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Mr. Speaker: I am interested to hear the hon. Gentleman mention the word "finally", because I must give the Minister an opportunity to reply.
Andrew Mackinlay (Thurrock) (Lab): It is not the Minister's fault—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. As the hon. Member says, it is not the Minister's fault. I should also say that I have given the hon. Gentleman a great deal of latitude and he may wish to know that the Minister can reply only on certain matters that he has raised.
Mr. Hawkins: As I say, Mr. Speaker, I turn finally to the data protection issues, which I have discussed with the Minister outside the House, so I can be brief.
The Information Commissioner has helpfully stated how Members of all political parties can avoid the problem in the future. He said, and the Minister has seen the letter:
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"How the Data Protection Act applies to political parties is dependent on how the parties are organised. If . . . local constituency parties are considered at law to be separate unincorporated associations . . . this means that, for data protection purposes, each local constituency party will need to address its own data protection responsibilities. It is . . . important to be clear about the nature of the relationship between individual local constituency parties and the party's 'central office' . . . It is important to be clear whether members sign up to join a 'national' party and do so by applying direct to the central office and/or by applying to their local party, or whether members, by whichever route they apply for membership, are in fact members of the local constituency party in which they live. Whatever the position, this should be made clear to members when they join. Further it should be made clear to members who will have access to their membership details. For example . . . Will details be made available to any member of their local constituency party? Will they be available to the constituency MP? Will they only be made available to the local branch officials to use for party administration?"
That is crucial, Mr. Speaker, because you and the Minister will appreciate that if, in future, any MP of whatever party is able, with the protection of that advice, to gain access to the full list of members, the local party apparatchiks would not be able to spread rumour and innuendo. The MP would be able to talk to directly to members and perhaps the 50 per cent. of my local party members who did not vote in the reselection ballot might then have voted. I am concerned to ensure that what happened to me does not happen to other hon. Members in future. The Information Commissioner has provided the way out of the problem.
Those who know me well know that I am a film buff. Some will have heard me say that I was inspired both to read for the Bar and subsequently to go into politics by the performance of the great actor, Robert Donat, in the film of the Terence Rattigan play, "The Winslow Boy". The crucial phrase said by the actor is, "Let right be done". To add a more contemporary political reference, the present Governor of California's most famous character says, "I'll be back". I have not gone yet, Mr. Speaker, but let right be done and I'll be back.
10.23 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs (Mr. Christopher Leslie): The fact that it is not the Government's fault is one of the first things that needs to be put on the record—[Interruption.]
I start by thanking the hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Mr. Hawkins) for his kind comments at the outset. Clearly, the House will note with great interest and considerable concern many of the illuminating comments that he made this evening. There are wider issues, in respect not only of the rules governing the dissemination of political party membership lists, but of the circumstances that he encountered in the course of the selection and reselection process by the local Conservative association.
Before I address some of those wider issues, I should like to put on the record my own observations about the hon. Gentleman. He has been my opposite number during the past year while I have been Under-Secretary in the Department for Constitutional Affairs. I have always held him in high regard and with great respect.
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Although we disagree fundamentally on policy and party positions, he has always been very courteous, thorough and assiduous in his duties. I find that the hon. Gentleman is effective in making his party's case, raising pertinent questions and holding the Government to account. I know that he feels, deeply, that that is part of his duty. I am sorry that he is now less likely to continue in that role in the next Parliament.
I shall deal only in the briefest sense with some of the issues that have been raised in connection with the guidance from the Information Commissioner on the application of data protection legislation. The Commissioner operates independently of Government. Except for the courts, only he can give an authoritative interpretation of the Data Protection Act 1998. That Act sets the rules with which all organisations using personal data must comply, and also creates rights for individuals in respect of their personal data.
The 1998 Act sets out a general framework of eight good handling rules known as the data protection principles, which regulate the processing of personal information. The rules are not prescriptive: they are not "dos and don'ts", and organisations must use their judgment when applying the principles.
The first data protection principle is of particular importance in the context of membership details of political parties or other organisations, whether at a national or a local level. Among other things, the first principle requires personal data to be processed fairly. That means being open with the people from whom one collects information about how one intends to use that information.
Specifically, the first principle requires organisations—known in the legislation as "data controllers"—to make clear to people, when their data are collected, the identity of the data controller or his nominated representative, the purposes for which the data are intended to be processed, and any further information that is necessary in the specific circumstances to enable the processing to be fair.
However, as the Information Commissioner pointed out in his letter to the hon. Member for Surrey Heath, the 1998 Act does not dictate who, within any membership organisation, should have access to membership details. Instead, the position is that the organisation should clearly establish who will have access to the membership details concerned and then ensure that that is made clear to members when they join.
Finally, it should be noted that the 1998 Act does not require the disclosure of personal information if an organisation does not wish to disclose it. That is not part of the Act's remit.
The hon. Member for Surrey Heath made a variety of comments about allegations about payments to local associations being required as a condition of selection, and so on. I do not want to go into those too much, although the stories are worrying. They suggest that candidates were sometimes viewed as valuable commodities in more ways than one.
As we all know, if hon. Members wish to donate sums of money from their private salaries to their local parties, that is their business. The report in the Mail on Sunday raised the spectre that some hon. Members might have their freedom fettered by demands for
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payment as a condition for selection or reselection. However, there is also a separate issue about the use of public funds.
If hon. Members use their personal allowances to purchase services from political parties or others, there are basic obligations that must be observed. Mr. Cameron, head of operations in the Department of Finance and Administration, wrote to all hon. Members a year or two ago to say that in such cases hon. Members must lodge with the Fees Office copies of their service agreements and/or rental agreements, and that they must also satisfy themselves that any sums paid to party organisations in this way are for services actually provided, and that they must represent value for money for the taxpayer. Those are pretty fundamental matters.
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As I said, at this stage it is probably best that I do not comment on any individual cases, although the points made by the hon. Member for Surrey Heath are now on the record. Any specific questions about the use of parliamentary allowances would not be for me or the Government to answer, but for the relevant House authorities.
In the meantime, the hon. Member for Surrey Heath has clearly exercised his right to put his case on the record, and that is now available for his constituents to read and to hear.
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