Baroness Kidron (CB)

My Lords, I will start by reiterating something I said in my opening remarks to make it absolutely clear to anyone who was not in the Chamber at that time. If we vote on this amendment, one of three things will happen: the Commons can consider the amendment and accept it; the Commons can put an amendment in lieu, or—and as the noble Lord said, this would be inexplicable—the Commons can collapse the Bill. That is the situation. I also say to the House that, when I set that out in my opening remarks, I also said that if we choose to vote on this and successfully pass it, I will accept anything that the Commons does. The Commons can accept the amendment; it can put in its own in lieu or it can collapse the Bill, but I will not stand in front of your Lordships again and press our case. I have made that utterly clear, and I want that to be on the record before anybody makes up their mind about what they are going to do today. I also say to my friends on the Labour Benches—if I can bypass the normal convention—that the Government have not listened. I am afraid that the Government told me before we had our debate on Monday that they would overturn the amendment, and they overturned it in 36 minutes; they did not take the full hour. This whole palaver is not a constitutional crisis, but it is an attempt to get the convention whereby this House is heard by the other House, they bring something back and we compromise. I understand and believe in the pre-eminence of the elected Chamber, and I want everybody to know that—in fact, when the Lord Speaker had me on his podcast, I said, “I am a turkey that will vote for Christmas”. The other thing that I must say before we get on with this—I beg your Lordships’ forgiveness—is that I was disturbed by the Minister suggesting that I would do anything to undermine the whole of the Bill. It will not be my choice. Those amendments in the Bill to do with bereaved parents and the coroners were amendments in my name and the names of other noble Lords around this House and were the result of a similar campaign to what I am trying to do right now. I resent that.