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Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, I had not intended to take part in this debate but one matter does strike me. In the eight years in which I was a Minister in the Administration of my noble friend Lady Thatcher, whenever a Minister said that something would take a particular period of time, she used to say, ““Well, just think what was achieved in time of war during that kind of timescale””. We have been told that this review will take two years. I do not understand why the Minister does not simply say to the Home Office, ““You have got to do it in a year””. Why will it take two years to carry out a review? If we were in a time of war, it would be dealt with much more quickly. I put to the Minister exactly the retort of my noble friend Lady Thatcher. Set a timescale that is reasonable and achievable and, if the review is completed in the next year, there would be an opportunity for any necessary legislative change to take place within the present Parliament. As it is, I feel that we will get beyond 2015 and nothing will have been done.