Ms Alyson Kilpatrick:

I danced on the head of a pin initially when I was talking about this and said it was almost certainly fatally flawed. I was allowing room for doubt. I have to be careful because most of my colleagues at the commission would say there is still room for doubt. Some may believe there is work to be done on the Bill. I have more difficulty seeing what can be done with the Bill. If I, as chief commissioner, were asked, I would say it is fatally flawed and cannot be fixed. If I were asked whether the commission as a whole was prepared to put some time and work into discovering whether I am wrong, I would say "Yes". If I am wrong, I will be first to put up my hands, and I will be delighted to say I have been wrong and that it can be fixed. At the minute, however, my strong advice to anybody who asks is that it really cannot be fixed.