Identity Cards Bill

moved Amendment No. 36:"Page 2, line 14, leave out paragraph (g)." The noble Baroness said: I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 37, 38 and 59. I realise that the hour is getting late, and I shall be brief to the point of perhaps being too brief. Amendments Nos. 36, 37 and 39 probe why the register should be used to store personal numbers and what exactly those numbers are intended to be. I raise this because there is no guidance in the explanatory notes. There may be some innocent answer but we have not yet been given guidance. I have to test the Committee’s patience somewhat on Amendment No. 38 because it approaches a matter that could not be debated in another place. It relates to an amendment that the Government tabled very late in proceedings on Report, and because of the guillotine there was no opportunity for the Minister to explain the amendment. Considering the lateness of the hour, I wonder whether it would be convenient if I simply read into the record my questions and invite the Minister to write to me and all noble Lords present, and to place the letter in the Library so that we can consider our proceedings further on Report. If there is no objection from around the Committee, I shall proceed to do that. Subsection (6) was inserted by the Government on Report in another place. The Minister’s only comment on 18 October at col. 741 was:"““We do not have time to consider Government amendment No. 1, but I refer my hon. and learned Friend to it because it will give him the reassurance that he wants. The hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) raised the legitimate point in Committee that clause 1(5)(g) suggested that personal sensitive data could be covered by the Bill, such as those on the police national computer. We have thus tabled Government amendment No. 1 to rule out the use of sensitive personal data, as defined by the Data Protection Act 1998, with which my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr Marshall-Andrews) will be familiar””.—[Official Report, Commons, 18/10/05; col. 741.]" Similarly at Third Reading the Home Secretary pursued the same form of reassurance. The Government stated that they tabled the amendment specifically to restrict the database from containing sensitive personal data. My difficulty is that I have received briefing from concerned members of the public to say that the problem is that the real effect of the amendment, which is limited to Clause 1(5) (g), is to achieve the exact opposite of that intended by the Government. It is to permit the processing of sensitive personal data in the database. I must then demonstrate why I believe that the government amendment limited to Clause 1(5)(g) would have that opposite effect. The answer is as follows. The ID card database content is specified in Schedule 1. There are about 50 data classes that could be stored in a central register. Those registrable facts fall within nine categories specified in Clause 1(5)(a) to (i). I shall not bore the Committee by reading them out; they are in the Bill. The technical amendment now forming Clause 1(6) tabled by the Home Secretary states that the registrable facts falling within paragraph (g) above,"““do not include any sensitive personal data (within the meaning of the Data Protection Act 1998, (c.29)) or anything the disclosure of which would tend to reveal such data””." By inference, that limitation automatically implies that paragraphs (a) to (i), except (g), could include sensitive personal data. So the amendment must be considered in conjunction with powers in the Bill to amend the database. Clause 3(5) states that the Secretary of State may, by order, modify the information for the time being set out in Schedule 1—which contains the ID card database. Thus, there are powers in the Bill to add sensitive personal data, such as criminal records and medical records, to items (a) to (i), except (g), to the register later. In other words, if the Government deem it relevant to hold criminal or health records in the database—for example, in connection with the purpose of securing the efficient and effective provision of public services in Clause 1(4) (e), primary legislation is not needed. That would be at odds with the statement of the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, to the Third Report of the House Of Lords Constitution Committee at Appendix 3. She wrote:"““Personal information not relevant for identification purposes and so not consistent with the statutory purposes (such as tax information, medical records and criminal records) cannot therefore be held on the Register without the Government passing fresh primary legislation””." My amendment was tabled to ensure that the stated intention of the Government is carried into effect. It would achieve the objective set out by Mr Burnham and Mr Clarke in another place on Report and Third Reading and by the noble Baroness in her letter to the Select Committee on the Constitution. That is especially relevant in the light of questions raised earlier today on another amendment by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell-Savours, about the activities of the Inland Revenue. I stress that I do not doubt the Government’s good intention by their amendment to exclude sensitive personal information. My concern is that, because there was not adequate time to debate an amendment that was welcomed on all sides, there may be an unintended consequence. With that, although I shall beg to move the amendment, I anticipate shortly formally to beg to withdraw it, in the anticipation that, in the mean time, before Report, the noble Baroness will write to me and other Members of the Committee. I beg to move.