Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I hope to be able to do that. I hope that I have not been unduly partisan, but we all feel strongly on this issue and I very much hope that noble Lords on the Liberal Democrat Benches, who I understand feel strongly on the issue, will explain their case to us and, when it comes to voting in the Division Lobby, will act according to their professions. Perhaps in that remark I am becoming a little too party political—for which I apologise to the Committee. If the Government say that a national debate is taking place, I would reply that the 5,000 responses to the Green Paper demonstrate that there is a very strong consensus against what they propose and that they would be wrong to defy that consensus.