(8 years, 1 month ago)
Lords ChamberWe will not pre-empt what the committee is going to say, so we have to wait until we hear from it.
The Minister has said we cannot deal in hypotheticals, and yet we are about to accept some amendments which may well, in the light of the conclusions of our committee, be hypothetical. It seems to me that the most sensible solution is to not currently have amendments in this area, because those very amendments may be hypothetical.
I think I explained that the reason we proceeded with the amendments was because the alcohol provisions were included in the Bill on the Commons introduction in February, so this is an appropriate vehicle to legislate on the new measures. That is why we have brought them forward now. This was discussed in the Commons, and these government amendments respond, in part, to the ones that were tabled in the Commons.