My Lords, I have stayed up until what is for me a very late hour in order to do two things at the time of these amendments being moved. The first is to join in the accolades for the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, and I would like to spread that out to the digital team, all the staff, the Bill team and everyone who has helped to keep the House of Lords going. I felt personally that the noble Lord’s patience began to fray once or twice during some of these late debates, but he held it together and has been amazing, and of course I thank his deputy, the noble Baroness, Lady Bloomfield.
The second reason why I have stayed up so late is to support the noble Lord, Lord Carrington. I signed these amendments yesterday because, over the past few months, I have been infuriated by the actions of this Government, who seem to think that now they have a majority of 80-odd in the other place they can behave as they like. Many of us do not think that is true. I had thought about not contributing to this debate and just asking Hansard to cut and paste the other speeches that I have made about the Government’s use of Henry VIII powers, but I felt it was perhaps more responsible to repeat the points myself. I just do not understand why the Government keep coming to Parliament asking for permission to rewrite primary legislation without needing to go through the full process of amending it. That is rule by diktat; it is anti-democratic and dictatorial. I shall always be opposed to it unless the Government can give some overwhelmingly important reason for it. I do not expect the Minister to answer that question, but I think this Government are taking too much power into their own hands and it is time they accepted that they are vulnerable to scrutiny. The British public will not like the fact that they are so overbearing.