Emergency Workers (Obstruction) Bill

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his clarifications and assurances, which went a long way to allaying many of the concerns. With respect, I thought that he was least convincing when he mentioned the Sentencing Guidelines Council and stated that since April we are closer to ““soon””. Well, I suppose that we are closer to kingdom come, but that does not help people who may be affected by the Bill. Nevertheless, I welcome his comments. I thank all those who made contributions, especially the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Handsworth, with his vast experience. I hope that he, like us, has found the experience helpful. He spoke with enormous knowledge of the trade union movement and the effect of the legislation on trade unionists. The noble Lord, Lord Wedderburn, mentioned a number of problems. The noble Lord, Lord Burnett, also made the point about extending the categories, but there is always a danger of making the best the enemy of the good. There is now a more flexible system to extend the coverage by order as appropriate. I am delighted that the noble Lords, Lord Addington and Lord Hodgson, have given their blessing from two of the Front Benches. They asked specific questions but, as we saw from the Front-Bench contributions, the Bill has received a general welcome, and there is a general acceptance that there is a loophole in the law that should be filled. On Question, Bill read a second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House.