My Lords, this has proven to be a very interesting debate, and it has moved us on a little. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, was very clear about why we are concerned about the use of Henry VIII clauses. He should take the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, saying that he could not better his words as a pretty good compliment.
It seems to me that there are two things here. The first is the actual wording of Clause 13. My noble friend Lord Davies did a great service when he went through it. I reread it and, frankly, found it very hard to understand. When the noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, also says that he does not fully understand Clause 13, I suspect that that means that no one does, except perhaps one parliamentary counsel and possibly an official in the noble Lord’s department who issued the instructions. The fact is that this is poor legislation if it is almost impossible to work through what this clause actually means.
At heart, this is not just an academic debate. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Thomas, put his finger on it when he said that at the heart of this is the independence of our professions. One of the great successes that we in the UK enjoy, both in terms of prestige and financially, is the way in which many of our senior professions are viewed globally. The independence of those professions is one reason why that is so. That is what makes the Bill so important and why we are all rather worried about the current situation with it.
My noble friend Lady Hayter said that, if we leave it as it is, we are leaving any changes in the future without sufficient parliamentary scrutiny. The noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, asked for draft regulations; I do not think that she received an answer to that, but it was a very important point.
The Minister has promised a full explanation on Report, which we will now get earlier, but he needs to come forward with changes to the Bill because it will clearly not get through after its current process through your Lordships’ House. There is a question for noble Lords generally about what to do with it.
The noble Lord, Lord Lansley, asked a pertinent question in relation to trade deals and the Government’s preference for primary or secondary legislation. The Minister answered him very carefully by saying that there would be primary legislation when needed, which is not quite the answer that I think the noble Lord was seeking. Of course, he had an earlier amendment that seeks to deal with this in one way; I have a sunset clause, which is another way of dealing with the problems in the Bill. There may be other approaches, but, between now and Report, we have to do something to protect the independence of our professions and Parliament’s role in scrutinising the provisions in the Bill.