Lord Clement-Jones (LD)

I thank the Minister for that response. The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, said that we know what the Minister will say: that it will be in a future piece of legislation. To that extent, we are pleased that at least we have a commitment to it, but this has been going on for an awfully long time. We tabled amendments during the passage of the Crime and Policing Act and the Data (Use and Access) Act. There has been plenty of time for the Home Office, or any other department to address this—DSIT could have taken this by the scruff of the neck—because it is such an egregious aspect of the current legislation. I am pleased to hear that the Minister has read the correspondence. I hope she did not fall asleep while doing so; it is pretty interminable. She may well find that we come back to this on Report because, as she said at the beginning, feelings are running high about it. It is almost a demonstration of how not to run a Government. If you cannot get to grips with something as straightforward and important as this and just make a decision about it, that speaks volumes. I thank noble Lords who have spoken today and demonstrated support across the board. On a light-hearted note, I say to the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, that of course Claude said that; it is trained on my speeches. As the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, said, this is self-evidently sensible. The trouble is, it is self-evident to us, but we despair sometimes, and the perfect must not be the enemy of the good. As the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, said, the objective is to put researchers in a safe position. Finally, the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, exhorted me to make sure that we have a date and a timeline. When will the national security Bill come forward? We saw it in the King’s Speech but I have had no contact from anybody in the Home Office about what they might insert in the Bill. I do not know whether anybody in this Committee has had notice of when a Bill might come forward. I think the Minister recognises the sheer impatience that most of us feel in this field, and I very much hope that, between Committee and Report, we can get some more clarity in this area for the benefit of all those researchers. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.