Justice and Security Bill [Lords]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his explicit recognition of the fact that the Committee has had access to operational information for some considerable time, despite the fact that no such provision is in the current legislation. The Committee remains concerned about the use of the word “voluntarily”, and I had hoped that the Government would withdraw it from the Bill. It goes against the whole spirit of the direction in which we are moving, from the right to request information to the right to require it. That is a small change on the face of it, but it is actually a big, transformational step. I do not think that the word “voluntarily” is necessary in the Bill; it is superfluous and its retention goes against the direction of travel, in that the agencies will voluntarily be able to decide whether to provide information. That is not the relationship that we currently have with the agencies, let alone the one that we want for the future. I ask the Minister to think again. Why does he want the word “voluntarily” in there when we acknowledge that for the issues in question, this is a matter of requesting information just as we do now?