The Paymaster General is seeking to justify the regulations, but to many of us it seems that the regulations in their proposed form, if they are to reflect the terms of the clause, will represent a triumph of Sir Humphrey at his most zealous. Perhaps I am being a trifle cynical, but can the hon. Lady tell me, as an earnest of good intentions and of her understanding of what is likely to follow, how we are to interpret in subsection (3) the words

''provision for the application of conclusive or other presumptions''?

What does it all mean?