My Lords, I am very grateful to everyone who has spoken for their support for the general principle of the Bill and for their recognition that, although we quickly get on to wider issues when any of us in your Lordships’ House talks about the House itself, this is not a House of Lords reform Bill but a House of Lords disciplinary Bill.
I was particularly heartened by the Minister’s words because, as the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, will not be surprised to hear, some of the issues that he raised have also occurred to me. The issue of retrospectivity is one on which the House has very strong views. We have lost most of the lawyers who were taking part in the preceding business, but if they were here they would remind us of some recent examples of the fact that you cannot bring in sanctions that would be current today for offences that occurred in the past. We are talking basically about a sanctions regime. Equally, I do not think that anyone in the House
would think it appropriate for there to be double jeopardy and, where someone had had disciplinary proceedings against them, been suspended and then had come back, for that to be reviewed. However, I take the point of the noble Lord, Lord Finkelstein, and the Minister that there are some issues where conduct takes place before disciplinary proceedings, and that the interaction of that with the Bill is an important area.
I hope that the conversations we have will be fruitful and that the fair wind that the Government have given to the Bill in this House will enable us not only to pass these amendments today but to return to them on Report so that they can be improved appropriately. I should record now that I have been immensely grateful to the Leader of the House, the Minister and officials within the House for their support and help thus far in the Bill. They will understand when I pocket that help and support and ask for more, because I believe that we can get the Bill into perfect shape quite quickly in this House and that a fair wind transferred down the corridor could enable us to get it on to the statute book. That would be good not just for this House but for Parliament as a whole. I beg to move.