Law Commission Bill [Lords]

In support of my hon. Friend's attempt to persuade Opposition Members to withdraw their amendments, I have a couple of points to make. First, the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr. Chope) has talked, in this debate and in a previous one, about Government time in the other place. The other place does not work in quite the same way as we do, and I would not want anyone to think that we can manipulate the programme there. We cannot do so in the sense that the hon. Gentleman suggests. Secondly, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendments for various reasons. Amendment 1 covers the timing of the report, but in fact it would be prepared very quickly after the end of the reporting year—indeed, it would be started before the end of the reporting year. I expect that it would be laid before Parliament well before the six-month requirement in amendment 1. Amendment 2 is flawed because it is not clear which year is meant. The effect of amendment 3 would be that whenever the Government decided not to implement a Law Commission proposal, they would have to report on that decision every year. That does not make sense. Once the Government have said that they do not wish to implement a proposal—and have reported that with their reasons—that should be the end of the matter. The drafting of amendment 11 would mean that the report would deal not just with the pending tray of issues that must be decided, but with historical issues, and that would lead to some confusion over the position of an historic decision to implement only part of a proposal from the Law Commission. I understand and sympathise with the hon. Gentleman's belief that we should be as upfront as possible about when the reports will be laid and what will be in them, but the amendments are not sufficiently clear and would add to confusion rather than achieve the transparency that he desires.