Identity Cards Bill

moved Amendment No. 214:"Page 19, line 23, at end insert—" ““(   )   Where subsection (2) applies, the Secretary of State shall notify the individual in writing that he has taken action under that subsection within 30 days of doing so.”” The noble Baroness said: I beg to move Amendment No. 214 standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Crickhowell. Clause 21 will allow the Secretary of State to tell somebody who is not the subject of the information that something recorded about an individual is inaccurate or incomplete; and it will allow him to tell that unspecified third party that the information on the register is inaccurate or incomplete without even letting the subject of the information himself or herself know either that the information is inaccurate or incomplete or that the Secretary of State has told somebody else that the information is inaccurate or incomplete. Why should this be so? We say that the Secretary of State should notify the person who is the subject of the information in writing that he has taken such action within 30 days of taking that action. The period of 30 days has been plucked out of the air as a reasonable one. If the Government propose another more reasonable period, I could be persuaded to accept it. If the Government are not minded to look kindly on my amendment—and something tells me that they may not—they should explain what kind of information may be held on the register about me that is likely to be inaccurate or incomplete and which it would be in the public interest that I should not know about. I beg to move.