between the USA and Russia has obviously been even more important since the events of September 11th. Indeed, their close co-operation on a number of important issues has given cause for mild optimism. I am not able to give the noble Lord, Lord Maclennan, an answer on the precise nature of the agenda for the meeting between the Prime Minister and the President. As he will know well enough, however, although great significance always attaches to this type of summit, the simple truth is that regular communication between friendly heads of government is, in a sense, far more important than the dramatic hype that sometimes attaches to such meetings. It is the regular communication between the two men that is important.
Lord Swinfen: My Lords, the United Nations—
Lord Williams of Mostyn: My Lords, we must, I think, move on.
Railway Inspectorate: Personnel
3 p.m.
Lord Bradshaw asked Her Majesty's Government:
Why the number of staff employed by the Railway Inspectorate this year will increase to over 200 compared with 31 employed in 1987.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, the Railway Inspectorate was under-resourced to monitor and enforce safety standards on the privatised railway, as confirmed by Lord Cullen's report.
Lord Bradshaw: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that reply. However, comparing the 1987 report with that for this year, one notices that this year's report is three times as large, lavishly illustrated and demonstrates, in my view, a concentration on presentation rather than substance. This week, large advertisements for inspectors have appeared in The Times newspaper and in the trade press for inspectors. I draw the noble Lord's attention to the fact that inspectors are drawn from the small pool of railway
engineers. Moreover, the more people there are inspecting the work, the fewer competent people there are to do the work. That applies across many sectors.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I am not certain that I heard a question there. However, I think that the House would have substantially more sympathy for the argument that there are too many rail inspectors if there had not been such a disastrous sequence of appalling railway accidents over the past 10 years. I remind the House, as though it needed reminding, of Southall, Ladbroke Grove and Hatfield.
When the railways were privatised, there was a move from assigning responsibility for safety to one operator—British Rail—to assigning it to a plethora of bodies, train operating companies and Railtrack. The move substantially increased not only the number of bodies which had to be supervised for rail purposes, but the interfaces between those bodies which themselves had to be adequately policed. Lord Cullen's report was quite clear that the Health and Safety Executive, through the Railway Inspectorate, had to have more resources if it was to restore public confidence—which has been so severely shattered—in the safety of our railway network.
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, was the Minister aware that there were not enough inspectors in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I can well believe it; recruiting high-quality public servants is often a problem. I am therefore sure that the noble Baroness will be delighted to celebrate the fact that this Government have succeeded in recruiting a substantial number of railway inspectors. Some 113 railway inspectors are now in post. In comparison, I believe that, in 1996, there were some 49.
Lord Berkeley: My Lords, what are the other 87 people doing? Does my noble friend agree that, alongside railway safety, many of them are writing standards? It does seem a bit odd that there are several hundred people writing standards. What purpose does that serve?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, I shall not enter into a detailed disquisition on how safety standards are informed in this country, as I suspect that many noble Lords know much more about the subject than I do. Essentially, however, the system does not attempt to inspect every single failure, but tries to put in place safety regimes. The bodies responsible for safety—in this case, the train operating companies and Railtrack Plc—must demonstrate that they have regimes to appraise risk and to establish safety and training regimes that adequately minimise the possibility of those risks becoming accidents. The Health and Safety Executive essentially monitors compliance with those safety regimes. Consequently, it is quite appropriate that people are writing the types of standards to which my noble friend has referred.
Baroness Knight of Collingtree: My Lords, could the Minister please answer the question asked by my noble friend Lady Blatch?
Lord Filkin: My Lords, was the question about why there were vacancies in the past?
Baroness Blatch: My Lords, the question was whether the Minister is aware that there was a need for more inspectors in 1997, 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001.
Lord Filkin: My Lords, no, I was not aware of that, and I do not see the thrust of the question. I have not inquired in detail into why there was a failure to fill inspectorate vacancies under the previous government. However, I have certainly been aware of the efforts made by this Government to fill vacancies in the Railway Inspectorate. That task has been remarkably successfully completed, and I am sure that the House celebrates that achievement.
