My Lords, I see that the Minister is eager to respond, which I can well understand. I do not intend to detain the House; the noble Lords, Lord Avebury and Lord Pannick, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, have made some powerful points. There were some important questions there, particularly regarding the policy of the Home Office, to which it would be helpful if the Minister is able to respond.
On the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, an unusually large number of amendments are before your Lordships’ House today for a Third Reading. I do not recall seeing as many in my time in this House or in the other place. I can see Ministers nodding in agreement. Perhaps they could consider whether the Bill’s needing considerable discussion has something to do with its inadequacy when it was first presented to your Lordships' House. Noble Lords have made great efforts, particularly where they have supported the Government’s policies in principle, to look at the detail. However, in many cases—and perhaps understandably given that three completely new sections of the Bill were not envisaged when the timetable was set, and given the changes of Ministers and changes of policy that we have seen—it has been very difficult.
I appreciate that time is limited today, and I do take issue with the scheduling. We have three important debates with a large number of speakers tonight, and it will be difficult to complete the business within the rules of the Companion, to which the noble Lord, Lord Elton, was right to draw the House’s attention, so I do not wish to repeat the comments that have been made. However, there are some important questions here.
I raised some questions on Report which came back to the issue of public safety. As the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, pointed out, people understand, and I think that the House understands, why if somebody is a danger to the public they should not have leave to remain. The question is about the process and why somebody becomes a danger to the public when they leave the country, as the noble Lord said, but not when they are in the country. There is an issue of process here and it would be helpful if the Minister were able to address those points. However, noble Lords who have already spoken, including the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, have raised and done justice to the issues, so I do not intent to repeat them, but I would be very interested in the Minister’s response.