My Lords, I can add very little to the extraordinary speeches we just heard, many of them quite brief but absolutely targeted and to the point. I simply want to add just two more issues that perhaps have been mentioned but not stressed.

The first is that a carve-out of financial services from the REUL Bill is not the carve-out of some minor area of insignificant interest. Financial services are in effect our largest and most significant industry at this point in time in the UK and will be for many years in the future, and indeed the products that come from financial services are the lifeblood of our economy, both for businesses and for ordinary people. Therefore, scrutiny of decisions that are made within this arena surely has to be a central and significant responsibility of Parliament.

I say to the Minister, who always prays in aid consultation, both formal and informal, in the process of making change, when did consultation replace scrutiny in the mind of this Government? Parliament is not a consultee but the body that is democratically elected to make the key legislative decisions about the future of our country. Its relegation to the role of a consultee, which in effect happens and which this legislation would in some ways counter, is, I believe, completely unacceptable to most people when they have the opportunity to face up to it and think through this issue. Therefore, we on these Benches are very much in support of these amendments, and if necessary we will go through the Lobbies if the Minister is unable to accept at least a significant one of them.