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Home Affairs

I am aware of that report. I am also aware of the important work done by my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East as a member of the Constitutional Affairs Committee. The motion is before the House. I accept that it would have been better if the nomination had come through the Committee of Selection in the usual way, but, even if Members do not agree with my decision to proceed in this way, I ask them at least to accept that it is a result of the timing, and not—[Interruption.] I am telling the House that we are doing this not because we want to bounce the House into something at the last minute—[Interruption.] I ask hon. Members to accept what I am saying. They might think that the choice that I have made to put the motion before the House today is wrong, but I ask them to accept my good faith: it was timing that dictated the decision, not some idea that we were going to slip this through on the last but one day of business.