This is one of those Humpty-Dumpty moments where we are invited by a Minister to look at words that are written on the paper, and construe them in the opposite way to how any other person would understand them. I return to subsection (10). How can the words:

“Subject to any directions given to the Commissioner by the Secretary of State”,

be construed in any way other than as a potential—I must say potential—limit to the commissioner’s discretion to determine the scope of and the procedure to be applied to an investigation and a decision? Had it said,

“following a direction from the Secretary of State”,

I might have been able to understand the Minister’s point, but it says,

“Subject to any directions...by the Secretary of State”.

Despite the hon. Lady’s suggestion that I am incapable of reading the clause in front of me, those words cannot be interpreted as being anything other than an overlying control of the discretion on the part of the Secretary of State. If it is her intention to state the wide discretion available to the commissioner, she would be better off leaving those 10 words out altogether. In that way everybody would be clear that a direction would be given by the Secretary of State, and that once it had been given it would be for the commissioner to determine the scope and nature of the investigation. I invite the hon. Lady to consider that before Report.