Lord Moylan (Con)

My Lords, since we were congratulating the noble Earl, Lord Russell, earlier, may I take this opportunity—it may surprise him a little—also to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Addington, on his new peerage and continued membership of your Lordships’ House? In rising to resist, for the moment, that Clause 6 stand part of the Bill, I am moved simply by the letter and comments of the Constitution Committee. The Constitution Committee wrote on 5 November to the Minister to say that, while it understood that “a degree of flexibility is required”, it regards “the lack of specificity in the Bill” about the levy, which is set out in Clause 6, “as a potential inhibitor of detailed legislative scrutiny”. The Minister made certain remarks that relate to this in the last group. He was very bland and reassuring in explaining that we must not know anything about the levy at this stage, while we have a chance to scrutinise it, because it is all being consulted on and will look absolutely wonderful by the time it comes out. But that was not enough for the Constitution Committee, and it is worth making a marker at this point that it is not necessarily enough for noble Lords. At the very least, I would have thought that the Constitution Committee deserved a reply to its letter, but I understand that it has not received one. The Minister might want to give an assurance that he will reply to the letter to explain why this lack of specificity is justified and what compensates for the fact that legislative scrutiny is not being permitted in relation to the levy.