Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

My Lords, I recognise a Treasury reply when I see it. I should be most grateful if the noble Lord would justify the first sentence of his reply by writing to me with the evidence on which that statement was based—that having this amendment passed would result in higher costs for consumers and a diminution in respectable firms in the market. That is just Treasury boilerplate. I very much doubt that they have done the work to justify that but I eagerly await the Minister’s letter to show me that I am wrong. In the absence of that, I very much hope that on Report we will deliver to my noble friend his first defeat as a Minister in the House of Lords. As he knows, this will not be a defeat for his department but merely for the Treasury and therefore one in which we shall all rejoice.