Education and Skills Bill

moved Amendment No. 95: 95: Clause 16, page 9, line 19, at end insert— ““( ) The provisons of section 15(4), (5), (6) and (7) shall apply to any person to whom subsection (1) applies.”” The noble Baroness said: These simple amendments are designed to create consistency in respect of those penalties that would apply to people disclosing information inappropriately. Clause 15 sets out the six conditions under which information can be disclosed or transmitted. We simply seek for those same conditions to apply to Clause 16 and for the penalties which relate to inappropriate disclosure to apply as well. It is a criminal offence to disclose the information to which Clause 15 relates, which amounts to personal details—someone’s name, address and date of birth, or the name and address of their parents—but it is not a criminal offence to disclose wrongly people’s health records, police records, criminal records or education records. It seems illogical that the disclosure of some sensitive details can attract a penalty while the disclosure of other sensitive and possibly more damaging details does not. I beg to move.