Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

I do not think I meant to use the words, ““that we did not like””. The question that I sought to address was on what basis we would not supply information. The noble Lord, Lord Hylton, has approached the matter by trying to define states in a particular way. The difficulty with the wording is that it does not mean anything, and I say that not in any disparaging sense. However, in law the wording does not have meaning. We have sought to approach this in another way. Responsibilities are put on those who seek to share information under the Human Rights Act. Our obligations are internal and the information must be disclosed within the context of the Human Rights Act. We do not try to define those states to which we would wish to disclose information. My personal view is that in considering disclosure and taking the two states identified by both noble Lords, Burma and Zimbabwe, we would have to be very careful to observe our human rights obligations for reasons that I do not need to spell out. Both noble Lords probably know far more about those regimes than I. But the critical factor is that in disclosing information, the chief police officer must take seriously our responsibilities under the Human Rights Act. On the previous amendments we considered the particular nature of Article 8, and of course we will expect chief police officers to fulfil their obligations properly. Personally, I think that that is a much better way of tackling the question than trying to define in legislation all the states noble Lords feel comfortable with while avoiding those states with which they would not wish us to exchange information. That would be difficult. Not only would it raise questions about the rule of law and democracy, but also the security of the systems prevailing in different states in terms of the information being shared. As I have said, even within the European Union that is a very live debate. States with excellent democracies and very good track records are still asked, in considering the question of sharing information, whether their systems can be relied on to ensure that the information is used appropriately and stored effectively. My response is that we have looked at this from the other end of the argument. Furthermore, in our definition, foreign law enforcement agencies must perform similar functions to a UK police force or the Serious Organised Crime Agency. In that way, we have defined the kind of organisations we will be dealing with. The obligation should be put on us, rather than to seek a definition of the nature of other states. We want to be in the same place, but in my view our approach is the better one.