My Lords, I apologise to the House and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in particular; but having sat through nine days of this Committee, I was keen to get stuck in. I wanted to speak on group 10, particularly in support of the amendments of my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath.
The issue of data is clearly crucial. It is a shame, as was said on the previous group, that there is not a Bill on it in itself; it is worthy of that level of discussion. It is such a shame that we are discussing it now late at night under pressure of time.
11.15 pm
I have three concerns about the use of data available from our NHS. I hope the Minister will take on board the concerns that have been widely expressed and indicate a desire to see what can be done to address them. Data is the lifeblood of research, which is important for planning our health service. We know it is essential, but it needs to be handled with the utmost care.
First, it has to be recognised that it is always relatively easy to identify people from even anonymised health records. A war is going on between people who have developed smart programmes which can identify people from minimal information. That very much needs to be kept in mind. The Catch-22 is that we need the information for it to be useful. At the same time, useful information becomes readily identified. It is not just a matter of removing names; it is the way in which different databases are put together. Mobile phone records are clearly a big key here.
Secondly, a single, centralised database cannot be adequately secured against serious attack or accidental breach. It will always be there and always be challenged.
The more monolithic it is, the more readily it will be available to be hacked. There are other less risky ways of achieving the data.
Thirdly and most crucially, we need more clarity about what exactly is to be shared. Is it the data or access to the data? If the data is retained by those who acquire it in the first place, it will be much harder for it to get into the hands of a third party. If only the ability to query data is available, it will be much harder to lose control.
These issues are hard and I am sure we will discuss them again. Will the Minister acknowledge the problems and the need for them to be addressed?