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Pre-legislative Scrutiny

My Lords, with your permission I shall speak in the gap. I have been sitting on the pre-legislative Joint Committee on the Marine Bill and endorse some of the points made by other speakers. The process has been very effective, and witnesses have been able to appear, including a fascinating witness from the EC who enabled us to take an alternative view on what we are doing. That should happen more often. The consensus emerged about the changes needed to the Bill which, I hope, will be incorporated. I half-endorse the grumbling of previous speakers, although we should always remember that the best should not be the enemy of the good. Our committee has been able to sit for eight weeks this summer and done very useful work, even though we did not have the ideal 12 weeks. With those points I should like to endorse the committee. Another criticism was that scrutiny committees should not be meeting if there are additional reports in the pipe-line. Our committee had additional reports in the pipeline. We should just live with that; it is better to have pre-legislative scrutiny than none at all.