Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)

Surely the issue is good advice. If I am trying to say anything, it is: can we get on with it? That is really what the amendment is about. We should not be tabling amendments that are out of scope. I am sorry to do this in front of the clerks but, honestly, some of them are not pertinent to the issue. The advice is: can we please get on with this? I think my noble friend will want to take forward the wider suggestion, but she is clearly not going to do that until we have moved on this issue. So to all those who want more done, my advice—and this was the purpose of the amendment—is not to leave it too long, or it will be the end of the Session by the time this comes in. I would have loved to have had this amendment debated with the rest. I kept getting draft lists that said “degroup”, and people have clearly been asked to degroup their amendments. I do not know why mine fell out, but I would have much preferred the whole of the idea of commencement to be in one group. Still, frankly, if we are going to have amendments tabled saying that it should go to the end of the Parliament five years on, then of course it must be possible to say, “Are there other dates as well?” So the purpose of the amendment was to say two things. First, please can we not go on until basically the end of the Session before this comes in? Otherwise, the hereditaries will have no notice of it and the House will have no time to make adjustments. Secondly, can we get it done for the sake of this House moving on? We heard earlier about constitutional amendments. That was in the Conservative manifesto for the election before last, but it never happened. The noble Lord, Lord Young of Cookham, quite often used to ask about it at Question Time: “Where is this promised thing?” It did not happen. I have an answer for the noble Lord, Lord Wolfson of Tredegar. What has changed since 2021 is that at that point it had not been accepted. In 2021, we said, “Can we please just stop the by-elections and keep the people in?” That was rejected by the noble Lord’s Government. That is what changed. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.