Coroners and Justice Bill

My Lords, I suppose that I should be grateful to the noble and learned Lord for saying that the amendment is good as far as it goes, but I know him well enough to know that that is a compliment. He said that I was in a conundrum. I do not want to be quixotically chivalrous but I think that, were I to look, as he advised me earlier, in the Oxford English Dictionary, I would find that he meant a cul-de-sac. For me, a conundrum is a riddle whose answer is a pun. However, I think that I can do no better than say what I said before, including to the noble Lord, Lord Thomas of Gresford: I think that we are debating issues which demand full parliamentary scrutiny and which would have been far better in a Bill of their own entitled "Reform of the Law of Murder Bill". I sense that most of your Lordships are dissatisfied with the way in which these debates are proceeding because we are, as has been pointed out, scratching at the surface of an area that needs some careful systematic reform after the fullest possible public consultation. I summarise by saying that we do not support the noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd, in removing the clause from the Bill; we do, however, still feel that the Government have time to reconsider the drafting of some of these clauses and we urge them to do so. In the mean time, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 60 withdrawn. Amendment 61 Moved by