Investigatory Powers Bill

Jacob Rees-Mogg Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Before we come to the first group of amendments, may I say that, as the House knows, there are 377 Lords amendments to the Investigatory Powers Bill, which were passed to this House yesterday evening? I must inform the House that none of the Lords amendments is certified—it says here “are certified”, but that is quite wrong; “none” takes the singular—under the EVEL Standing Orders. The Scottish Parliament passed a legislative consent motion on 6 October, copies of which are available with the Bill documents online and in the Vote Office. I must also inform the House that two of the Lords amendments—270 and 271—engage Commons financial privilege. If they are agreed to, I will cause the customary entry waiving Commons financial privilege to be entered in the Journal.

[Mr Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. You have made reference to the Sewel convention and to the legislative consent motion being available in the Vote Office. The legislative consent motion from the Scottish Parliament is dated 6 October. Amendment 15—one of the most important amendments we will consider—was passed on 11 October and deals with a matter referred to by the noble Lord Howe as being outside the ordinary ambit of the Bill and a considerable advance from what was in the rest of the text. I am concerned, therefore, that amendment 15 by their lordships is not approved by the Sewel convention or covered by the legislative consent motion that we have received from the Scottish Parliament. I know that, strictly speaking, this is a matter for the Government, not the House of Commons itself, but I fear that the House would be doing a discourtesy to the Scottish Parliament if we were to proceed to legislate on a devolved matter, which media policy is. It would be helpful to have your guidance, and perhaps ruling, on where we should go with the Sewel convention, and perhaps for the Government to clarify their position.

[Mr Speaker]

I am very grateful to the hon. Gentleman for advance notice of his point of order. Might I just mention in passing that his exegesis of the legislation, and his courtesy and regard for the principle of courtesy in respect of other Parliaments, are impeccable, as is invariably the case.

As the hon. Gentleman will know—I welcome this opportunity to clarify the position, and it does require clarification—section 2 of the Scotland Act 2016 enshrined in legislation the statement that:

“the Parliament of the United Kingdom will not normally legislate with regard to devolved matters without the consent of the Scottish Parliament.”

That does not prevent the House from considering amendments that the Scottish Parliament has not consented to.

We are just about to come to the first debate on a group of Lords amendments that, as the hon. Gentleman rightly observes, includes Lords amendment 15, and it is, I believe, with that that he is overwhelmingly concerned. The Government have given notice of their intention to disagree with Lords amendment 15, among others. We will have to wait to learn from the debate why the Minister takes that view. I am giving due notice that the House will certainly expect an explanation on that matter—whether the House as a whole does, I feel absolutely certain that the hon. Member for North East Somerset will.

If the hon. Gentleman’s thought about Scottish consent had not already occurred to Ministers, or those advising them, I surmise from the attentive attitudes of right hon. and hon. Members on the Front Bench, including much nodding of heads and expressions of sagacity, that it will have done so now. I hope that will do at least for now. I thank the hon. Member for North East Somerset because he has done the House a service. These conventions matter, and he has reminded us of that point.

Clause 8

Civil liability for certain unlawful interceptions

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Let me address the point of order raised by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg). One of the Government’s contentions on why this amendment should be rejected is that it goes against the grain of legislating over and above the will of the Scottish Parliament. As a former Member of the Scottish Parliament, I recognise the importance of the Sewel motion. I urge SNP Members to join us in voting down the amendment, because they cannot pick and choose when devolution is or is not appropriate. Do they wish us to go through the procedures of the legislative consent motion and give the Scottish Parliament the courtesy it deserves, or are they saying that they accept in principle that there are some occasions when we could legislate without a legislative consent motion in the Scottish Parliament? I look forward to the reply from the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend makes a crucially important point. If SNP Members do not require the Sewel consents to be given, then implicitly, as we have an unwritten constitution and operate by convention, they would be giving media policy back to the United Kingdom Parliament.

[Mr Wallace]

This is a very important point of principle.

[Mr Wallace]

I think we can debate Zippy another time.

