Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for her response, particularly the reassurances she has given and the explanation about ticketing powers, transport restrictions and so on. As she rightly said, these are probing amendments, but they are probing with a purpose. The Bill seeks to take some quite sweeping powers, in some cases restricting people’s liberties, the operation of commercial businesses and much more. We want to make sure that where those powers are taken, they are not on the statute book for longer than they need to be. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said, these are exceptional measures for extraordinary circumstances. That is important to get right, so we will take another look at the Bill in light of what the Minister has said and make sure we are satisfied that that is the case. We think we are being generous with a 50-day limit; if the Olympic and Paralympic Games can take place within that window, it is hard to envisage a major sporting event that might need longer. We will take that away and look at it further. On Amendments 11 and 12 and the point about secondary legislation, I am grateful for what the Minister said about the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. I look forward to hearing what the Government say in detail, ahead of Report, on its concerns about the Bill here. I am not sure I quite agree that Parliament will have the opportunity for a full debate; at the moment, secondary legislation is limited to an hour, and we have heard repeatedly, even today, of the significant issues that need to be looked at each time we are legislating for the hosting of a major sporting event. So, we have some concerns there. We certainly would be concerned if there was a two-tier structure of the first set of regulations and the subsequent ones, which could be very significant. I hope the Government will continue to look at that ahead of Report, because I am pretty sure we will return to that, certainly given the criticisms of the committee. With that, I thank the Minister for her reply, and I beg leave to withdraw Amendment 9.