Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)

My Lords, it is late, but I am grateful for the support of the noble Lord, Lord Cromwell, the noble Earl, Lord Russell, and my noble friend the opposition spokesman Lord Cameron of Lochiel, with his compelling Scottish perspective. Given the vulnerabilities that have been identified, and identified successively, most recently by the Joint Committee on National Security Strategy’s report—which nobody is disagreeing with—it is important that something is done. The Minister rightly refers to the possibility of civil litigation. However, for something of this seriousness, given the scale of the threat that we now have in the waters around our country, that is not good enough. I will reflect, but I hope the Government will take this away and perhaps come forward with their own amendment. That would obviously be ideal. Perhaps we can have some further discussions about how we solve this problem sooner rather than later. I note the point that the Minister made about fisheries and so on, but that feels like an excuse. I have been a Security Minister and, normally, when you have a big security issue, you try to take steps to mend matters as quickly as you can, as has been done with previous legislation. For today, I will beg leave to withdraw the amendment, but I might come back to this on Report.