My Lords, before the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, proceeds, the point made by my noble friend Lord Berkeley indicates a more serious procedural problem. It is not that these amendments are not serious, but they are specific. I also have some amendments in this group, but if I degroup them, a decision would have been taken on the Minister’s amendments before we reached the appropriate point in the text of the Bill.
We have a very new clause, inserted at the final stage in the Commons. The Minister quite rightly said that there has been limited chance for consultation on that. We have a huge amendment from the Government deleting an entire clause and replacing it. The noble Lords, Lord Berkeley and Lord Hodgson, and I, all have amendments to the original amendments. My noble friends Lord Mendelsohn and Lord Stevenson have amendments to the Government’s amendments. So, there is not only a large number of amendments, but it is going to be a very confusing debate.
That is not to say that we should not have the debate today. However, the way that this has been dealt with, and the fact that consultation since the Commons decisions until now has not allowed consultation with the bodies that represent tied landlords, has not allowed for significant debate with those in the Commons who pushed this amendment. We have a few weeks between now and Report stage for proper consultation to take place. I am very happy to have the discussion today because that will inform the Government, but at the end of that discussion it will behove all of us to withdraw our amendments and move them for a proper discussion on Report, which could have been preceded by some effective consultation between the Government and the various parties involved, both politically and industrially.
Although we can degroup this group, there is a rather more profound problem here. If all noble Lords agree to withdraw their amendments at the end of the debate, there is no great problem and we can have a sensible discussion over the next three weeks. However, if we proceed, we proceed as per normal. It would be sensible, even from the Government’s point of view, if we allowed ourselves a bit of a breathing space to have those discussions.