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Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill

With the leave of the House, I would like to thank all hon. Members for their observations and to speak briefly in tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Cannock Chase (Dr. Wright). This will be his last day in this House. He has been a paradigm of the best of the Members of this House who have shown that it is possible, by assiduity and imagination, to be profoundly influential from the Back Benches, on either side. Much of his work, particularly in chairing the Public Administration Committee, is reflected in the Bill and in other legislation. He will recall, as I do, an extraordinary evening more than 10 years ago at the Report stage of the Freedom of Information Act 2000, when he and I and many others had an open discussion that resulted in a much improved Act. My hon. Friend made an important observation, which I accept, about the unsatisfactory nature of the wash-up process. There is not much that he can do about the fact that the process will be compressed, but yesterday in the other place my noble Friend Lord Rooker said that""there would be a case for institutionalising that this House—jointly preferably…—should systematically say that an ad hoc committee of the House should look and monitor the wash-up package after six months and 18 months." —[Official Report, House of Lords, 7 April 2010; Vol. 718, c. 1483.]" He made other, further suggestions about that. My noble Friend Lord Bach endorsed that from the Front Bench, and I endorse it too. I hope that that has the approbation of the other parties and that we shall look carefully at how the wash-up has happened, and the improvements we can make. Lords amendment 1 agreed to. Lords amendments 2 to 5 agreed to.