My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to debate non-disclosure agreements again. I have tabled the same amendment that we debated in Committee to get a little more information from the Minister concerning some of her answers. I am grateful to her for the meetings that we have had and the answers that she has given. We have to remember that an NDA goes much wider than a particular project —HS2 or any railway.
It is worth pointing out that this amendment, proposing an independent assessor, is something which would be voluntary. She said that NDAs can be entered into voluntarily, but I understand from the way that HS2 has developed the process that if you want information, you have to sign an NDA. It is voluntary if you want the information. In Committee, the noble Baroness, Lady Randerson, pointed out that some local authorities like signing NDAs with other organisations, so that a small group or maybe even one person on the council can keep all the information to themselves and not inform their colleagues.
Another part of the Minister’s answer in Committee was that:
“If an independent assessor were appointed to scrutinise such agreements”—
NDAs—
“they would be breaching the privacy of those agreements.”
That is a circular argument. I am sure there would be a way of resolving it if both parties wanted to. My final comment is to question what she stated later:
“I am confident that the use of NDAs by HS2 is in the public interest.”—[Official Report, 12/11/20; col. GC 528.]
I agree that some certainly are in the public interest. We would not want to have every detail of every contractor whose contracts are being negotiated, or
for them to be unable to have an NDA. Clearly that is confidential, but there are over 300 NDAs. HS2 Ltd is also quoted as signing an NDA with its own training body. If that cannot be kept confidential to the extent wanted, it is a bit sad.
I have taken a lot of useful evidence from a report by the former Construction Minister Nick Raynsford, who reviewed the process of NDAs. He concluded that they “undermine public trust” in major infrastructure projects and he criticised the
“widespread use of confidentiality agreements by the HS2 company”
and stated that they had a
“corrosive sense on the part of the public, that planning is no longer protecting their interests.”
This issue cannot be resolved today, and I have no intention of dividing the House. Personally, I think that having an independent assessor to review all the HS2 NDAs, and, with the presumption of transparency and public accountability, to check whether they are in the public interest, would be a useful thing. I suspect that it would cost very little and would delay things very little once it got over the initial stages. I end by asking the Minister: what do all these companies have to hide? I emphasise that I do not suggest that there should be no NDAs but that there should be some means of limiting them to those which are for good commercial reasons rather than possibly to avoid embarrassment. I beg to move.