Education and Skills Bill

moved Amendment No. 72: 72: Clause 14, page 7, line 47, at beginning insert ““Subject to the provisions of the Data Protection Act 1998 (c. 29),”” The noble Baroness said: I shall speak to all the amendments in this group. We originally had these amendments in a number of different groups; that was how they were debated in another place, but it inevitably led to a duplication of arguments. I thought that it would assist the Committee if we debated these similar topics together. One of the problems of such a large grouping is the danger of not speaking to each specific amendment, but I have the utmost confidence in the Minister, who I know will still give me a thoroughly comprehensive answer even if I have not asked the question. This group of amendments aims to inject some caution into the provisions on information sharing and provision in the Bill. We must be careful when it comes to handing information to the state. People ought to be consulted about which of their personal details will be passed on to agencies. They must be confident that the information is correct and is not going to be misused. The Government’s track record of losing disks, laptops and files, of leaving them on trains or of losing data in the post, is not the best—and the list seems to grow ever longer. The Bill must comply with the Data Protection Act, which gives people the right to access their personal data. It imposes an obligation on schools and colleges to provide information about their students to a local authority if they are requested to do so by that authority. Such information could relate to the student’s academic record, to personal problems brought to a tutor’s attention, to financial or health information, or information on behaviour—indeed, anything else that the school or college happens to hold. Clause 14(4) as it stands allows an opt-out, but our amendment would make it an opt-in approach. We would require the student to give written consent before any information about him could be supplied. That would mean that the local authority would have actively to approach the student to ask for consent so that the student would necessarily know what was going on. We are talking about the most sensitive and private information. It is not unreasonable that we should give individuals a say over what local authorities and others are collecting on them and why. Giving people control over their own personal details should be an uncontroversial measure. Our amendments would also give the student the right to examine the information and have any inaccuracies corrected. If agreement on the correction could not be reached, the matter would be referred to a neutral body—the Information Commissioner—for adjudication. I cannot see why it should be a contentious proposal. There can be no defence for allowing incorrect information to go unchecked, when the consequences could have such serious repercussions. I beg to move.