Baroness Goldie (Con)

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Callanan will respond to the Minister on behalf of these Benches, but I have been requested to make a brief intervention on defence and security. I am rather in the horns of a dilemma; I feel as though I am being asked to judge the weight of the baby when the baby has not yet been born, because I do not know what the Minister’s letter will say until I receive it. However, I thank her and her colleagues for their genuine and close engagement with me, my noble friend Lord Callanan and our colleagues as we endeavour to clarify issues. The assurance I seek from the Minister at the Dispatch Box is this. It is possible that, when we receive her letter, we may disagree with the Government’s interpretation. We may consider that areas of ambiguity and doubt remain and would reserve the right to bring forward amendments in Committee. I would be very disappointed if the Government’s response were that these amendments were out of scope of the Bill and that all matters are dealt with by the agreement. That would be a very unfortunate response, so I seek a reassurance from the Minister at the Dispatch Box that, if we tabled amendments on defence and security issues, the Government would be prepared to debate them.