HSBC Investment Banking Bill [HL]
Read a third time, and passed, and sent to the Commons.
Animal Health Bill
3.7 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Whitty): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Whitty.)
Lord Moran rose to move, as an amendment to the Motion that the House do now resolve itself into a Committee on the Bill, to leave out from ( "House" ) to the end and insert "declines to consider the Bill in Committee until
(i) the responses to the consultation on implementation of powers in the Bill have been considered and Her Majesty's Government have published their response; and
(ii) Her Majesty's Government have received, considered and published the results of the inquiries they have commissioned into foot and mouth disease from the National Audit Office and the Royal Society."
The noble Lord said: My Lords, it seems a long time since we were discussing this Bill on Second Reading. In fact, it is a long time—no less than 10 weeks. The amendment which I am moving is of a somewhat unusual type, but there are good precedents. The ever helpful Public Bill Office showed me one, of 1887, which argued that,
- "it is inexpedient for the House to proceed further with a Bill of so crude and delusive a character in such a hasty manner . . . without the opportunity of first ascertaining the genuine opinion of all classes of agriculturalists in Scotland".
Once again, I declare a marginal interest: my wife's small herd of Welsh Blacks on the Welsh hillside.
The debate on Second Reading can have left the Government in no doubt that most Members of your Lordships' House thought the timing and nature of the Bill profoundly unsatisfactory. Some 22 speakers were critical of it, many strongly so, and only three gave it their support. No fewer than 14 speakers, a number of them greatly respected authorities, made the point that it was wrong for the Bill to go forward without knowledge of the conclusions of the inquiries set up by the Government.
Having taken part in that debate and listened to so many powerful speeches, I thought that the Government might at the end of it have taken the advice of a song in one of the early Astaire/Rogers films, the theme of which was,
- "Pick yourself up, dust yourself down and start all over again".
I expected that, at any rate, the Government would table amendments making major changes in their proposals. I waited week after week for a government reaction, but none came until last week, when we had from the Minister three useful amendments on detail but nothing fundamental. My wife suggested to me that the Government would probably have the Committee stage just before Easter when some of their critics might have departed on holiday. She was right.
I am sure that, in the light of what was said at Second Reading from all sides of the House, we need to make a fresh start. I do not believe that the present Bill, however extensively amended, will do. We must remember that the other place, which passed the Bill without amendment, would have to agree to any changes that we make. Nor are the Government likely to compromise on changes urged by this House, however reasonable, to judge from the announcement that they made about hunting last week.
Part 1 of the present Bill is based entirely on legalising and extending the mass slaughter of animals. Your Lordships may remember the conclusion of the notable speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Mallalieu, who said of the mass slaughter policy that she did not believe that farming families or the wider public would stand for a similar policy in the future. Once again, vets would be asked to take action against their professional judgment. Surely, that is not a road down which we should now go.
Part 2 of the Bill, on scrapie, which also appears to be based on disputed science, may result in the extinction of many rare breeds of our sheep and is, at best, premature. Therefore, I do not believe that it is sensible for us to devote time and effort to debating amendments to such a Bill. We can tinker with it and perhaps remove the worst aspects, but we cannot hope
to change its fundamental thrust. I see no prospect in Committee of turning it into a sensible and an acceptable piece of legislation.However, it would be sensible to wait for the results of the Government's latest consultation exercise and, above all, for the relevant inquiries that they themselves set up. Will distinguished people be willing to take part in such official inquiries if the Government take no notice of them and go ahead with legislation on the very matters that they have been asked to consider without waiting for their recommendations? Can the Minister say whether it is correct, as reported in the press on 16th March, that the Attorney-General, during a hearing last month, argued that the inquiries would establish quickly the best ways of dealing with any future outbreak? If so, perhaps any Bill should wait until we know what are the "best ways".
Once the conclusions of such inquiries, including the lessons learned inquiry chaired by Dr Anderson, have been received and studied, the Government can, if necessary, rewrite the present Bill or, preferably, replace it with a much better one, that would be acceptable to the veterinary profession, the farming community and countryside bodies and interests and which can go forward with general support.
