Serious Crime Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 115: 115: Schedule 6, page 68, leave out lines 12 to 21 The noble Baroness said: I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 116 and 117 as well. As has been remarked, if I had been minded to press the first amendment in the group, I then could not have addressed the other two. This reflects the complexity of this group. I would have preferred to assist Members of the Committee by unpacking it but I found it impossible to do so in Committee, where it is important to have a rounded debate on substantial issues. Therefore, as I remarked to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, earlier today, I treat this very much as a probing exercise at this stage, but, because these are contentious issues—perhaps the most contentiousin Part 3—I will listen carefully to the Minister’s response and consider how the amendments should be brought back on Report. The overall objective of this small but powerful group of amendments is to limit data-matching to serious crime, but it would substantially restrain an overweening power given to the Secretary of State to extend the purposes for which data-matching may take place. At present, data-matching may be conducted only for the prevention and detection of fraud. That is achieved by the drafting of new Section 32A(3) in Schedule 6(2). It would amend Section 18 of the Audit Commission Act 1998. However, the same schedule inserts new Section 32G, entitled ““Powers of Secretary of State””, which confers on the Secretary of State a power to extend the purposes for which data-matching may be conducted. Those powers can be extended by statutory instrument subject to the affirmative resolution procedure. The Bill provides by way of illustration a non-exhaustive, broad list of additional purposes. It includes prevention and detection of all crime—with no restriction at all—the apprehension and prosecution of offenders and the recovery of debts owed to public authorities. The schedule therefore appears to give the Secretary of State an open-sesame password for extensive and possibly objectionable powers in the future. Our amendments would restrict those powers and ask the Government to justify their attempts to future-proof the Bill in this way, because it leaves the system open to abuse and could result in the inappropriate invasion of individuals’ privacy. The schedule effectively says, ““Well, so far, we’ve thought of taking more powers in this way, but we won’t guarantee that we’ll stop there. Give us the powers to do as we please in the future””. That seems extraordinarily broad. As we have said repeatedly during our debates on the Bill, it is important to make the best use of modern data systems to detect or prevent fraud. However, we have serious reservations about the detail of the privacy implications of Part 3. I suspect that the Minister’s full and informative answers on Part 3 so far will persuade us that we need to bring back only a small number of amendments for further elucidation. The noble Baroness said that she would write to noble Lords to answer those questions that we have not had time to address. However, weare approaching the core differences between us onPart 3. Amendment No. 115 would restrict the use of data-matching to fraud by removing subsections (1) and (2) of new Section 32G, which provide the Secretary of State with the power to extend the purpose for which data-matching can be undertaken by increasing the involvement of private bodies in data-matching exercises and amending the Data Protection Act 1998. New subsection (2) provides the non-exhaustive list of additional purposes. Amendment No. 116 would insert a new subsection to prevent the Secretary of State expanding the use of data-matching to include assisting the recovery of debt incurred as a result of serious crime. Amendment No. 117 would remove new Section 32G(3). We are concerned at how the provisions of this part of the schedule could be used in the future. For example, will the Minister explain how the Bill would guarantee that the national identity register could not be used for data-mining or data-matching purposes, except in cases of serious crime? The Minister will recall our extensive debates on the Identity Cards Bill and her assurances regarding the use of the NIR where serious crime was involved. When I looked at the Bill, I could not easily see the guarantee that I seek. My noble friend Lord Henley asked the Minister questions from another angle about the national identity register when he moved Amendment No. 110B last night, but he does not recall her answering those questions. I looked at Hansard this morning and did not find an answer, although it may be an issue on which she intended to write to my noble friend. However, today I seek guidance on where in the Bill I might find the guarantee that the information that is to be opened up to data-matching and data-mining by these provisions would not include the national identity register. It is far from clear that any assertion that data-matching can prevent fraud is justification itself for the extensive powers in Schedule 6. The Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee pointed out in its report that it felt that the Government failed to justify fully the need for this power of modification in their Explanatory Memorandum. I would be grateful if the Minister could today provide thatfuller justification that the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee obviously felt should have been provided. In this part of the Bill there is a strong case for saying that any changes by order are not appropriate and that we should seek to extend purposes only by way of primary legislation. Noble Lords have just seen a prime example of the limitations on this House in dealing with a statutory instrument. The noble Lord, Lord Trimble, moved what would have been a fatal Motion on Northern Ireland matters. I am not commenting on that; I abstained in that regard. The Minister will be aware that it is extraordinarily rare for my noble friends to vote on a whipped vote to kill a statutory instrument, which cannot be amended but only rejected. Of course, there may be free votes, but I have not taken part in the 10 years that I have been here in a whipped vote to kill a statutory instrument. It is so rare that when the Criminal Justice Act went through, the Minister will remember, the Government gave a specific assurance that, if a statutory instrument were brought forward to enable the abolition of jury trial in serious fraud cases, the Government would accept that my noble friends might well choose to vote down that statutory instrument. It is not sufficient for the Government to say that there is an affirmative process. In some circumstances, with matters of constitutional importance, one may of course vote, but they are so rare that it is important always to see whether the procedure is appropriate. In this case, unless we have acceptable assurances—at the moment I cannot see how they might be—changes to extend the Secretary of State’s purposes, adding matters to the schedule, should be by primary legislation not statutory instrument. I beg to move.