Lord Jay of Ewelme:

I will pass on to Lord Hain in a moment but I agree about the importance of informal, as well as formal, contact. I have been pleased to have a number of formal contacts with Members of the Oireachtas, with Members of the Northern Ireland Assembly and with chairs of committees of the Northern Ireland assemblies from a wide range of political parties there. Those informal contacts are an extremely important of our work, as well as the importance of more formal contacts such as this one.