My Lords, the Minister is entitled not to wish to answer the question—and I can understand why. I will make just three points. First, I am sorry to the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that I was so hard on him earlier on. I should have welcomed—and indeed do now welcome—his intervention because he has given me some very helpful drafting advice for the amendment that I will be bringing before your Lordships on Report.
Secondly, I have never heard the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, sound so defeatist. If this House took the view that the House of Commons might not accept an amendment that we passed, we would hardly ever pass any amendments. We would certainly not have passed the amendment on tax credits. Therefore, I urge him to take that as a precedent and think that, so impressed by the quality of our arguments, those 20 Conservative Back-Benchers might change their minds in an instant on reading Hansard and that we would get our victory when it went to the other place.
Thirdly, in response to the noble Lord, Lord Empey—a number of noble Lords spoke about the parallels with or differences from Scotland—this is a completely different situation from that which obtains in Scotland. The SNP wants a second bite at the same cherry. We want a vote of the people on a firm proposition, rather than the vote which did take place on 57 varieties of proposition that were assiduously and separately propounded by different people on the leave side. So it is a completely inapt parallel and I cannot accept it.