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Sunday Trading (London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games) Bill [HL]

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Myners, greatly underestimates my noble friend Lord Sassoon's ability if he thinks that my noble friend's excellent speech—I agree about that—at Second Reading is anything like the high point of his parliamentary career, as the noble Lord said it would be. My noble friend has a long way to go. Now he is looking at me as if he is wondering what is coming next, which is quite right. I simply want assurance on what I think are called Pepper v Hart terms—in other words, for the guidance of people trying to work out what this law is meant to mean when they come to examine it in court. I am concerned rather along the lines that the noble Lord, Lord Graham of Edmonton, put forward. I am an inveterate opponent of Sunday opening in principle, but the House has given a Second Reading to the Bill. I accept that so what we are discussing are the means of exempting on grounds of conscience those who do not wish to be ruled by it—and of course I am in favour of that. However, throughout the Second Reading debate and in conversations thereafter, everybody has been seeking reassurance that this is not to be used as a precedent. The phrase actually used was ““stalking horse””; I take it that that means a precedent. When the noble Lord, Lord Graham, made that point forcefully he got a reply from my noble friend with some information in it, but not an avowal again that this is not to be used as a precedent or that that is not the Government's intention. All I ask is that my noble friend reiterates that assurance, so that it will be on the record in this debate as well as at Second Reading.