This is about an important issue of principle. Throughout all the Bills I have ever been involved in, we in this House have gone out of our way to make sure that we seek the up-front approval of the Scottish Parliament in an LCM before we start down the path of picking and choosing what we do or do not support.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

What the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) said may well be true, but this is our last opportunity to approve or reject the amendment. If it goes back to the House of Lords, and all the other amendments that we make are agreed to, there will be no further opportunity to amend the Bill, so legislating now, without consent, would make the law.

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[Mr Wallace]

In the words of the hon. and learned Lady, my head does not zip up the back either. This is an amendment to an accepted amendment. That does not mean that the amendment is accepted in relation to an LCM—we cannot make that assumption. We should reflect on Mr Speaker’s point that this House does not usually legislate on policy that is not agreed to by the Scottish Parliament in advance.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

We have developed a fascinating constitutional suggestion that amendments made by SNP Members of this House are senior to legislative consent motions given by the Scottish Parliament. SNP Members seem to be raising their status.

[Mr Wallace]

I am keen to move on, but merely say that how SNP Members vote today will certainly be a clear sign of whether they are embracing a new principle on how we should choose to legislate on issues in Scotland.

As I said, this clause was never intended to provide a basis for claims against newspapers for voicemail interception—so-called phone hacking. Civil claims can already be brought in respect of such activity. In any case, the Bill makes such activity a criminal offence, as is surely right for such egregious interferences with privacy.

If there is a problem to be addressed, this is not the way to do it, and this is not the Bill in which to do it. This is the wrong amendment in the wrong Bill at the wrong time. Governance of the press is an important issue, and it is right that such an issue is subject to full consultation and dedicated scrutiny and consideration. It should not just be tacked on to one of the most important cross-party Bills that this House has debated. This Bill is about the security of the nation. It is a Bill to keep all our constituents safe. Members should ask themselves whether it is appropriate to jeopardise this Bill for the sake of opportunism in the other place.

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[Ms Abbott]

We are not attempting to hold up the Bill; all the Government have to do is accept the amendments.

Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act remains unimplemented, despite widespread support in principle from Members on both sides of the House, including Front Benchers. The amendment, which the Government want to vote down, was tabled in the Lords by a Cross Bencher, Baroness Hollins, and overwhelmingly passed by 282 votes to 180. That is one of the reasons that I am shocked that the Minister regards it as blackmail. It would implement, as my colleagues have said, the same provisions as those contained in section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act in relation to claims against media organisations over phone hacking and other unlawful interception.

The amendment goes further. Unlike section 40, it would not require ministerial approval, which we regard as an improvement, so it would automatically implement section 40 in relation to phone hacking claims. That would restate the very clear intention of Parliament, as previously expressed in 2013. I repeat that the amendment would not be necessary if the Government had fulfilled their stated commitment to implementing section 40.

Part 2 of the Leveson inquiry sought to investigate the original police investigation and corrupt payments to police officers and to consider the implications for the relationships between journalists, politicians and the police. We are therefore going to have to undergo further weeks of consultation. Previously, Ministers had said that part 2 would begin after the criminal cases relating to phone hacking had concluded. Then they said that they would make a decision on whether it would begin once all the criminal cases had concluded.

If we look at the provisions affecting journalists and the press in this Bill, we will see that there is no protection of journalistic sources. Law Officers may act on their own cognisance to access data, collect and retain them for 12 months, and share them with other bodies, including overseas agencies. It would be a simple matter to establish the identity of a whistleblower in any public or other body by trawling the journalist’s internet history. That would be detrimental to all of society and to fundamental press freedoms. The contradiction here is that there is a free-for-all in ignoring the thinking behind Leveson, and yet there is a failure to implement section 40. Some of the most irresponsible practices of the press go unchecked, and there is no recourse for anyone except the ultra-rich and those who can afford libel lawyers.

To function properly, the press should be able to hold all who are in power to account and unearth important wrongdoing. That is wholly in the public interest. But the Government stand accused of allowing muck-raking, savage attacks on the vulnerable and the defamation of those who cannot afford to defend themselves legally, while proper journalism in the public interest—holding the powerful to account, giving an outlet to whistleblowers and investigating matters in the public interest—is to be fatally undermined. The proposals, in their current shape, run the risk of being seen as a charter against valuable and public interest journalism, but for the worst journalistic excesses.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I want to focus on several aspects of Lords amendment 15. First, I want to focus on what it is designed to do, in which I think it is fundamentally wrong-headed. It provides for an increase in the penalty that will be applied to newspapers where an accusation of phone hacking is made in a case that is brought against them. That is difficult, because in the ordinary course of events, a newspaper will want to protect its sources. A newspaper that tried to protect its source for a story would not be able to prove the negative that phone hacking had not been involved, even when it had not been.

