Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill

The noble Lord knows how much I admire him, so if I say that is a really silly question I do so in a spirit of generosity. The answer is that we in this Parliament—and the noble Lord has been in this Parliament a lot longer than I have—have to make certain assumptions. Those assumptions include what the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, the former Attorney-General, said to the House a few moments ago. The sanction for people—and Governments —who behave in that way is that they will lose the confidence of Parliament. The question that the noble Lord puts is so hypothetical as to be absurd, in my experience and, I believe, in his political life too. I do not want to delay the House too long. All I really wanted to say about the amendment is that in Committee the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, achieved a superb deconstruction of the amendment, and he has done it again today. I do not really want to add anything to what he said, together with the support that he received from the noble and learned Baroness, and indeed the very cogent summary that we received from a non-lawyer, my noble friend Lord Palmer of Childs Hill—thank God we have non-lawyers who are prepared to speak in these debates. I close by simply saying that this clause from the coalition Government, which I and my noble friends usually support, has been introduced in a continuous thread from what was agreed by the previous Government. It brings a single high standard of prosecution to this country and one that can be changed, as it has been in new versions of the Code for Crown Prosecutors test.