My Lords, I am grateful to the Advocate-General and I will be brief. I welcome his offer to write to the noble Baroness and those who have taken part in the Committee. The extremely pertinent question that was asked about the Government’s estimate of the number of regulations under the Bill that may be necessary to bring about a new regime is really important, so it would be helpful if the Minister could include it in his response.
I found it very interesting when he said that part of the reason these powers needed to be so extensive was that they needed to be sufficiently flexible for the Government to bring forward regulations when the EU changes its rules. I do not know how that brings about a response to the democratic deficit. Under the dual regulatory regime that will be put in place, we will be in the almost farcical situation that whenever the EU changes any of its rules, Ministers will bring to this Chamber negative instruments that will then be nodded through. There may be a fig leaf because it has the Crown on top of it, but it is not necessarily meaningfully different as far as people having an input.
My final element is perhaps for the correspondent of the noble Lord, Lord Browne. I understand and appreciate the frustration, and perhaps our considerations in Committee are long and tedious, but I have the liberty of putting forward amendments. They may frustrate or bore Ministers, but I am lucky to have that liberty. We cannot do that with statutory instruments, which are unamendable, so we do not have the opportunity to ask questions, tease out, challenge and maybe get concessions or further clarifications. If that is the case for framing an entire new system, that is really problematic.
However, on the basis of the Minister’s welcome commitment to write, in the meantime I beg leave to withdraw.