Serious Crime Bill [HL]

First, I do not know whether the noble Lord, Lord Hylton, had the advantage of being with us throughout the debate today or on earlier occasions. At the beginning of this evening’s discussion, I sought to set out how the clauses in this part operate together, and to give a bit of the history on how the fraud initiatives were set out, the basis on which the Data Protection Act operated and how the Audit Commission worked with the fraud initiative together with the Information Commissioner. I invite the noble Lord to look at that in due course, because it may be of assistance. In a short form, I will look at where we are now. Data-matching has been undertaken by the Audit Commission through the national fraud initiative. It has identified, as a result, significant areas of fraud, and through that expertise it has been able to assist the various agencies to better protect their systems. It is really looking at systemic issues that the authorities and the agencies can address to make their systems more robust and more resilient to fraud. In addition, that has revealed trends and patterns that merit further investigation. The noble Lords, Lord Burnett and Lord Lucas, emphasised their concern about improper use of personal data in a way which, by its essence, would be contrary to the Data Protection Act. I have sought to reassure the Committee that the Act, and the way in which it bites on those who seek to use personal data, will be fully functional in relation to those provisions. The matches that will be disclosed relating to individuals will only disclose current analysis indicating current fraud; they will not refer to speculative future patterns. The Audit Commission will not use the national fraud initiative to trawl for patterns and trends concerning individuals’ behaviour or conduct, only systems-based, non-personal information to identify emergent risks. That is the sole purpose to which they will put that data. Data-matching is a well proven technique that is authorised under the powers given to auditors under the Audit Commission Act. We are now legislating to extend its benefits to new bodies and to put in place appropriate protections. One of our concerns, which is shared by the Committee, is that if we are to move forward it should not cause a diminution in the safeguards necessary to protect the data, and we should do it only on a basis that is safe, transparent and proper. We seek in the Bill to accept that those areas will be extended to further bodies, and we are saying that the safeguards that are currently in place for the restricted number of bodies should extend to all of those who will seek to undertake this work. That is proper; therefore, it has been of considerable assistance to us to, first, identify people’s concerns and, secondly, to be able to address them, because noble Lords are raising perfectly proper issues on which they seek reassurance. These were very much the questions that the Government asked ourselves as we prepared for the Bill: what are the safeguards? How can we guarantee that the Data Protection Act will continue? What will be the role of the Information Commissioner, and how will it fit together? I hope that I have been able to reassure the Committee that the national fraud initiative does not need or desire to look at the content of bank accounts—the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, was concerned about that—but it does check whether the account has been disclosed to the housing benefit authorities, for example. We are looking at the trend of fraud right across the piece. We believe that this is a productive and successful way of better identifying fraud in a way that is safe, proportionate and fair.