There are so many artificial committee stages that it kills any spontaneity.
Others, in particular conceding free votes to MPs on the committee stages of bills, are well worth pursuing.
Optimists even reckon that in Lords committee stages the bill might be stripped of its worse excesses.
There will be storms ahead, not least in the committee stages of the tuition fees bill, and when the Iraq Survey Group eventually issues its final report.
Ministers have struggled to push the legislation through the final committee stages after MPs and government departments tabled a raft of amendments.
He said that only "one or two" companies had told him they did not want such a target, but would not name them, in a session of questioning from MPs about the energy bill, currently going through the committee stages.
As a counter to Leiberman, the Democrats hope they can win over Olympia Snowe, a moderate Republican from Maine, who was onside during some of the committee stages of the bill.
It will be screened for the All-Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group on July 21, where she and Gillett hope to "positively influence" the final committee stages of the climate change bill before its third reading.
