My Lords, this has been a short but important debate. I am grateful to every noble Lord who has taken part in it and for the support for the amendments from all sides of the Committee. I am also grateful to the Minister for such a thorough, comprehensive and thoughtful reply.
I am not really surprised that the Government feel that they already have all these issues covered in the Bill and are therefore going to resist the amendments, but I take some comfort from what I thought was a positive approach on the part of the Minister. I noted that she said that if the Government feel that the measures that they are taking for a non-statutory code of practice do not work, they are prepared to look again at a statutory code of practice. We may to return to this issue on Report to get a little more clarity on how often the Government are going to review it and what their measure of success or failure will be before they are prepared to consider a statutory code of practice.
I do not want to delay the Committee any more because this has been a helpful and constructive debate. I will read carefully what the Minister has said. I note that she did not completely rule out the idea of a whistleblowing ombudsman; she thought that the way in which the proposed new clauses had been drafted was too broad. I understand her concerns about speed and bureaucracy, but I do not think that they are inherent in the concept. What I may do—I give the Minister and her officials due warning—is look at this again and see whether I can crystallise some of the issues around the ombudsman to get a little more detail on how the Government may want to proceed. I thank all noble Lords again and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.