My Lords, I indicated at Second Reading that Her Majesty’s Opposition were very much in favour of this Bill. In a debate in Westminster Hall, the shadow Finance Minister made it clear that he too was in favour of it.
I appreciated the way in which the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, introduced the amendments—it was more probing than assertive. He will have recognised that representatives of almost every part of the Chamber have been against the amendments and said that the Bill should stay as it is in this crucial provision. The noble Lord, Lord Bird, is more qualified than me to respond to all these points and I shall therefore defer to him, but he must have been encouraged by the enormous support across the Chamber for his Bill as it stands.