My Lords, I should confess that when some of us went up to the office yesterday evening, I asked to put my name down in support of this amendment but I was told that since four people had already done so, there was not room for my name. The fact that my name is not on the amendment gives me a little more freedom to think about the issue.
I was anxious to support the amendment because the public, for some of the reasons that have been given by the noble Baroness and others, will be suspicious about the length of time that seems to have been taken in order to allow this measure to survive until it has expired. But I am persuaded by what the noble Lords, Lord Rooker, Lord West and Lord Butler, have said, and also by what was said yesterday evening by the noble Baroness, Lady Lane-Fox. The Minister may remember that she was chiding us for being hopelessly out of date and telling us that the whole thinking about the descriptions of the various mechanisms that we use needed to be revised. There is a great deal of work that has to be done to get the legislation right and to get it modernised, and the last thing we want, quite frankly, is to cut ourselves off by having a timetable that we have to work to in order to put legislation in place that will replace the measure we are talking about today.
I confess that I have changed my mind. I regret disappointing those whom I was seeking to support yesterday evening but I think the wiser course is to leave the date as it is, although there is certainly something to be done by way of public relations to persuade the public that the date has been well chosen for very good reasons.
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