The immediate risk will be that newspapers will be reluctant to print investigative stories because they will be unable to avoid the double penalty of extra costs, even in the event that their story was true. The particular outrage of amendment 15 is that the press could report a story accurately, fairly and honestly but still find that, if they were taken to court by an aggressive litigant, they would have to pay the litigant’s costs. That is an absolute charter for the very rich to bully the press into not publishing stories about them. It will not help the poorest in society, who will not be able to afford the initial fees to get a case going, but anybody with any funds will be able to use it as an opportunity to bully the press into not printing anything disagreeable about them.

[Richard Drax (South Dorset) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, as always. Does he agree that the regional press, which does not have the necessary resources, will be particularly vulnerable to such claims by the people he has described?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The regional press and local newspapers will simply not be able to print stories that are critical of almost anybody. Perhaps MPs do not want any critical stories to be printed about them. We would be able to bully the local papers in our constituencies by saying, “We will bring a court action against you, and, by the way, we think that you might have been hacking our telephone,” and they would risk double costs. That is absolutely ruinous to a free press at a local and national level, because such costs run into hundreds of thousands of pounds. Even the biggest newspaper groups find that level of cost very difficult to absorb. The amendment will therefore get rid of the free press. Our press will be afraid to go after the rich and the powerful. It will be afraid to go after leading politicians whose friends can lend them the money to start a case off. It will be a supine press.

[Dr Murrison]

As ever, I am listening to my hon. Friend’s comments with a great deal of interest. I fear, however, that he may be over-egging things a little bit. There are, of course, very large organisations behind the apparently small media outlets that he refers to. He probably received a note this morning, as I did, from News Media Association, pressing the case of smaller newspapers. In truth, it represents a smokescreen for the interests of larger press organisations. Does he not share my concern that we need to disentangle the very small press outlets that we heard about earlier from regional press, which tends to be controlled by larger operations?

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

That is not what the amendment does. It includes all the press, so the Midsomer Norton, Radstock and District Journal will be included, as will the Farrington Gurney parish magazine. Every single publication will be included and will be under this threat.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

I hesitate to criticise the wisdom of my hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison), but, from a journalistic perspective, I humbly submit that nobody in the modern media world feels as though they are working in an enormous environment with oodles of cash swimming about the place. This will have a chilling effect across national, local and regional media.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

My hon. Friend is right. Although some newspapers are part of bigger media groups, those media groups will not be willing to fund indefinitely loss-making newspapers. The journalism that is the core of not only the print media but most of what people get online, which is not covered by the measure anyway, comes from a narrowly profitable print media. If that ceases to have any chance of being profitable, where will all the internet content that people read for nothing come from? Where are the resources to provide us with investigations into wrongdoing? Wrongdoing—not only of politicians, but of institutions—is revealed year in, year out. Great footballing institutions were investigated by The Sunday Times. How will the newspaper be able to do that if it gets sued and has to pay double damages on merely the allegation that hacking has taken place? This is a real threat to press freedom.

Press freedom is of the greatest possible value, and it is one of the reasons why the United Kingdom is such a stable polity. The press shines a light on corruption, on criminality and on wrongdoing. It holds people to account. It brings them to book. Why do we give an absolute protection to whatever is said in the House, so that it cannot be contested in any court outside Parliament? We give ourselves that protection because we so value freedom of speech. We should be extending that protection as widely as possible—not holding it narrowly to ourselves, but allowing the country at large to enjoy the same benefit.

The chippy speeches made by those in the other place, and unfortunately in this House too, who have come under the spotlight of the press and had a rude story printed about them that they did not like—about a big scandal, a little scandal, something that caused offence or something that upset their spouse—ought not to be used to take away a fundamental constitutional protection of the greatest importance. That should not be done by the back door, by tacking something on to a completely different Bill in a hissy fit because the Secretary of State has not done it under existing legislation. That is quite a wrong way to proceed.

