Whitsun Adjournment

No, but I have a parliamentary question down to that effect, and I want to know the parliamentary procedure; I do not want to deny the opportunity of hon. Members in all parts of the House to say what their view is in debates of at least one and a half hours upstairs. I want to trespass into one other area that might get Members salivating. A lot has been said about the Freedom of Information Act 2000, even this morning, but the other side of the same coin is the Data Protection Act 1998. This needs to be looked at in respect of our own interests. There must not be a casual disclosure by this House of information relating to hon. Members in which there is a third-party interest under the Data Protection Act. There therefore needs not only to be time for Members to look at any disclosures proposed to be made; but the House authorities and hon. Members have also to be conscious of the fact that what is put into the public domain should be nothing with which another person outside this House has a legitimate interest and protection in relation to data protection. I am surprised that this issue has not been raised before, and I would be pleased to develop it with Members outside this Chamber. I say this because I have been the victim of an unauthorised disclosure, under the Data Protection Act, by a Government Department. I have kept mute about this for some time. What aggravated me is that when I found out about it, the Government Department concerned initially treated the matter with some levity, and since then, the people responsible for breaking the law in respect of me—and for a disclosure that included a defamatory statement about me—have been promoted. There have been discussions about beefing up the penalties in relation to data protection, and they should be. My personal experience indicated to me how casual and flippant people can be regarding the reckless disclosure of data when there is no real penalty. The point is true of both the public and private sectors.