Clause 21 - Right to make representations: Part II
Vehicles (Crime) Bill
6:30 pm
Mr John Bercow (Buckingham, Conservative)
Indeed, it may. If I am right, the Under-Secretary and the Minister of State are unlikely to be put in that position by their advisers. There are two reasons for that. First, I do not doubt for a minute that their advisers are of the most impeccable quality and the highest moral probity to be found anywhere in the British civil service. Secondly, that sort of situation would tend to apply only to a Minister who was habitually beastly to his advisers. As the Under-Secretary is a decent cove and as the Minister of State is not only a decent cove by an ambitious decent cove who is in business to make friends and influence people while he greases his way up the pole, they are unlikely to be anything other than scrupulously polite to, and generous in their dealings with, their officials. I look forward to an explanation.
The second concern that we have highlighted, in amendment No. 24—