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Housing and Regeneration Bill

I do not intend to enter the debate on Amendment No. 43, not least because I shall be providing the Minister with an opportunity to consult behind her. The judicial review issue clearly pertains to the present wording, but I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s defence. I only throw into the pot something I have mentioned in at least one other context, the definition of an act of God in Blackstone’s Legal Dictionary: an act which no reasonable man would expect God to commit. The Minister knows, because I have already had a conversation with her, that during the Question put to her yesterday in the Chamber by the noble Lord, Lord Rotherwick, about Otmoor, my mind went to the fact that the chequered field pattern there was the genesis of and inspiration to Lewis Carroll for Alice’s adventures. There is a strong Lewis Carroll element to the wording of Amendments Nos. 44 and 45 moved by the noble Lord, Lord Greaves. If the purpose of legislation is to be pellucid, I am not sure that it is as yet. It is currently worded in a matter of which Humpty Dumpty in those adventures would wholly approve.