Lord Garnier (Con)

My Lords, the whole House respects both the Leader of the House and her noble friend the Foreign Office Minister, who is sitting alongside her. As I said the other day to the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, the problem that we face in this House —those of us who are not Foreign Office Ministers—is that when Ministers in this House use expressions such as “challenge” or “robustly raise”, it sadly does not mean very much. They are delightful generalisations, and they breed a form of suspicion that all that is happening is that a formula is being adhered to. Is the Leader of the House able to be a little more forthcoming? The noble Baroness the Minister of State at the Foreign Office was not in the room when the Chinese ambassador was summoned to the Foreign Office, so she was unable to tell me what exchanges took place, albeit she may later have had some form of readout. We need a little more detail. Nobody is suggesting that the Government are not being candid with us but perhaps they can be a little more open in the secrecy of this Chamber and let us know precisely what “challenge” and “raising robustly” mean. As the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and my noble friend Lord True said, there are grounds for concern that “robust” and “challenge” have a different meaning in the Government from on the street?