The noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, introduced Amendment 1 by saying that it is designed to promote transparency and accountability. Who could possibly disagree with those objectives? They are vital to this Bill. It seems to me that subsection (1) is modest in its requirements: the updating of the dashboard and the publication of a report. My question to the noble Baroness and, indeed, the Minister is: why, then, is it thought necessary to include in Amendment 1 subsection (4), which provides that:
“If the Secretary of State does not meet the requirements”—
that is the basic requirements—in subsection (1), then certain consequences follow?
It is, I would suggest, very unusual to include in an important provision of a Bill a set of obligations on Ministers but then recognise in another clause of the same provision that they may well not satisfy the important requirements that the noble Baroness rightly suggests should be imposed on them. Should we understand from this that the Minister contemplates that there is a real possibility that Ministers do not intend to comply with the very obligations that this amendment imposes? If they are going to comply with these obligations, surely we do not need subsection (4).