Perhaps they were there on Second Reading. I might be a bit old fashioned, but I thought that one of the purposes of Government committees—when I was a Minister I served on many such committees in the backrooms and bowels of Government—was for Ministers to thrash out what should be in a Bill before it is presented to the House. Today’s Guardian has an article on this matter—again, it must be true. It says:
“A fresh coalition row has broken out after Nick Clegg told the home secretary, Theresa May, that she will face a parliamentary defeat on the government’s counter-terrorism bill unless judges are given oversight of plans to impose temporary exclusion orders on some terrorist suspects returning to Britain.”