---

Commons Bill [HL]

My Lords, many of us in the House today will welcome the Minister to the travails and excitement of his first Defra Bill. We look forward to working with him. This is not the time to go into a lot of detail, simply because we have not been allowed the time to do so—and, in any case, the Bill is going to a Grand Committee, all being well. This is the kind of Bill that is ideally suited to a Grand Committee. We have a lot of hard work before us in that regard. I should just say to the noble Lord, Lord Patten, that some of us would try to claim William Cobbett as a liberal—but we can argue about that some other time. Commons are remarkable for their wide variety, ranging from quite small bits of—