Member

Secondly, the Minister has said that this is merely a reserve power—and one that the Government have no intention of using. But a reserve power does not sit harmlessly on the shelf. It shapes behaviour, and I think, in truth, the Minister accepts that. He has said as much to me before—that the power will achieve its ends without even needing to be turned on, so to speak, because the moment that a voluntary agreement is backed by the threat of law, it ceases to be voluntary in any meaningful sense.