Serious Crime Bill [HL]

Indeed. I am grateful to noble Lords who have contributed to this debate on what is a key matter, as the noble Baroness accepted. It is about public confidence. I appreciate that the Government are concerned about that. Any Government would be, otherwise they would not win the next election—although I hope that this one will not. The noble Baroness looks shocked. Does she think that I would hope otherwise? It is difficult to see how the Bill as currently structured provides cohesive protection for the public. I know that the Government are trying to achieve that; I do not question that. The noble Baroness refers to the protection of, for example, the Data Protection Act; she has done so before. However, she will know from what I said at Second Reading that people outside this House have briefed us on their concerns that there are gaps; they have said that the Bill may have been drafted in such a way that the Data Protection Act does not cover all the new provisions. That is why we are testing the boundaries of protection. The noble Baroness said that there are other safeguards, and she went through them, which was very helpful. However, I agree with my noble friend Lord Crickhowell that we could end up without a coherent system of protection to which one could easily refer. It may well be that that is not achievable, but our first stab at achieving it was to ask the Secretary of State to table a code of practice. My noble friends and others have tabled amendments that look specifically at the role of the Information Commissioner. Like the Minister, I have great confidence in the work that the Information Commissioner does in supervising all these matters of data protection. The quotation that my noble friend Lord Crickhowell gave from the British Bankers’ Association directed us to the importance of getting those protections right. I appreciate the fact that we are not going to solve this tonight, but I think that we have made a helpful start in looking at how codes of practice may work in some way. It is a case of where that might fit in the Bill. At this stage, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. [Amendment No. 104 not moved.]