Brendan Ryan (Labour)

This is ridiculous. There is no other word to describe it. Nobody in this House knows what the Minister of State has just said and I am no less intelligent than anybody else in this House, nor am I less intelligent than the people who drafted these amendments or the Minister. I do not claim to be brighter than any of them but I have never in my life been in a situation like this before. I have dealt with complicated company law — and I am not a lawyer — and I have not had this problem. The correct thing to do if they are going to rewrite it like this is to withdraw the Bill, add in all these amendments and reintroduce it.