(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberI hope my right hon. Friend accepts that the nub of my short contribution is to say that we should not have found ourselves in this position. When the ECJ judgment was made we should immediately have swung into action so as to give people reasonable warning that this debate was going to take place, and then they could have done the degree of research necessary to avoid the impression that things were being rushed through in unseemly haste.
If we are all trying to be open and straight with people, why do we not just own up to the fact that this problem is of the coalition Government’s making? They could not get to the point where they agreed on a Bill, so we now have to consider a bit of bounced legislation as an emergency because of the coalition’s problems.