Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 03 March 2022
The bill is not a fait accompli. It has just been introduced in Parliament and it will be for Parliament—Conservatives and everybody else across the chamber—to scrutinise it, to look at the evidence, to hear all the different views about it and then to come to a conclusion about whether it should be supported. Our role as legislators is to scrutinise the evidence, which will be important.
I have spent a lot of time in meetings with people who are very supportive of the bill and with people who are vehemently opposed to it. I have tried to go through some of the issues and concerns that they have raised. I am not sure whether fears have been allayed, but it is fair to say that some of the fears and concerns are not directly related to the proposals in the bill; rather, there is general wider concern, which the bill will not change. There are issues that we could say relate to existing processes. However, fears are fears, and we have to do what we can to address concerns. I will continue to do that.
On the specific question about changes, I will mention one of the important changes that arose from listening to concerns. I was asked about how we will monitor the impact of the legislation. In response to that, we have introduced a new provision in the bill that requires annual reporting on the operation of the legislation. Ireland has done such reporting on the legislation there for seven years, including on things such as the number of GRCs that have been issued. That is a concrete example of what we have done, having listened to concerns. The bill was changed accordingly.