Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

I am not going to apologise for bringing the subject back at Third Reading, because we have learnt a great deal this evening from the Minister in his very interesting speech. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin of Roding, and my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours for their quite excellent contributions. The noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, has taken the trouble to look at the issue in some detail and has come forward with a series of questions, some of which he has had answers to —although, with one or two of them, he may feel that the answer was a little bit opaque. My noble friend was a bit feistier than the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, but he too made some powerful points. Again, I was interested to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Henley, said in reply. One benefit of having this debate this evening is that the officials in the Home Office will be aware that there is great interest in this House about the legislation as a whole and particularly about whether the exemption is going to work. If the noble Lord, Lord Jenkin, is right and there is a large increase in the number of applicants for exemptions, it will be evident that the loophole has become unacceptable and will do great damage to the much wider and laudable aim that the Government have of eliminating cash from the sale of scrap metal. I hope that we at least see that the Home Office reviews this carefully, and I assure the Minister that we will come back to this on future occasions to ask questions on how it has gone. I am a little unclear about the five-year review to which my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours referred, which is in Clause 148. It might be more satisfactory if the review took place more quickly than that. However, I express my appreciation to the Minister for the thoughtful way in which he responded to the debate. I am not satisfied on all the points that he has made, but it is not my intention at this time of night to have a vote—although I must apologise to my noble friend Lord Campbell-Savours, who would like to have a vote. The message from the debate to the Minister is that we want to watch how this legislation develops and, if it goes wrong, I hope that remedies will be offered to us very quickly. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment 38 withdrawn. Clause 152 : Commencement Amendment 39 Clause 152 : Commencement Amendment 39 Moved by