I add my welcome to my noble friend Lady Liddell and I am certain that my noble friend Lord Foulkes will be thinking of organising a party to celebrate her return to Westminster.

I cannot add to the comments she made on her Amendment. I completely support what she said. I feel that there is a bit of déjà vu here and that we are going over ground we covered in our first session on Monday, but I think it is really important that we emphasise again, through the amendments that my noble friend Lord Lennie and I have put down, how important it is that we have clarity in all aspects of the Bill. I want to emphasise again the need to ensure that all aspects are future-proofed, thereby giving all parties the confidence that matters of probity, security and appropriate appointments are always taken into account in key positions. It is unfortunate that we need to emphasise this aspect, but I think experience will tell us that it is a very necessary part of all the processes that we bring in place.

To recap briefly, in Amendment 42 we would like to insert the phrase “fit and proper”. As we have said before, this is not the first time this has been used—it was used in the National Security and Investment Bill. Through this amendment we make sure that it is the responsibility of the Secretary of State personally to deem the individual as fit and proper.

Amendment 44 specifically refers to the need for the hydrogen counterparty to be

“a fit and proper person”.

The aim is to make sure that responsibility is very clearly accounted to the Secretary of State.

The explanatory statement for Amendment 64 says:

“If the Secretary of State needs to find a new counterparty, this amendment requires that they must ensure they are a fit and proper person, as with previous amendments in our names”.

I do not think that at this point in the state of affairs we can emphasise enough just how important it is to have accountability, clarity and the ability to have straight- forward lines of communication.