The Government's case for the present Bill has been based throughout on what they perceive as an urgent need. As the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said in introducing it, the first part,
- "gives government as rapidly as possible powers which they currently lack".
In any event, if, god forbid, foot and mouth breaks out again, as it may, given the Government's failure to act firmly on imports, the Government already have powers to deal with it. They have set out in their recently published contingency plan their preliminary thoughts on how it may be tackled. They foresee a countrywide ban on all animal movements on confirmation of an outbreak and, I am sorry to say, the continuation of the contiguous cull, which last year resulted in the slaughter of so many thousands of perfectly healthy animals. But at least the plan says that that is,
- "an interim plan until the results of the official Inquiries into the 2001 Foot and Mouth outbreak are published".
- "does not aim to pre-judge the outcome of the Inquiries".
I put forward this amendment as a Cross-Bencher, as an independent. In no way is it a political initiative, but an effort to facilitate a sensible and lasting solution to a very serious agricultural problem, which affects the lives and livelihoods of a great many people in our
country. In considering what I now suggest that the House should do, I have tried to put myself in the place of the supporters of different groups in the House. We Cross-Benchers, of course, do not act as a group, but if I were a Conservative, I would have paid close attention to the notable speeches of those on my Benches who spoke with long experience, detailed knowledge and expertise. Criticisms, on which all those distinguished Peers agreed, would have strongly influenced me and would have led me to support an amendment such as the one that I have tabled.If I were a Liberal Democrat, I would recall the amendment suggested by the noble Baroness, Lady Miller of Chilthorne Domer, at Second Reading. She said that there was quite a strong feeling that the Government should have considered the recommendations of the inquiries that they had commissioned and that that would have been the time to bring forward comprehensive legislation. I have noted that she raised the point again at Question Time on 31st January when she received a dusty answer from the Minister. It appears to me that my amendment is fully in line with that for which the Liberal Democrats argued.
If I were a Bishop—a position far above my humble aspirations—I would have been strongly influenced by the speech made at Second Reading by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Hereford, which drew more praise from around the House than any speech that I can remember. Once more, I would regard what he said as leading to an amendment such as mine.
If I were a Labour Peer I would reflect on the current perception of the Government as being unconcerned about the countryside and the people who live in it. I would be anxious to dispel that perception and to see the Government I support bring in a Bill that tackled the grave problems of animal diseases in a way that was accepted by vets and farmers and that was based on the best available scientific and practical advice. I would want to wait until the inquiries had reported and to see the Government respond to them.
Therefore, I conclude that this amendment is in the best interests of the Government. For reasons that appear good to them but that I do not myself find persuasive, I understand that the Liberal Democrat Party and the Conservative Party would, if the Government remained obdurate, prefer to put off any challenge until a later stage. It is not clear to me why, on a matter of such great importance to so many in the country, they are willing to allow the Committee stage to proceed, with the implication that the Bill may ultimately be acceptable. That may prove to be a waste of time and effort. I am surprised that they are willing to leave it to a Dad's Army of myself and like-minded colleagues to make a case for delay based on obvious common sense. Nevertheless, I hope that my amendment will commend itself to the House. In any event, I shall be glad to hear the views of other Members. I beg to move.
Moved, as an amendment to the Motion that the House do now resolve itself into a Committee on the Bill, to leave out from ("House") to the end and insert "declines to consider the Bill in Committee until
(i) the responses to the consultation on implementation of powers in the Bill have been considered and Her Majesty's Government have published their response; and
(ii) Her Majesty's Government have received, considered and published the results of the inquiries they have commissioned into foot and mouth disease from the National Audit Office and the Royal Society."—(Lord Moran.)
3.17 p.m.
Lord Peyton of Yeovil: My Lords, I warmly congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Moran, who moved the amendment so ably. As he was kind enough to say, I had had thoughts of tabling a similar Motion. On reflection, I thought that it would come very much better from a noble Lord on the Cross Benches rather than from a somewhat more committed opponent of the Government.
