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Racial and Religious Hatred Bill

Perhaps I may respectfully say—I know the noble Earl is never intentionally unfair—that that is unfair. I tried to make it plain—I do not believe I failed to do so although, having heard what the noble Earl has said, I may have—that I was not in a position to put forward amendments, that I was listening very carefully, and that I would come back to the House on Report. I was responding to comments made by a number of noble Lords, not least some on my own Benches—my noble friend Lord Clinton-Davis, to name but one—who said, ““Why don’t you give the Government a chance to come back on Report?””, which I said I was happy to do. If we had not voted, but had withdrawn to come back another day, we would have proceeded to debate each and everyone of these amendments. At the end of the Committee stage, the Committee having done that which it normally does—namely, consider the Bill piece by piece, amendment by amendment—the Government would have had an opportunity for mature reflection and then we would have had a chance, on Report, to consider our respective final positions. I do not complain at all about the Committee deciding, a little unusually, to divide and therefore deny us that opportunity. I accept it. With respect, it is a little hard now to be told that it is my fault that we cannot have reasoned debate in a way that I had proposed in the first place.