My Lords, we should all be grateful to the DPRRC for its vigilance and thoroughness in scrutinising legislation and this is no exception. A familiar sequence is nearly complete: first, the Government present a Bill threatening to take constitutional liberties to take on board powers for the Executive that should
be with Parliament; next, the DPRRC highlights these grabs for power in a hard-hitting report; then one of us presents these issues in Committee via a series of amendments; and, we hope, finally, on Report, the Government accede to almost all the DPRRC’s concerns, although they often keep one or two extra powers in their back pocket, just in case they need them later.
And so it is today with the arrival of this sequence of amendments and we should note how many there are, which indicates how much the Government were planning to take on board. The music of this dance is beginning to fade and sufficient has been done by the Government for us to move on, but I feel sure that the yen for power snatching by the Executive continues and it is already focused on other Bills. I wish it was not.