The thought behind the Motion is that, before embarking on detailed consideration of the Bill, it would be helpful to have available as clear a picture as possible of what went on during the recent epidemic. The reports from the inquiries that are now in progress—Anderson, the Royal Society and the National Audit Office—would have shed some light on those events. Even more valuable would have been the report of a public inquiry, had the Government not run away from one. Had they not done so, they would now have the advantage of being able to say, as few governments can say with honesty, "We listened and we learned". The criticism that they face today would at least have lost some of its edge.
As matters stand, the Bill has few friends, and almost none in your Lordships' House. It is widely seen as an attempt to attribute what went wrong to the lack of sufficient powers and a yearning for new ones so drastic that they should not be granted without reasons far more cogent than any that have so far been advanced. Assurances that the powers now asked for would never be used are foolish. They leave quite unanswered the question, "Why take them?"
In the event, it was not a lack of powers but a lack of any coherent strategy on the part of what was then known as MAFF that was the cause of the mess and muddle which were the main features of the epidemic. The impression given was that no one knew what to do or how to do it. Lessons of 1967 had been forgotten; defences against just such an event had been neglected, if not dismantled. The protection of their own image seemed to have an almost indecent priority in the Government's mind. Fairness to those who had been hurt and a chance to have their say, the need to learn from what had gone wrong, and measures to be taken to prevent a recurrence were subordinated to that one consideration.
Even now, one has to ask what has been done in the way of protection against imports of infected meat. If the Government have no idea what to do, perhaps they
should consult their French colleagues, who know a great deal about how to deal with unwanted imports. It might be helpful to the Government to take a leaf out of their book.The subject of vaccination, too, appears to have been lost. It has become bogged down in endless discussion in Europe. It would be interesting, even at this stage, to know what view Ministers now take of vaccination. I hope that they will not keep it a close secret for too much longer.
I do not want to extend my remarks too much. I finish on this note. MAFF now has a new name and address. Although I dislike these acronyms, the fact that it has moved to what is now known as DEFRA, which recognises the intimate connection between agriculture and the environment, is welcomed. However, it would appear from the Bill that the move has done little to change the creature's habit of mind—stubborn and unreceptive, as it showed itself to be in the matter of organophosphates, which was so consistently pressed by the noble Countess, Lady Mar. Its successor, thinly disguised, is now asking Parliament to furnish it with almost unfettered powers to order the slaughter of any animal and to authorise its inspectors to enter on land and there do more or less as they see fit. Surely, such powers should not be given to those who do not enjoy a degree of trust which, at least in this context, the department manifestly lacks.
It would seem appropriate to postpone further consideration of a Bill which is objectionable in its content, which has the support of few outside the Government, which most of us believe is wholly unjustified and one which, if the Government press ahead with it, will be greatly regretted.
3.26 p.m.
Earl Ferrers: My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Moran, has done us a great service and made a valid and valuable point in tabling this amendment. I shall resist the temptation to follow my noble friend Lord Peyton in his castigation of the Bill, which is justified.
I should like to ask the Government two questions. They are both aligned to each other. First, what is the point of setting up committees if one does not wait to hear their findings before taking action? Secondly—this is almost the same question in reverse—what is the point of introducing a Bill when one does not know what those committees may say? It makes a total mockery of the exercise of setting up professional bodies. The urgency to which the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, referred earlier is not so great. If it were, it would surely not have been worth while to set up the committees in the first place, but the Government did set them up. Why did not the Government wait to hear the recommendations of the committees before introducing a highly controversial Bill?
3.28 p.m.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, I should like briefly to support the wise amendment of my noble friend Lord Moran. It seeks to prevent hurried and ill-thought out
legislation and to help the Government to dig themselves out of a black hole of their own choosing, so that the Bill may eventually be based on proper and sound knowledge and information. We shall have that knowledge when the reports of the National Audit Office and the Royal Society into the foot and mouth disease epidemic are published. As it currently stands, the Bill appears not to be about animal health. It appears to be about animal death, slaughter, killing, destruction—a licence for mindless murderers to enter our houses and kill the pet goats in our kitchens. That, surely, cannot be what legislation is about. Law should be based on reason, logic and sense, so that people want to keep it. Anyone who supports that concept must also support my noble friend Lord Moran.3.30 p.m.
