Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I, too, welcome the progress that the new clauses and schedules represent, although I resent slightly the fact that they were introduced so late in the day and that we are taking up time on Report with yet more new Government proposals. It seems to me that the degree of scrutiny that they will get is inadequate. It is now very unlikely that the Bill will get much further than Second Reading in the other place, so the Bill will go straight into wash-up—and who knows what will come out of the other end of that? Certainly, there is no public debate. I fear that that was perhaps part of the intention behind bringing forward at this stage the part to which the hon. Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright) has referred. That said, I welcome the fact that progress is being made. I would like the Secretary of State to say a little more about the decisions that the Government have taken in response to the Dacre review. In his opening remarks, he rather skated over the question of whether there should be a 20-year period, rather than a 15-year period, and gave the impression that although it is perfectly natural for people to suggest a 15-year period, a 20-year period would be far better. The Government seem to be arguing that one reason why Ministers believe that the period should be 20 years is that it would be much less of a distraction to them in their current jobs than if they thought that their deliberations would be revealed in 15 years' time. I wonder whether there is any evidence for that.