None of us wants to see Ministers’ time sucked up for a year reading documents and signing them. That would not be in anybody’s interests.
Why do we believe in the concept of last resort? The Government have an advantage in these cases because they know what the evidence is and the other party does not. That is why we want more balanced processes to be tried first. That changes slightly if the other party has applied for the CMP. To take the case that I advanced earlier of an ex-employee who knows of a document, we should probably say that a CMP would be the preferred option for them, rather than allowing the Government to keep something away. We want a slight bias away from the Government—not a huge bias, but a slight one—to make up for their advantage of being able to see all the documents.