Lord Livsey of Talgarth: My Lords, I was not present at the Second Reading of the Bill, for which I apologise. I was on part of a study tour to New Zealand. On entering New Zealand, we were confronted with very specific notices about foodstuffs that were not allowed in the country. People's cases were emptied and some of the contents confiscated. On entering Australia, where I stayed for only two days, my shoes were removed and disinfected. All those measures related to the outbreak of foot and mouth disease that had occurred in the United Kingdom in 2001. It struck me that there was far more consciousness about the insecurity of imported foodstuffs in those countries than there was in the United Kingdom.
In principle, I should like to support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Moran. He was formerly a constituent of mine, albeit as a Member of this House he was unable to vote. But I know of the sincerity of his concern that we do not have all the information that we require in order to legislate in an intelligent way about this huge tragedy of foot and mouth which struck the United Kingdom during the year 2001.
I believe personally that to debate the Bill as it stands is a test of whether the Government have good will towards the farming community and the rural areas. One of the reasons why later on we wish to test this matter in Committee is that we want to find out whether they will accept any of the tabled amendments which would much improve the Bill. Indeed if the Minister accepts those amendments then the Bill will be transformed.
I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moran, that the Bill as it stands is totally unacceptable. The fact that we have not had the reports from the National Audit Office and from the Royal Society mean that there is a huge chasm of missing information and knowledge. That information surely will be contained in the reports of the Government's own committees which have been set up to investigate these matters. It is essential that we have this information before we can legislate properly. Let us test the Government on these matters.
As the Bill stands, the powers are draconian so far as concerns the disposal of animals, particularly those from contiguous culls. In my home area of Powys
many farmers and their families suffered grievously during the recent outbreak of foot and mouth. The noble Lord, Lord Moran, at Second Reading described the situation as swirling around. It certainly was in Powys during the middle of 2001. It was almost like a medieval situation where the fear of a disease was enormous. One could understand—looking back over the centuries—what it must have been like with something like the Black Death. It was that bad.I see no effort in the Bill to consider a properly constituted task force should an emergency of this kind occur in the future. Obviously, with regard to my previous remarks, we need to have equally good legislation to prevent the disease from coming into the country again, as do the New Zealanders, the Australians and others in the world. We urgently need legislation for that because that is a vital missing part of the equation.
The disease did not start in this country but we need a task force to be set up in readiness, rather like civil defence, that is properly directed and trained. The training should go down to civil servants, the farmers themselves and their farm workers. This should be tested from time to time as is civil defence. Therefore, if there is an emergency we are ready for it and know precisely what to do. That was not the case in early 2001. People's memories were not long. I was around in 1967 but many people had not even seen the disease.
So there are many matters of that kind that are not in the Bill but which should be there. The test of whether the Government have good will left towards farming and the rural areas will be in the way that they approach and accept amendments on the Bill. Therefore, it is sensible to wait and see whether this transformation comes about. We can on Report, if necessary, put the Government to the sword and to the test as to whether the Bill, as amended at that point, is in an acceptable state.
The Minister has had a very tough time, as have his colleagues, because foot and mouth is a terrible disease. I believe that he has, as indeed do the Government, the will to come to a sensible and humane conclusion that the co-operation of the farming community is needed to protect their animals from foot and mouth. One should never legislate on a worst-case scenario. We all know what happened when the poll tax legislation came along. It was totally unsuitable. It alienated the population. I make a plea to the Government not to alienate the rural dwellers and the farming community. We should all co-operate together. We can do that only by bringing forward a constructive Bill which will be substantially amended from its present form.
3.35 p.m.
Baroness Gibson of Market Rasen: My Lords, I was present for the last debate, so noble Lords who also took part will not be surprised that I am saddened that the amendment is on the agenda today. I shall oppose it because I genuinely believe that this legislation is needed.
