---

Equality Bill [Lords]

I think that the Minister is giving way to me rather than to her right hon. Friend, and I am grateful to her for doing so. As she knows, I hold her in the highest esteem, so I do not say this with any personal malice or resentment—but having listened very carefully to what she has said in the past 10 minutes, I am none the wiser. It may be that I am a slow learner. Does she accept that, to me, her answer is thoroughly impenetrable? I cannot fathom a single good reason why the Government can act in a year or so’s time when no great issue of minutiae or detail is involved, but are somehow incapable of acting now, as the House would prefer.