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Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

I listened carefully to the hon. Member for North-West Norfolk (Mr. Bellingham) and I heard much background history of the events that led to the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, but I did not hear a convincing argument in favour of his new clauses. I will address the issues that he raised, but I am not yet convinced that I should advise my right hon. and hon. Friends to support his new clauses—[Interruption.] It is indeed sad that he was unable to persuade me, but perhaps I can demonstrate the holes in his argument. I start from the basis that the constitutional reforms to which the hon. Gentleman referred were, as he correctly said, a hurried and, in many ways, botched job. I was part of the Committee that dealt with those legislative changes and it was clear that, to a large extent, they had been written on the back of an envelope and were not subject to prior consultation. Indeed, they appeared as a complete surprise to most practitioners in the law, who quickly had to respond to what was being proposed and insist—properly—on certain conditions that were eventually part of the protocol that was decided with the Lord Chief Justice.