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Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

My Lords, I must say, having heard those two speeches, that I would not want to be the Minister tonight. Having heard what was said and having read about this from the Bar Council and the Law Society, which both put in effective papers, I will say at once that I regret that in my time as Minister we did not spot this, because there is no question that we should have acted on it. The noble Lord can make as much fun of me as he likes, but it is no answer to the points that have been made. There are times during the passage of Bills when a Government behave totally irrationally. I speak from experience. There are all kinds of examples—not that many in my case, but some. I know that the noble Lord, Lord McNally—