My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, and in particular his request for the Minister to consider a timetable. I will not pretend that I have the knowledge of the railways that he has, but I have worked with the Law Commission on a number of its proposals and Bills. It is punctilious about avoiding political controversy and exceptionally thorough in its consultation; as the noble Lord pointed out it has been involved in this in the seven years of consultation. It therefore does an exceptionally valuable job in updating, tidying up and spring cleaning our legislation.
There is, however, a danger attached to that, which is that the Law Commission regards legislation proposals that it has brought forward that have not been implemented within a certain period as needing to go back for further consultation because it needs to make sure that the public mood and the facts have not moved on. I support the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, in this because I hope my noble friend will realise that if this matter is left on the shelf, the Law Commission will say that it is no longer fit for purpose and will need to start consultation all over again to see what has happened in the intervening period since the last consultation was carried out.
I support what the noble Lord is suggesting and I hope that my noble friend will be able to act as Dyno-Rod for departmental inertia to make sure that it is brought forward quickly to avoid having to go round the whole course again.
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