That brings me on to the second part of what I want to say. The first part is of overwhelming importance: the freedom of the press is an absolute, and it is much, much better to have a free and irresponsible press than it is to have a responsible but Government-controlled press. As my hon. Friend the Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) would like me to say, the principle of England free rather than England sober should be at the heart of our understanding of the press.

The constitutional aspects of how we legislate are also important, however. In this House we have very strict rules, which are implemented fairly by the Clerks and the Speaker, about the scope of Bills, and we cannot tack on random things that we feel it would be nice to have. The House of Lords, being a self-governing House, can tack things on. Its Members have lost the self-restraint that they used to have of following constitutional norms in relation to legislation. They showed that in the last Session of Parliament in relation to boundaries, and they are doing so again now. I am concerned that the SNP is not more worried about the Sewel convention.

[Joanna Cherry]

I hesitate to give the hon. Gentleman a lecture on constitutional procedure, but I can give him full comfort on the points he has raised if he cares to consult the devolution guidance note 10. It states:

“During the passage of legislation, departments should approach the Scottish Executive about Government amendments changing or introducing provisions…or any other such amendments which the Government is minded to accept… No consultation is required for other amendments tabled. Ministers resisting non-Government amendments should not rest solely on the argument that they lack the consent of the Scottish Parliament unless there is advice to that effect from the Scottish Executive.”

The note goes on to explain what happens in such a situation:

“The Scottish Executive can be expected to deal swiftly with issues which arise during the passage of a Bill”.

With great humility, I want to say that on this occasion the hon. Gentleman is mistaken.

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[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I will cover that point, and then swiftly come to a conclusion. The amendment was passed on 11 October, but there has been no response to it, and this is the very last opportunity to decide whether this provision should pass into law. If it passes into law, the Scottish Parliament will have had no opportunity to give its consent to what, in effect, is the repatriation of a power from the Scottish Parliament to the UK Parliament. It is quite right that the Government have not asked for such consent, because the change has not been made on a Government amendment, but SNP Members might well have wanted to seek the guidance of their friends in the Scottish Government to determine whether this was acceptable and to get their consent.

[Joanna Cherry]

rose—

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

I will leave the hon. and learned Lady to come back to this point in her own speech.

These forms are very important. I would not pretend that I am anything other than a Unionist, but I believe that the Union will do well if we observe the norms and the courtesies between the various Parliaments. This Parliament must be exceptionally careful about overriding things that have been devolved, as media policy clearly has been, and we should therefore tread on such areas lightly.

The SNP should be cautious about using this in a politically opportunistic way, however convenient that may be. There will come a time when it is politically convenient for those on the Treasury Bench not to use the Sewel convention, but to get a Back Bencher to table an amendment that will go through without needing the Government to ask for consent at a very late stage in the proceedings, perhaps even as an amendment to a Lords amendment, and such an amendment will go through, with the Sewel convention brushed aside. If SNP Members say that that is perfectly all right and that that is the way to do it, that will leave such conventions in disrepute and will lead to rows between the constituent Parliaments. Basically, disrespect will be shown by one Parliament of another, which will become very serious constitutionally. For a one-day win, they may be risking a constitutional imbroglio.

[Joanna Cherry]

I rise to give the Scottish National party’s support to this group of Lords amendments.

Much was promised of the Lords when the Bill left this House—many Members had deep concerns about the Bill’s intrusion on civil liberties and about the security of data—but I regret, although I am not surprised, to say that the Lords amendments as a whole have not lived up to the expectations that some of us had. Although there have undoubtedly been some improvements in the safeguards afforded by the Bill, which we intend to support later—they are the result of Government amendments in the Lords that largely arose from suggestions made by the opposition and the Intelligence and Security Committee—we do not think those Lords amendment go far enough, and I will give specific examples of that later.

At the moment, we are dealing with the group of Lords amendments that some people, for convenience, have called the Leveson amendments. I want to knock firmly on the head any suggestion that Scottish National party Members or the Scottish Government are making any concessions in relation to the Sewel convention. Hon. Members would no doubt be very surprised if we did, but we are not doing so. Unlike the Minister, we are following the proper procedure, as laid down in devolution guidance note 10 on “Post-Devolution Primary Legislation affecting Scotland”. As I have already said, the note specifically comments on such amendments. In paragraphs 18 and 19, which I will read in full because this is very important, the note states:

“During the passage of legislation, departments should approach the Scottish Executive”—

or the Scottish Government, as they now are—

“about Government amendments changing or introducing provisions requiring consent, or any other such amendments which the Government is minded to accept.”

