My Lords, we have discussed a veritable cornucopia of issues over the past hour and five minutes. Trying to sum up and string them together is something of a challenge, but I will attempt to do so. I fear that I may at this late hour incur the frustration of those noble Lords who put their names to these amendments. I will gently say that while I absolutely agree that we should debate these issues and that they are worthy of debate and scrutiny, the amendments themselves have no place in the Bill. I stress that I am sure that my noble friends on the Front Bench and I will return to the House on many occasions in the weeks and months ahead to discuss these issues in more detail.
A number of the topics that were raised have been touched on and were covered in the White Paper and other announcements that were made before and since the publication of the White Paper. A number of the points raised, especially in Amendment 20, were covered. The Government’s wish to seek a new agreement to enable free and frictionless trade has been made clear, as has our wish to continue to co-operate with Europe where it is clearly in our national interest to do so. On combating crime and terrorism, one of our stated negotiating objectives is to establish a new relationship with the EU to preserve UK and European security— I will return to that point later.
Before I move on, I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, will forgive me for picking her up on a very small point. I am going to sound pedantic but consumer rights and consumer protection are mentioned. The words, “consumer protection”, are featured in the White Paper, at paragraph 8.36.
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