Clause 57 - Recognition in United Kingdom of
Crime (International Co-operation) Bill [Lords]
5:15 pm
Mr James Paice (South East Cambridgeshire, Conservative)
We understand why the Minister has not been nominated for eviction from the Big Brother house yet. His commitment to the cause is obviously absolute and he has endeavoured to persuade us of the validity of his case, however thin it may be.
My comments about responses to correspondence were not specific to his Department, but they were definitely specific to the whole Government. I have files that I can happily show the Minister to illustrate that and would remind him that the previous Government—in which he rightly said I was a Minister—regularly published the times that it took each Department to respond to correspondence.
The Minister explained, perfectly cogently, why the period of 21 days is needed. It is already in plenty of other pieces of legislation, and so is perfectly reasonable. However, I fail to understand why it is necessary to expect that that period will not be long enough. The Minister said that we are sailing into uncharted waters, which I suspect is quite an admission and demonstrates the validity of my case, which is that the Government do not quite know the implications of what we legislating for. That issue is worrying and is part of a trend. Whether the Minister thinks that I am getting over-excited about it is a matter for his judgment, and I assure him that I do not sleep at night owing to all sorts of problems that the Government are causing the country.