HL Deb 08 March 2005 vol 670 c704
Lord Grocott

My Lords, before we move on to the next items of business—two sets of regulations and an order—it may be helpful if I spell out what I hope will happen in the next couple of hours. The Bill will now be reprinted as amended, which will take, we guess, about an hour. As soon as it has been reprinted and is available in the Printed Paper Office, a note to that effect will be placed on the annunciator so that noble Lords will know that the Bill is available. They will then be able to table amendments for Third Reading, although should they be minded not to table any amendments for consideration at Third Reading I do not think that it would disappoint too many people. Half an hour will be allowed for amendments to be tabled and we expect that the House will be reconvened about 10 minutes after that. Of course, we do not know how long the regulations will take to debate, but we estimate that there will be about 1 hour and 40 minutes between the conclusion of Report stage and the start of the Third Reading. I am not offering the House a time now, because we can move seamlessly to the regulations, but this is the best estimate at the moment.