Clearly, Lords amendment 15 is not a Government amendment, and the Government are not minded to accept it. In such a situation, paragraph 18 says:

“It will be for the Scottish Executive to indicate the view of the Scottish Parliament.”

Very importantly, it goes on:

“No consultation is required for other amendments tabled.”

It is not therefore incumbent on the UK Government to consult the Scottish Government about opposition amendments. It goes on:

“Ministers resisting non-Government amendments should not rest solely on the argument that they lack the consent of the Scottish Parliament unless there is advice to that effect from the Scottish Executive.”

I know as a matter of fact that there is no advice to that effect from the Scottish Government, because I spoke to the Minister concerned about that at the weekend. Paragraph 19 says:

“The Scottish Executive can be expected to deal swiftly with issues which arise during the passage of a Bill, and to recognise the exigencies of legislative timetables (eg when forced to consider accepting amendments at short notice). Nevertheless since the last opportunity for amendment is at Third Reading in the Lords or Report Stage in the Commons the absence of consent should not be a bar to proceeding with the Bill in the interim.”

That is what the guidance note states, so the point made by the hon. Member for North East Somerset (Mr Rees-Mogg) is fallacious. This is not a Government amendment or an amendment that the Government are minded to accept; it is an opposition amendment. It is perfectly open to SNP Members to support the Lords amendment at this stage without making any concession. Only in the event that the amendment is passed by this House will it be incumbent on the Government to go to the Scottish Government and the Scottish Parliament to get a legislative consent motion. This point is a complete red herring.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

In the event that such a legislative consent motion were refused, would the hon. and learned Lady expect the Queen to refuse to give Royal Assent to the Bill, because that would be the only way to stop the Bill becoming law?

[Joanna Cherry]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that it would not come to that, because if the amendment is passed by the House, the Scottish Government will grant a legislative consent motion. The SNP, which is in opposition in Westminster and the Government in Scotland, has discussed this issue in detail over the weekend—I discussed it with the Scottish Government Minister—and we have a position on Lords amendment 15. I will now set out our position, but I am very conscious of the time, so I will be as brief as possible.

As I said earlier, Lords amendment 15 rides on the back of clause 8, and I am very proud to say that it arose from an SNP suggestion in Committee for such an amendment. We have heard about the effect of the Lords amendment. In my respectful submission, the effect will be good: no newspaper should be involved in telephone hacking, and if one is, it should face the consequences. I want to make the SNP position clear.

Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act, about which we have heard much today, was passed in March 2013. It was part of implementing the Leveson inquiry recommendation that any new regulator set up by the press should be accredited as independent and effective. The purpose of section 40 is to provide costs protection for claimants and Leveson-regulated newspaper publishers. It was passed in this House with cross-party agreement, including the support of SNP MPs. There were rather fewer SNP MPs then than there are now, but my colleagues supported the then Bill. As has already been said, the UK Government have reneged on implementing section 40 on many occasions. Today’s announcement of a consultation kicks its implementation further into the long grass.

As has correctly been said, section 40 extends to England and Wales only, because the regulation of print media is devolved to the Scottish Parliament. The Scottish Parliament has provided cross-party support for the UK Government’s actions to implement the royal charter. The Scottish Government will continue to monitor the current press regulations and work with other parties in Scotland and at Westminster to ensure effective regulation of the media on a non-political basis.

The majority of the press, and in particular the regional press in Scotland, were not involved in the sort of malpractice that prompted the Leveson recommendations. It is therefore the view of the Scottish Government and the Scottish National party that any policy in this area in Scotland must be proportionate and must balance the freedom of the press with the public desire for high standards, accuracy and transparency.

That said, the protection afforded by section 40 when brought into force would be available to Scottish litigants who chose to sue newspapers based in England and Wales. Regrettably, a number of major newspapers based in England were involved in the sort of malpractice that prompted Leveson, and it is therefore right that such protection should be afforded. The limited amendments that we are discussing will not affect small or regional newspapers adversely at all, because they have not been involved in phone hacking, and, I assume, do not have any plans to become involved in it.

