My Lords, I am very grateful to all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate, particularly the Minister, for the meetings, the letter and other comments she has made. I shall respond very briefly to some of the comments made by noble Lords.
I say to my noble friend Lord Rooker that this amendment started in the House of Commons probably two years ago. As the Minister said, it was rejected at that stage, but there seemed to be quite a lot of support in some parts of the House, which I thought was interesting.
The noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, mentioned balance. I think that goes to the heart of what I believe is necessary. Of course, there have to be NDAs. My point about NDAs being voluntary was that companies or individuals did not have to sign an NDA if they did not want to—that was the voluntary bit. On the question of balance, we have talked about more than 300 NDAs that have been listed, but I suspect there are very many more among landowners that we have not discussed. Of course, it is perfectly reasonable that they should sign NDAs as part of their negotiations.
This is an issue that will go on. It is helpful that the risk assurance committee set up in HS2 will look at some of these things. I am not actually suggesting that we go back to square one and look at every NDA that HS2 has signed, but one could say that one would look only at new ones signed after the Bill gets Royal Assent. However, this has been a very useful debate and I am particularly grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, for her support. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.