That is a very good point. It is often useful to set out in a Bill what is meant by the terminology used. In Bills of old, when Parliament first met—it is wonderful to go to the Victoria Tower and see some of those historic rolls of the Bills that Parliament passed—there was a magnificent clarity of language. Our legislators spoke firmly as to what they meant. They did not haver around the issue or use words in the Humpty-Dumpty sense with which we have become familiar in modern politics. The whole concept of spin was alien to our forefathers in Parliament.

When thinking of pithy Bills of the past, I think of the Act against appeals, which was only, sadly, repealed in the late 1960s. It prevented anyone from this country from going to a foreign court outside these shores, the penalty for doing so being treason. It is a great pity that that Act did not remain on the statute book because it would solve a lot of our European problems today if it were still there. That legislation was clear, well-written and obvious in its intent. I am sorry to say that it was deadly in its effect because it hit some of my co-religionists; but, leaving that aside, the language used was precise.

We live in an age of woolly language and spin. To avoid that in legislation, it is wise, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North so sensibly says, to have notes at the end to say, “This is what we mean,” so that people can understand the terminology and what it means in legislation. Wishy-washy, vague and nice-sounding terms are difficult to enforce in law.

As the legislation goes through the courts—the lower courts, the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court—people will look at the phraseology and look at “social solidarity” without the wisdom of my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North, who would have set out with clarity, had it been his Bill, what the term meant. Instead, the decision has to be made by a judge. That upsets the fundamental principles of democracy that we hold so dear, because instead of having law made by our legislators, our law is developed and evolved by our judges. I thought that this country had the most glorious constitution, and in that sense, perhaps, I am too much of a Whig; but then some Whigs saw the light and became Tories in the end.

There is a feeling that our constitution is a beautiful, pure thing that works but that it has been distorted in recent years. The balance that existed between Commons, Lords and judges has got out of kilter. Judges have been taking increasing power from the legislature because we pass laws that use language vaguely and imprecisely. Therefore, judges have to step in. It is not that judges are sitting in their Inns of Court eating fine dinners, and saying, as they skewer a morsel of lamb, “How do we skewer the legislature too?” but that we ask them to consider that which ought not to be within their bailiwick.  We ask them, by passing imprecise laws, to evolve the law because we do not have the clear statements of meaning that are necessary for precise law.