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House of Lords Bill [HL]

The only reason I have been speaking for a long time is because noble Lords keep asking questions, and unlike the noble Lord, Lord Steel, I am happy to rise to the fly and respond. The noble Lord has reminded me that I gave a commitment to the noble Baroness and one or two others that I would respond to the question on a timetable. Let me begin by saying that the time has come for this House and another place to debate the White Paper which was published more than a year ago. The important aspect of that White Paper is that it was published with the broad agreement of all the political parties. Although the Convenor of the Cross Benches and perhaps the Bishop would not have agreed with every aspect of it, they were part of the process that created it, so we should have an early opportunity to debate it.