Member

Like many noble Lords, I find it disappointing that even after this delay, there has to be a further statutory instrument closing off the loophole that noble Lords have identified about the potential for a number of state-owned investors to own stakes of up to 15% each. That has always struck me as a slightly unlikely event, but it is none the less right for Parliament to close it. I am grateful to the Government for bringing further regulations and making them retrospective to close it. It is not a neat process to behold, but I think it gets us to a reasonable position, even if it is not the one that I might have liked to set out had I still been standing at the Dispatch Box opposite. I am glad that noble Lords have taken the opportunity to ask some serious questions of the Government in doing it, and I hope the Minister will be able to answer them, including the question from the noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, about the legal opinion that he raised.