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Flood and Water Management Bill

My Lords, I was waiting for the Minister to speak, because Amendment 80 in my name is an amendment to a government amendment. However, I will say briefly that in general we sympathise with the points put forward by the noble Duke and by the Conservatives. The amendment that we are putting forward states that the government amendment concerning appeals which we will debate in a minute should require affirmative status throughout, and not just on the first occasion. Appeals seem to be sufficiently important for this to be entrenched. I will make one further topical and ironic comment. I wonder why the Conservatives bother with insisting on all these affirmative resolutions when they are never prepared to vote against any of them, however unfortunate the contents, when they come to the House. There seems to be an inconsistency. As I said, that was an ironic comment. We support the amendment.