Member

Had we won the election—or, as some noble Lords might think more likely, had the Parliament gone on a little longer—we would have carried out the sort of consultation that the present Government carried out. I do not know whether we would have concluded the same things. I do not know whether we might have been able to attract rather more than four respondents to the consultation. I do not know whether I would have found myself disappointing my noble friend Lord Forsyth from a different Dispatch Box—I hope not— but to a certain extent this was unfinished business when the curtain came down on the previous Government.