UK Parliament / Open data

Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Bill [HL]

Perhaps it would be useful if I were to ask my question now, rather than interrupt the Minister again. The noble Baroness, Lady Hanham, is quite right about this clause, which is of great concern to us, too. The Minister was saying that Clause 16 is very narrow and that only in a small number of cases would this data sharing take place. The difficulty is that the Government have included a let-out clause that talks about the prevention of crime. I am sure that we shall examine that in more detail, but it is hard to see how it is a narrow function, as an official could claim that almost anything was done to aid the prevention of crime. How does the Minister think that including such a widening and enabling phrase helps to keep the clause sufficiently narrow to give us any hope at all?

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

708 c224 

Session

2008-09

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords chamber
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