Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

I was not going to intervene on this, but I support what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, and my noble friend Lord Armstrong said. We should not rush to judgment on this proposal, which comes before us at a very late stage. We need to exercise the quality of humility; we do not immediately have present within us all knowledge and all wisdom. I was chairman of the Committee on Standards in Public Life. When we looked at the funding of political parties, which was the first task when I was on that committee, we travelled around the country to several places and had hearings with interested witnesses who would say what people in that locality thought about the system. This is part of a Bill with the most amazing history. If only the public knew—they do not, because the papers never report it—the history of the Bill: that great hunks of it were never considered by the House of Commons, that bits had been snatched away and then put back on our agenda and that at the last minute we are having this blasphemy debate. That is absolutely no way to proceed in the 21st century.