UK Parliament / Open data

Untitled Proceeding contribution

Proceeding contribution from Baroness Thornton (Labour) in the House of Lords on Wednesday, 4 November 2020.

I gave the Minister notice last week that I might well want to speak after her, and I am doing that, for two reasons. One is to remind the Committee that, although we will allow the government amendments to go through without any objection, we do not agree with them, and will probably seek to amend them at a later stage.

The second point is to do with the word “person”. I thank the Minister for going into some detail, but frankly, that alarmed me more than reassured me, so I think we may have to engage with this, and discuss how to remove that word. It would be much too dangerous and risky to have such an amorphous expression in the Bill. Perhaps the Bill team could find some expression that, although it does not list all the different things that the person is supposed to be, provides some protection to cover the range of bodies that need to be consulted. I accept that we do not want long definitions in the Bill, but I am concerned about our having such an open definition, and we may discuss this again at a later stage.

2.45 pm

About this proceeding contribution

Reference

807 c311GC 

Session

2019-21

Chamber / Committee

House of Lords Grand Committee
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