Scottish National party MPs are going to support the Lords amendments to provide costs protection across the UK for claimants and Leveson-regulated news publishers in claims for unlawful interception of communications, including phone hacking. I hope that as a result of the amendments some good, at least, will come of this Bill’s passage through Parliament, in the event that this House is minded to support them. I will be crystal clear that nothing I have said involves any concession whatever about the primacy and importance of the Sewel convention, which is now enshrined in legislation. If anyone is in any doubt on that, they should go away and read carefully the guidance note from which I have quoted at some length this afternoon.

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[Chris Bryant]

Well, I do not think the hon. Gentleman will be allowed to make a very long speech, as we do not have much more time. He is completely and utterly wrong. He has dragged himself into a hermeneutic circle and he will never get out of it.

When the amendment—which was carried by 530 votes to 13 to become section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013—was tabled, the then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) said:

“Today marks a turning point. We can move on from simply talking about Lord Justice Leveson’s report to start acting on it, with a new package...The package includes a new royal charter, as announced by the Prime Minister earlier; a new costs and damages package that seeks to maximise incentives for relevant publishers to be part of the new press self-regulator; and one short clause reinforcing the point that politicians cannot tamper with the new press royal charter, which is the subject of debate in the other place.”—[Official Report, 18 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 698.]

Why was there an all-party deal? Because the Leveson inquiry exposed real failings both in the press and in the regulatory system. Many of us felt that we, the elected politicians of this country, had failed. Whether out of partisan ambition, deference, cowardice or a genuine determination to do everything in our power to protect the freedom of the press, we had nonetheless failed. We had developed relationships with the press and the media that were so cosy that the people no longer trusted us to make the best decisions on these issues in the national interest. We were on trial as much as the press itself. That is why we all agreed that we had to find a better way forward.

Above all, we knew there had to be a genuinely independent system of redress. I do not often agree with the hon. Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), but he said that it could not just be

“an updated version of the Press Complaints Commission. God forbid that it is”—[Official Report, 18 March 2013; Vol. 560, c. 662.]—

because that would be doomed to failure. But without the commencement of section 40, that is precisely what we have got. IPSO is the Press Complaints Commission in all but name. It is not independent in terms of its finances, the membership of its board or the decisions it makes. It is entirely compromised, as recent decisions have shown. The press marks its own homework and, surprise, surprise, it always gives itself gold stars. Five hundred and thirty Members wanted it to be independent of government and independent of the press, too.

[Mr Rees-Mogg]

If the hon. Gentleman does not like IPSO, how can he think that IMPRESS is any better? It is approved by the state, and it is funded by one irritated celebrity.

[Chris Bryant]

It is not my business to decide which of the two is better. The whole point is that we set up—through a royal charter that can be changed only by a two thirds majority here and a two thirds majority in the other place—a body that would take the decision at arm’s length from us. My anxiety about today’s decision by the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Media and Sport is that she is bringing this matter right back into her inbox, which I think is wholly mistaken. The press would be best advised not to encourage that.

Since that day in 2013, Conservative Ministers have repeated their commitment to the package time and again: the right hon. Member for Basingstoke on 18 March 2013; David Cameron and Viscount Younger of Leckie on that same day; the right hon. Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) on 10 April 2013; the right hon. Member for Basingstoke again, six times, on 16 April 2013; the right hon. Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin) on 16 April 2013; the right hon. and learned Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Jeremy Wright), now the Attorney General, on 25 April 2013; Lord Gardiner of Kimble on 3 July 2013; the right hon. Member for Wantage—again—on 4 December 2013; David Cameron in The Spectator on Boxing day 2013—a nice little Christmas present; Lord Gardiner again on 2 April 2014; the right hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Sajid Javid), then Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, now the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, on 20 January 2015; and indeed, the Government did so as late as 26 June 2015. All these people constantly reaffirmed that they were in favour of the commencement of section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. No wonder, then, that some Members in this House are impatient; no wonder there are Members in the House of Lords who are impatient and want the Government to get on with it. That is precisely why the amendments were tabled.