---

Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill

I will endeavour to be brief in summing up the debate on a couple of key issues. First, as the hon. Members for Somerton and Frome (Mr. Heath) and for Cambridge (David Howarth) said, the courts can be involved even without the amendment. I acknowledged that in my opening remarks, but the difference between us is about the grounds. That remains a difference that we cannot accommodate, so we cannot agree to the amendment tonight. One reason was touched on by my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Rob Marris), who pointed out that the amendment’s proponents tended to ignore the protections already in the Bill—trial by jury, for example, which could not be abolished because of the necessary protections of rights and freedoms in the Bill.