Kim Howells needs to be held to those words, which could be achieved if friendly MPs were to successfully push for them to be included in the bill.

If Kim Howells were to resist this, it would be extremely embarrassing, since it would amount to an admission on his part that he was lying on the BBC programme, or else that he didn't know what he was talking about and was waffling. I suspect most of us would suspect that both those things may have been the case, but that's no matter. We should take them as a honest and clear statement of government policy, regardless of whether we think they are or not.

The thing to do is to use those words and that quote in all letters to MPs and others in this context.