My Lords, very briefly, I thank the Minister for her clear statement. The subject of utilities has come up both on Monday and today, and we are beginning to get some clarity around how the whole utility story fits together, but anything more she can give us on that would be helpful. This is probably not helpful, but it seems to me to be an analysis of the issue. The majority of the trade deals to date are essentially rollover trade deals, and to paraphrase the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, this legislation is essentially rollover legislation. However, trade deals such as the Australia deal are not rollover trade deals. We are in danger of trying to pour new wine into old skins here.
The issue that my noble friend highlighted here is an example where the new-style trade deal is not easily catered for in the old-style legislation, which is essentially rollover legislation. I am not sure what the solution to that is, other than “more work needed”, but I think—and this is a dispassionate and hopefully helpful observation —we are looking at a new trading position. The Government talk about that all the time, but we are essentially looking at legislation that was dealing with an existing set of trade deals which are, by their nature, different from the new ones. This is what is being thrown up, and we will start to see problems thrown up increasingly.