Serious Crime Bill [HL]

I strongly support my noble friend’s amendment. As he said, it follows on very properly from the debates that we had on Amendment No. 103 on the code of practice for sharing data. The amendment would give practical clarity to the provisions governing the disclosure of information, against a background of reminding us of some of the concerns in this country about how information may or may not be disclosed. My noble friend was absolutely right to draw our attention to the fact that IT has developed exponentially since the passage of the 1998 Act. We have to look carefully at whether there is now a further need to strengthen data protection just at a time when the Government appear, through the Bill, to be trying to weaken it. Like my noble friend, I was struck by the fact that we are having these debates against the background of the decision in the past few days of the Home Affairs Select Committee in another place to carry outa thorough investigation into what has been colloquially called the ““surveillance society””. It will be looking specifically at data protection and data exchange as part of that investigation. Obviously, another place will benefit from that report when this Bill reaches it; we shall not, which is a disadvantage to noble Lords in considering the Bill. My noble friend has argued his case with devastating logic. Of course we all agree, as we have said before, that there are legitimate arguments in favour of the utility of databases, and there are arguments that could strengthen the security of people in this country. Yet again, as my noble friend has made clear, it is essential that where there are links between different data sources or an increased use of data matching, we are sure that that is subject to very clear parliamentary debate and accountability. I hope that the amendment will be accepted. If the Government say that the drafting is not perfect at this stage, I hope they will accept it in principle and work with my noble friend in trying to achieve a drafting that would be able to go on to the statute book. The amendment, and the principle behind it, will not easily go away.