Well, okay, I thank the noble Baroness for her further intervention. I am not wholly the wiser as to what she is trying to do here. She has mentioned the shock of Crossrail. I was not aware that that was anything to do with NDAs. But she was a Transport Minister, so she knows how projects work, and I was actually discussing Crossrail earlier today and asked exactly the same question about how on earth that happened. It is the case that sometimes, for whatever reason, costs increase, but I was not aware that with Crossrail there was an issue with NDAs. If she has information in that regard, I would be happy to receive it, because it would be news to me.
4.15 pm
I am trying to get beyond the sweeping statements that, “These things are bad, information is being hidden, and therefore we have to crack down on them.” That is one side of the argument—but the other side, of course, is as I have set out, that they can be hugely
beneficial and are entered into voluntarily. The noble Baroness said that they were not entered into voluntarily, as if everybody was evil, but I need more understanding of what the evidence is around that and what information she feels is therefore not getting out into the public domain that should be. She said that you do not even get a meeting unless you sign the NDA. That may often be the case—and, yes, about 80% of the meeting may be absolute nonsense and could be public information. But, again, I would appreciate in the meeting that we have with her if we could get underneath the skin of this a bit and find out what information she feels is being covered up, the consequences of that cover-up, and how the NDA process is fuelling that cover-up, because I am not there yet. I have heard sweeping statements, but I am not quite fully understanding.