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Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill

The point is quite straightforward: it is a good idea to do the consultation before one legislates. That is the purpose of it. It is certainly the case that the majority of respondents to the Government's consultation paper opposed that provision. In fact, the Government said that a majority of the legal correspondents, as they are called, opposed it. Let us have a look at how many other respondents there were. The legal correspondents included a number of important bodies, including members of the judiciary, the Criminal Appeal Lawyers Association and the Criminal Bar Association; I could go on. The members of the public, and we do not know what their views were, included someone called Trev. The majority of the respondents, as the Government have said themselves, have rejected the provision. The question is why the Government have introduced a criminal justice Bill before the end of the Session, which they intend to carry over—they originally intended to debate it in June—when they have not consulted properly on the measures in it. That was the point that I was seeking to make.