Lord Gascoigne (Con)

I thank the Minister. I know the hour is late, so I will not respond to all the points that have been made, but it has been a fascinating and energising discussion from across the political divide. I am grateful to the Minister for some of the additional information that the Government have given us. We are not quite there yet, but let us see what later in the year delivers us. The Minister knows all too well that I am a fan of hers—I genuinely am—but in this debate, I feel that we are missing an opportunity. I think it was the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, who used the words “commanding leadership”. We all know that life is short and political life is even shorter—my own experience in No. 10 can testify to that. Governing is not easy. Even things that should be simple and quick are not. I feel that we are slightly taking our foot off the pedal here. For example, we keep hearing—the Minister said it again—references to the Cabinet committee. My own experience of Cabinet committees, great as they are, is that they are slightly reactive and not proactive. That is a slight concern that we have. We have used the language of being a “critical friend”, and we remain so. In today’s debate we have heard about energy, keenness, leadership, passion, urgency, boldness, decisiveness, passion and urgency from my noble friend Lord Redwood in a brilliant speech. The clock is ticking but, as I said, we can do it. In responding to the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Old Scone, the Minister said that something was music to her ears. I want to give her an example. This morning, I dropped my kids off and it was a bit fraught, we were all running behind, my wife was at work, and I was thinking, “I’ve got this debate”. I dropped the kids off, jumped in the car and the music blasting out was from that well-known architect and urban planner, Elvis Presley. The lyrics of the song—and I end with this—were: “A little less conversation, a little more action, please”.