Protection of Freedoms Bill

My Lords, this amendment probes an idea. I am afraid that it was borrowed from one proposed in another place and, although it is not perfect, it will do just to sound out the concept and idea. I think that that is very important. I spoke along these lines a long time ago in a debate on the report of the Science and Technology Committee on personal internet security, on 10 October 2008 in col. 467, if anyone is interested enough to look it up. We are getting a plethora of commissioners, with five of them looking at different aspects of information privacy, so there is a huge opportunity for things to fall between the cracks when there is no overlap—or there is an overlap, and nobody knows whose jurisdiction it falls within. Every time we have another thing, we invent another commissioner, and that concerns me. We are not taking an overall overview approach to this issue. Also, as new things emerge, where do you fit them in? Which commissioner do you fit them with, or do you invent a new commissioner each time? The second challenge that I had was with the logical difficulty of a commissioner reporting back through the very person on whom he is reporting—because most of them, except for the Information Commissioner, report to the Secretary of State and on things that the Secretary of State’s department is doing. The Secretary of State has the right to edit the report before it goes public, in the public interest, which can mean almost anything. So I am challenged by that idea. The reason why I like the set-up for the Information Commissioner under the Data Protection Act is because that commissioner reports to Parliament and is appointed by Her Majesty using letters patent. Therefore, that commissioner reports directly to us. On the other hand, there is a challenge for the Information Commissioner as a single person. For example, when that commissioner had to criticise Parliament over expenses, I know that the previous Information Commissioner, Richard Thomas, felt very exposed as a single person; some complaints were aimed very personally at him. So at that point, I thought that maybe we should have an authority—more of a group of people. So I would rather draw all these commissioners into one person information protection authority, or PIPA, which would be answerable to Parliament, not through the Secretary of State. Philosophically, in a democracy, that would be a far better way in which to organise it all. Anything new could go into that; they could work out whose responsibility the different bits were. Some of them would have a very high security classification, as some of the aspects for the Surveillance Commissioner have to have. I am promoting this, hoping that it will find favour, but as usual I expect that the Civil Service would prefer to retain control over their commissioners and the people reporting on them. I think that that is unfortunate. One reason for choosing PIPA is that you have to remember that he who pays the piper calls the tune.