Scotland Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Dunlop, is a very capable Minister but, throughout his contribution this evening, not even he has been able to offer one scintilla of rationale for doing this. There is no advantage to be gained; we all know that. It is an ideological path that people have set themselves on and we are dealing with the consequences of that. This is not the opportunity to elaborate on the point that the noble Earl, Lord Kinnoull, made. However, the solution we found was to have the police authority receive regular reports, including personal questioning, and to have responsibility for the actions that would be taken by the NCA in Northern Ireland, which would be answerable to the authority but ultimately under the control of the national Government. A solution can be found somewhere in there. As I said, it is not a matter of depriving the Scottish Parliament of any interest—of course it has an interest—but I feel that we should now proceed to Report. I hope that the Minister will wish to discuss the matter with some of us between now and then. In those circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.