My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. I think that they all stressed the importance of greater clarity in the areas covered by the Bill, and indeed they felt that the Bill achieves that clarity. Certainly, as a non-expert, I was able to get quite a long way into the Bill before I felt that I was losing my way, and that is a good way of testing how clear it is going to be. I thought that it was very clearly drafted in an area where there is plainly a lack of clarity at the moment.
I loved the description of the Bill given by the noble Lord, Lord Carrington, as being stuffed with useful things. Possibly that should be incorporated into the mission statement of the Law Commission—to stuff all their Bills with useful things. It is a delightful concept.
The noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, reminded us of the history of the sector and its current success, which is considerable, particularly in the UK. He pointed out that one of the consequences of the Bill, once passed, will be to reduce insurance litigation. That is clearly a most welcome prospect, given the very high levels of litigation that currently take place because of the ambiguities and problems that the Bill seeks to deal with. I was also grateful to the noble Lord for explaining from a practitioner’s point of view how specific provisions in the Bill will help to reduce current difficulties and make the sector and the UK market more competitive.
The noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Davidson of Glen Clova, discussed a provision that is not in the Bill which relates to late payment. Originally, there was a draft clause in the Bill, but it did not receive consensual support across the market as a whole and the Government decided to remove it at this point. However, that was not because the Government and the Law Commission think that we should drop it as an area. Attempts continue to be made to reach a degree of agreement on this because it is a difficult area. If we can get a resolution of it quite quickly with drafting that would satisfy the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, while meeting the basic requirements of a late payment provision, we think it would be worth doing. Efforts are ongoing. We hope that we might yet be able to bring that to a consensual point, which will enable us to legislate on it.
The noble and learned Lord, Lord Davidson, also asked about monitoring the efficacy of Clause 16 and pointed to the danger of widespread contracting out.
At the moment, we do not see any pent-up demand for widespread contracting out, but the Government have committed to conduct a post-implementation review of the Bill after five years. We need a bit of time to see whether people in the market think that there is an advantage to contracting out. At the moment, we do not feel that there is a great danger in that area, but we will be watching it and will have a formal review after five years.
I hope that I have dealt with the specific questions raised by noble Lords. I am extremely grateful for the support they have shown so far, and I look forward to joining at least some of them in the Committee on the Bill.