My hon. Friend is such a decent and generous gentleman that he did give me notice yesterday that he would ambush me in this way, and I thank him and have an enormous amount of respect for him, but I have changed my mind, as I have changed my mind on many things over the years. I have changed my mind on House of Lords reform, for instance. I think it ludicrous that we have an upper Chamber that is the largest unelected body outside the people’s congress of China, and believe that should be reformed, even though I am a Conservative, of course. So I have changed my mind on that.
I have looked at the details of the Government’s Bill and I accept that it does make that distinction between moral conscience issues and policy issues and real issues of misdemeanours and criminal conduct.