If I may, I will continue.
The genesis of my amendment comes from the fact that the Bill, as drafted, would make provision for an individual to be found to have committed an offence under part 1 of the Bill. The registrar would be able to impose significant penalties which I—indeed, I assume all of us—would support, but without the inclusion of my amendment 63 in the Bill, that individual would still be permitted to participate in UK democracy and, crucially, to donate money—dirty money—to influence our elections. If we leave this loophole open and unchecked, we will be in a perverse position in which Putin’s cronies are still polluting our politics with dirty money, even after they have been sanctioned through the use of the very legislation that we are discussing this evening.
One of the problems of rushing legislation is that we miss many issues that would be found during a proper process of scrutiny by both Houses. As I have said, there is much more than we can do in this regard. I should be interested to hear from the Minister, when he winds up the debate—probably just about now—why the Government would think that this small but important amendment, intended to tie up a loophole, should be rejected tonight. I look forward to his response.
9.15 pm