Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill

There is huge respect for the Minister in this House and for the way in which she has conducted the passage of the Bill. We all want the Bill to go through. However, the noble Baroness should take the temperature of the House and of the other place. There is a will in both Houses that this should go through. You see this sometimes when the Front Bench are making their response: the explanation of why it should not go through has been crafted by the Civil Service and does not feel like one any of us understand. The unintended consequence argument, the argument that it could delay the Bill and a whole range of financial arguments are the standard set of arguments put forward generally to stop amendments going through. We would be very sympathetic if we understood what was worrying the Government about this amendment but as yet I, like many others, am lost as to what it is that cannot be done in the timeframes that we are talking about.