The details of three million learner drivers in Britain have gone missing from a facility in Iowa City, Iowa.

This statement is so incredible that I had to type it just to prove that I have not just seen some kind of fantasy session in the Commons. But Ruth Kelly, the Transport Secretary, says it is true and she is not capable of making things up because she has no imagination.

She managed to avoid saying the words “Iowa City” for almost the entire statement. I understand why. I was born there. As Bill Bryson said of being born in nearby Des Moines, Iowa, somebody had to be but, surely, nobody who lives in Britain should have to have their driving licence details stored there. (Or not, as the case now is.)

If we have to have globalisation, the details should be stored somewhere more glamorous than Iowa, which is famous for its early presidential primary and its giant pigs. I am sure that none of the three million Brits ever thought that they would be stored on a hard disc in Iowa City.

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First, it is seriously far away (4,117 miles from London, to be exact). Second, it is not a hotspot of international tourism. Indeed, yesterday, it was -8C.

Only the Government could lose three million learner drivers in a place where they cannot drive anyway but if they could they would be on the wrong side of the road.

This is shaping up to be this Government’s Winter of Disc Content. We had two statements on missing data, for the Chancellor did a little warm-up act. He came to tell us about the Poynter review into the loss of two discs from Revenue & Customs.

He had nothing new to say except that we should all be reassured that he had nothing new to say. He kept talking about the point of Poynter but, yesterday, it was definitely the Poyntless review.

Then Ruth popped up, wearing a jacket of terrifying pinkness. Since she went to Transport, she has mainly been seen and not heard. She looks terrific: she is the only person in politics to have a makeover and look better for it. So there she was, shiny hair bouncing, make-up perfect, jacket artfully fastened. Then she opened her mouth and she was the same old Ruth, her deep voice droning away and making hypnotists happy.

Her statement was back to front. First she told us what she was doing to fix whatever it was that had gone wrong. We all wondered what it was. She told us she had taken “five key actions”, none of which sounded very key or very active. So now we knew it was pretty bad.

Then she said: “In the interests of greater transparency, I would like to draw the House’s attention to one such breach, which affects a significant number of people.”

This was a sentence to savour. Now we know the new definition of the word “significant”: it means three million. Pearson Driving Assessments had notified her that a “hard disc drive” had gone missing from a “secure” facility.

Why did she call the facility “secure”? This is, by definition, an insecure facility. The whole thing was proof, if more were needed, that this Government has L-plates. I am not sure that it should even be driving, much less be allowed on what used to be called, rather quaintly, the information superhighway.

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