My Lords, this amendment is in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones. I will try to change gear and be very brief. The amendment would allow the chair of the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee to request information from ARIA on its operation. It would place a role for the committee in the Bill. In our view, it is another way to protect ARIA’s reputation.
I am sure the Minister will say that this is unnecessary, as the Science and Technology Committee can always have an inquiry, so we need not bother. This is true, and I agree that ARIA representatives can be questioned, but we should remember the culture of secrecy that the Government are unnecessarily cloaking this organisation with. There is no guarantee that ARIA will feel compelled to respond in full, and it might use this narrative that the Bill is creating around its specialness.
I recall the debate that many of us had when we discussed the National Security and Investment Bill. Several of us were there. There, too, we discussed the need for oversight of issues that might need to remain secret. At the time, the Minister—this Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan—was adamant that the appropriate Select Committee, the BEIS Select Committee, could be empowered to receive secret and confidential information. There was much debate and the Minister was strident in his view that this committee could do that job. The National Security and Investment Bill envisaged the handling of vastly more secret secrets than we are talking about here.
So the idea of trusting the Science and Technology Select Committee to scrutinise ARIA and maintain genuine secrets is consistent with how the Government have already said they want to work elsewhere. For that reason, I expect the Minister to welcome this tidying amendment, which would bring the Bill into line with his thinking on other legislation. I beg to move.