I apologise for not being present this morning, but I was attending a sitting of the Treasury Committee, questioning one of the Minister’s colleagues on, among other things, cost-effectiveness and value for money.

Looking at the Bill, I somehow doubt that the taxpayer has ever been asked to fund so little of substance for so much money with so poor a chance of a positive outcome. Its value for money must be difficult to demonstrate. The Committee has had opportunities to consider the ways in which costs can be mitigated and to try to improve the chances of achieving value for money, but without success.

There are occasions when paving legislation is appropriate, but this is not one of them. Much more information about the exact proposals and their chances of success must be made available to us if we are to consider spending what is a large sum of taxpayers’ money. There are many obvious flaws—some technical, some practical and some political—but it is worth going ahead only if we can set up a tightly controlled, cost-effective and value-for-money system for those of us, or our colleagues, who have to consider whether to go further with it.

The Government have rejected a sensible course of action, so any restriction on how the system will be funded, any way of controlling costs and any way of deciding how to keep a proper eye on how costs, particularly those relating to computer systems, can be controlled over this short period is to be welcomed. The new clause might be the sort of measure on computer system costings that we should include in most Government Bills.

As the hon. Member for Rayleigh has demonstrated, a clear picture has emerged. Although I am sure that the Government undertake computer contracts in good faith and genuinely believe that these things can be achieved in a given time frame and costing, their track record has been poor. We should actively support the idea of a regular report to demonstrate that things are on time and within budget and to show that £40 million-odd is being spent for some real purpose.