I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.

I have no wish to delay the House. The new clause is in the nature of a promissory note. I shall not repeat the arguments that were advanced in Committee, but there is widespread all-party support in the House for providing more access to the information held about individuals. If ever there was a time to put an idea into practice, this is it.

The new clause provides new powers for the Minister to make regulations on those matters that were in the Bill as originally drafted. These include benefits and other records, employment records, bank, building society and credit card records, as well as immigration records. It puts down a marker to give the Government of the day the necessary authority to introduce regulations after proper consultation, without the need for another Bill.

We are worried about the Government's Opposition to the inclusion in the Bill of references to medical records. There is widespread and overwhelming support in the medical profession for such a provision. The Minister told us in Committee that he believed it best for progress to be made on a non-statutory basis. He said that talks would be held with the medical profession in an attempt to achieve that. I hope that progress is made on a non-statutory basis.

The new clause provides a backstop in case it is not possible to reach agreement, so that the Government of the day can decide whether it is right to take hold of the issue and put it on a statutory basis.

It is unusual in such circumstances for bodies such as the Royal College of Nursing of the United Kingdom, the Royal College of Midwives, the Health Visitors Association, the Association of Community Health Councils for England and Wales, the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation, the Royal National Institute for the Blind, the College of Health, MINI) and the Patients Association to reach a common view about the need for the citizen and patient to have access to medical records — with safeguards. I hope that the Minister, who heard these matters discussed in Committee, will at least see the sense of what the new clause would achieve.

It is no criticism of the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood), who is the true father of the Bill, to say that it is the way of the world for private Member's Bills to be mauled about, but the hon. Gentleman wants to leave a small footprint on the sand of history. The Bill will take a small shuffle, rather than a small step, forward. I want the inister to accept that this is the start, and by no means the end, of a process. He should accept the idea of a provision that would make that clear in the Bill.

Our national passion for secrecy puzzles me and many others. In large areas of our lives, we feel it right to deny citizens access to information. The records containing such information come into being when we fall into the cradle, and they are still there when we slip, protesting, into the grave.

At the same time, the people who are generally held in high esteem in the land, and to whom we entrust our secrets—secrets that strike at the heart of our national security—far too often breach that trust. It is perverse to put so much trust in those people and yet be so fearful about giving ordinary citizens the right to examine the records that are kept about them. I hope that the Minister will respond positively to our suggestion and will put down a marker for the future. The Bill is not the end of a process: it is merely the beginning.