I believe that we are indebted to my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey, South-West (Mrs. Bottomley) for her contribution to this debate. My hon. Friend has done a useful job in restoring the proper balance. Access to personal files is one of those matters that The Guardian, in its usual simplistic way, Bills as one that the good support and the bad oppose. It is worth pointing out that it is not as simple as that.

I do not agree with my hon. Friend that the resource implications of access will be minor. Although that may be true with regard to this Bill, one should bear in mind that in Whitehall, as I mentioned in Committee, there are 12 million linear feet of records. The imagination boggles at the idea of people having access to all 12 million linear feet of those records. In the United States, the freedom to information legislation goes far wider than this Bill. That legislation was initially estimated to have cost the Federal Bureau of Investigation about £50,000, but it now costs the FBI £9·5 million a year. It also now employs no fewer than 300 additional staff. To give personal access to records is not as simple or as cheap as some people think.

I give my deep thanks to the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) for introducing the Bill and for being such a pleasant colleague in Committee. I give my thanks to those who have taken part in our interesting deliberations. I also express my thanks to the civil servants in the various Departments for all the work that they have done. Few people realise how much work goes into the servicing of private Members' Bills—I had no idea until this year. I first came to the House in 1968, but it is only this year that I have been an almost permanent occupier of this place on Fridays. I have not liked it very much, in spite of the good company. However, this year I have learnt how much work goes into each private Member's Bill in the Department concerned.

The Bill before us is a complicated Bill and involved the work of not just one Department but a number. I give my thanks to all those who played a part and, once again, I congratulate the hon. Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire.