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Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Perhaps I can assist my noble friend Lady Carnegy. The smallest dictionary that I had on my desk defines ““inchoate”” as ““undeveloped or just begun””, as the Minister made clear. I echo my noble friend’s observation that the Minister’s detailed explanation was most helpful. We will certainly want to look at it with enormous care. As my amendments were largely about drafting and style, I was amused to hear an aside from my noble friend Lady Anelay picking up a split infinitive from the Minister as we started. I have no objection whatever to split infinitives; I refer my noble friend and the Minister to the amusing extract on the subject in Fowler’s Modern English Usage, which makes it clear that we can use them as we wish. I will certainly not tick off the noble Baroness for it but I might object to parliamentary draftsmen doing it. I am very grateful for what the noble Baroness said about consulting the Law Commission on the changes to the drafts that it produced at the end of its report No. 300. All three amendments in the group are stylistic, drafting amendments, although Amendment No. 100 is slightly more than that. I note the noble Baroness’s response that ““reckoning”” is well known in legislation. I am not particularly familiar with it, and it seemed to me that ““determining””, with which most of us are more familiar, might be a better word. Obviously, I will not press that point further, but the noble Baroness might want to take it up at some stage. I will read very carefully what the noble Baroness said. I thank her for such a useful introduction to the rest of Part 2, on which, no doubt, both we and noble Lords on the Liberal Benches will wish to continue to explore the Government’s intentions. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.