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The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Mr. David Lock): I beg to move amendment No. 44, in page 1, line 15, leave out subsection (3) and insert--
'(3) Where a public authority--
(a) reasonably requires further information in order to identify and locate the information requested, and
(b) has informed the applicant of that requirement,
the authority is not obliged to comply with subsection (1) unless it is supplied with that further information.'.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following: Government amendments Nos. 45, 54, 89 and 90.
New clause 3--Duty to assist--
Mr. Lock:
This group of amendments deals with various procedural matters relating to requests for information. The first amendments to which I shall speak impose duties in various ways on authorities dealing with requests.
The Government have tabled amendment No. 44 in response to an earlier amendment to clause 1, moved in Committee by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Mr. Fisher), and I am happy to clarify the effect of the Bill in this regard. This is related to the Data Protection Act 1998, under which data controllers receive requests from members of the public for data that they hold. Amendment No. 89, therefore, inserts a new paragraph into schedule 6, which deals with further amendments to the 1998 Act, to make similar provision in that Act in respect of requests for personal information that fall within the scope of that Act.
Amendment No. 90 is designed simply to tidy up the drafting of paragraph 1 of schedule 6 as a consequence of amendment No. 89. Because amendment No. 89 inserts a new first paragraph into schedule 6, it is no longer necessary for the existing paragraph 1 to refer to the Data Protection Act 1998 in full.
Amendment No. 54 concerns the obligations that authorities have when refusing a request for information. The amendment will oblige authorities, when refusing an application for information, to inform the applicant of any internal review procedure the authority may have--or, indeed, to inform the applicant that the authority does not have such a procedure--and also to inform the applicant of their further right to apply for a decision by the Information Commissioner under clause 50.
The amendment makes explicit in the Bill what was already implicit. The Government have brought it forward in response to one moved by the right hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Mr. Maclennan), while taking into account any internal review procedure that an authority may have. It is, of course, important that any internal review procedure be first exhausted before the application is made to the commissioner. The amendment therefore addresses all relevant aspects of the issue, and clarifies applicants' appeal rights in the Bill.
Amendment No. 45 deals with the time for compliance. It places an upper limit on the Secretary of State's power by regulation to extend the statutory time limit for responses to applications beyond the 20 working days set out in clause 9(1). That upper limit--the longstop--is 60 working days from the day following the date of receipt of the application.
The 20 working day time limit for responses set out in subsection (1) was introduced following the Government's acceptance of a recommendation of the Select Committee
on Public Administration. Let me be clear from the outset that the Government believe that 20 working days is the right period within which a response should normally be given to an application. I will go further--subsection (1) provides specifically that a public authority must comply promptly with a request for information. We consider that 20 working days is the maximum that it should take, but we shall look to public authorities to respond earlier than the 20th day when an application is straightforward.
At present, the Government have no intention of extending the statutory time limit under regulations, but there should be provision in the Bill to do so if, at some future time, there is a genuine case for it. The power in subsection (3) is in reserve, and I repeat that the Government have no intention that it should be used except in exceptional circumstances. Regulations made under this subsection would not be appropriate, or indeed necessary, in respect of isolated cases, in which the Information Commissioner already has discretion to agree a different date. What is, however, needed is a power to prescribe a different day in the sort of situation in which, because of unforeseen circumstances, it would be unreasonable or impossible to deal with applications within the existing statutory deadlines.
I can understand why right hon. and hon. Members have tabled new clause 3. It would place public authorities under a statutory duty to assist applicants and to have regard to the guidance contained in the Secretary of State's code of practice in so doing. The Government sympathise fully with the desire behind the new clause to ensure that applicants are helped to exercise their rights rather than obstructed or hindered. That is an important part of the change of culture to which the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, my hon. Friend the Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. O'Brien), referred to before the Division.
When we replied to the report of the Select Committee on Public Administration on the White Paper, the Government accepted the need for authorities to give such assistance. I hope that the amendments that I have outlined have convinced those who tabled the new clause that, where appropriate, the Government are prepared to impose statutory duties on authorities to give reasonable help to applicants. However, after reflection we concluded that the best way to do that was not through the creation of a general, and somewhat vague, statutory duty along the lines proposed. Statutory duties must be clear, definite and enforceable if they are to have legal meaning, which they must if they are included in the Bill. In that way, not only will authorities be sure how to follow them, but the enforcement body can be sure when duties have been breached and has a route to provide a remedy. When a specific action can be identified, a duty may properly arise. That is why the Government have brought forward amendments to impose duties on authorities in the specific instances that I have just outlined--for example, the duty to request further information, or the duty to inform the applicant of their rights of appeal.
The new clause goes considerably further, and seeks to place a general, but insubstantial, duty on authorities that would be difficult to monitor and is so vague as to be difficult, if not downright impossible, to enforce. The content of the obligation is also so unclear as to leave authorities in an invidious position. What are reasonable steps in one situation may be different in another, depending on the type of request, the type of authority,
and the type of questioner. The sort of assistance that a large local authority or police service might reasonably give to an individual requester is different from the sort of assistance that a school governing body might reasonably be expected to give a parent-teacher association, and rightly so. Clearly, any duty in the Bill will apply to every public authority, however small, in whatever circumstances.
It is good practice for authorities to give help where appropriate, in ways that are appropriate. That is why we have drafted the Bill to include a requirement that the Secretary of State's code of practice made under clause 44 includes guidance on
In the light of the contents of the code and of the other amendments, I cannot invite the House to accept the new clause.
Mr. Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath):
Apart from the new clause, this is a group of Government amendments. Many of them are technical matters which the Government are using to amend their own legislation. We frequently find, with the pressure of time that the Government have imposed on themselves, that, at various stages during a Bill's proceedings, they say that they have got something wrong and have to tidy it up in response to pressure in Committee. My hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) raised a number of issues in Committee, not least in relation to data protection, as did many other members of the Committee.
I know that there are many lawyers in the House, but I may be unique in having conducted data protection cases in the courts. I do not know whether the Minister has. He shakes his head. Having dealt professionally with data protection issues before I came to the House--and afterwards, when I was still on the Back Benches--I know how complex they are. On this occasion, perhaps we should accept that the Government have been sensible to realise that certain changes needed to be made to the Bill as it overlaps with data protection issues. There was much discussion in Committee about the views of the Data Protection Registrar.
I do not want to detain the House on this group of amendments, among which are none from the Opposition Front-Bench team. However, I look forward with great interest to the speeches of those in the cross-party group which tabled new clause 3.
'.--(1) A public authority shall take all reasonable steps to assist any person in seeking to exercise any right under this Act.
(2) For the purpose of subsection (1) a public authority shall have regard to any relevant guidance contained in the code of practice issued under section 44.'.
the provision of advice by public authorities to persons who propose to make, or have made, requests for information to them.
This means that the sort of assistance that authorities should give can be described more broadly than is possible in a statutory provision. It also means that the commissioner, when issuing practice recommendations to authorities which have failed to comply with the code, can have regard to current best practice in making decisions, and not just to the strict letter of a statutory provision.
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