It was my pleasure to serve on the Bill Committee for most of its sittings. I put on the record my thanks to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Sir Simon Burns) for taking my place when I had to leave the Committee.
It is always with some reluctance, if not trepidation, that I raise a question on a point made by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve), not only because I am not right honourable, but because I am not learned, as I am not a lawyer. When my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General sums up, I invite him to try to address a concern that is exercising my mind, about a possible unforeseen consequence of new clause 2, namely the confliction and conflation of judicial and Executive oversight. My view is that those two things are best kept entirely separate. I fear that it may be an intended, or, as I would hope, an unintended consequence of what my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Beaconsfield has suggested that the two might merge in a rather unsatisfactory and possibly even anti-democratic way.