Yesterday at Question Time I took the opportunity to ask the Minister whether or not at the present time we have powers in this country to deal with a further foot and mouth outbreak. He said, "No". He explained that the Bill would cover part of what is needed. I believe that whether or not we like it, as legislators, we should support the Bill. There are many Bills that pass through this House that we may like or dislike, but we debate them and we debate the amendments. When we agree with the amendments we try to amend the Bill. I am quite sure that noble Lords in this House will do exactly that with this legislation.
I believe that it would be wrong for us to hold up this legislation. Indeed, I feel more strongly than that: it would be totally irresponsible for us to do so, having been told by the Minister that we do not have the legislation at the present time to cope with foot and mouth.
It is rather strange that we hear this afternoon that there is no urgency for this matter. All the way through the debates on foot and mouth disease—and I was here for almost all of them—we were told how urgent action was needed; how the Government had dragged their feet; and how things had to be done as quickly as possible. Now we hear the opposite. As I previously said, it would be irresponsible for us to wait for the reports. That could put us back months. It would be irresponsible because as legislators we have a duty to act in the best interests of the people. In this instance I am sure that we need legislation.
If we do not take any action and—God forbid—foot and mouth comes back, we know who the people will blame. We need to firm up laws when they do not suffice. The laws on foot and mouth do not suffice. The livelihoods of many people were affected. There was tragedy throughout the countryside. We cannot afford for that to happen again. We need this legislation.
3.38 p.m.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford: My Lords, I also wish to express my very strong support for the noble Lord, Lord Moran. He has most eloquently and persuasively moved the amendment. When I spoke at Second Reading I described the Bill as harsh, unjust and untimely. I have had no reason to alter my opinion.
Many of us had hoped that the long interval between the Second Reading and the re-emergence of the Bill may have suggested that the Government were really having second thoughts, significantly revising the Bill and working hard to improve it. Rumours had been circulating of welcome changes within the ranks of DEFRA. I suppose that in our most wildly hopeful moments some of us had visions of the Bill being scrapped altogether, sunk without trace after the barrage inflicted on it in January; although the response of the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, to that debate was, as I remember it, fairly robust.
At the very least, we had visions of officials at DEFRA toiling late into the night, burning the candle at both ends to produce a fat volume of really significant amendments to the Bill, which, as it stands is indeed a very horrid thing, crude and delusive, in the
language of that wonderful 1887 Bill that the noble Lord, Lord Moran, quoted. Alas! The Government amendments are derisory and pitifully inadequate. They are welcome as far as they go, but that is certainly not far enough. The Marshalled List owes its substance to the many noble Lords who have tabled their own, mostly excellent amendments.The noble Lord, Lord Moran, was right to say that there is no prospect of turning the Bill into sensible and acceptable legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Livsey, pointed to the omission of any serious attempt to portray the manner in which another outbreak would be dealt; who would have responsibility; and how the command chain would work. The noble Baroness, Lady Gibson, misunderstands the matter of haste. In debates, there was said to be a need for much greater haste in slaughtering infected animals and disposing of their carcasses, but that was not achieved because of the enormous scale of the slaughter.
The Bill asks for more slaughter. There is no evidence of any system being in place by which animals could be slaughtered quickly and the carcasses disposed of equally quickly.
The untimeliness of the Bill is the main reason that I support the noble Lord's Motion. There has been no Government justification for insisting on bringing back this Bill before the outcome of the two reports on the science of foot and mouth disease and the lessons to be learnt. The Government have just published their own contingency plan in case there is another outbreak. That is avowedly an interim plan, not intended to pre-empt or prejudge the results of the inquiries. That makes thoroughly good sense, but by what contorted logic can it be right to press on with the Bill with obstinate determination when, by definition, it pre-empts and pre-judges the results of the inquiries?
The Government have locked themselves into an extraordinary contradiction and I am aghast at the sheer unreasonableness of their attitude. Every argument of logic and political good sense—never mind the pressure of opinion in rural areas—points to delaying the Bill, not spending three days in Committee at this premature stage.
If the arguments of logic, good sense and reasonable political process are not sufficiently persuasive, I will resort to the ad hominem argument that to agree with the noble Lord, Lord Moran, means that your Lordships could go home early on Maundy Thursday—which is no day anyway for political debate.
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