Coroners and Justice Bill

Whatever the answer to that conundrum, it seems to me that it should be specified on the face of the Bill. The second exception to my self-denying ordinance arises, I am afraid to say, out of something said by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield during the course of his speech—or, at least, something that I thought I heard him say, but I was so surprised by what he said that I would be perfectly happy to be told that I misheard it. What he seemed to suggest, as I understood it, in relation to certain parts of the Bill, was that the provenance is to be ascribed to civil servants. I do not believe that we should blame civil servants for the provenance of legislation of this kind; it is Ministers who are responsible for the provisions of this Bill, and it is Ministers who should be held accountable in our debates in this Chamber.