Serious Crime Bill [HL]

My Lords, the noble Lord is fully entitled to express his view on which way the electorate should vote later in the week, but it was the Welsh Assembly Government who decided in December that the Welsh public bodies should in the first instance be subject to data-matching provisions for the Auditor General for Wales rather than the Audit Commission so as to provide consistency with all other audit arrangements. I listened carefully to the noble Lord, Lord Dholakia. His comments related only to data sharing. The amendments deal only with data matching. This matching will be covered by the safeguards that the JCHR deemed appropriate. We will look more closely at its concerns about data sharing. We therefore recognise the importance of the issue that the noble Lord raised. I think that I have responded to the points that were raised. I hope that noble Lords will now feel able to support the amendments. On Question, amendment agreed to.