Serious Crime Bill [Lords]

That is an entirely fair point. My hon. Friend will know that we are going down that route in the proposed terrorism Bill in the autumn. Rather than introducing such a measure for serious and organised crime in a knee-jerk fashion, it would be better to explore the possibility in the future. For completeness, in public policy terms I would rather see how effective such a measure was in terrorism cases and, as it were, work backwards to determine whether it might be appropriate for serious and organised crime. It is certainly a matter worthy of subsequent exploration. I am sorry that my speech has been inordinately long, but I hope that the House will acknowledge that I have taken a great many interventions—I almost said ““interceptions””—as is right and proper at the opening of a Second Reading debate. I am sure that whoever works on the Bill—who knows what is going to happen in the next couple of weeks?—will enjoy themselves enormously. It will have profound implications for taking forward our fight against serious crime. Other than for the amendments on searching for guns and on intercept evidence, both of which we shall seek to overturn, I commend the Bill to the House.