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Mr. Clifton-Brown: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 21 ordered to stand part of the Bill.
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Clause 22
Power to authorise other uses of information
Mr. Malins: I beg to move amendment No. 118, in clause 22, page 19, line 45, at end insert—
'(ca) any disclosure of information which results or would result in interference with an individual's private and family life is proportionate, and is for the purpose of—
(i) the protection of public safety or public health, or
(ii) the protection of the rights and freedoms of others;'.
The amendment is perhaps different in tone and type from a number of other amendments that have been debated so far. We are all aware that clause 22 provides general powers for wide-ranging disclosures of details from the register without the consent of the cardholder. The Government have so far given few examples of why they need such powers, other than to say that they are useful to have. The clause thus permits general disclosure without consent for unspecified purposes, where the only thing that we can be sure of is that the purposes are not national security or crime and taxation, which are the subject of other disclosure powers.
It is important to stress that the equivalent of the clause was criticised as unacceptable in the Home Affairs Committee report on the draft ID card Bill. I cannot lay my hand on that reference this morning, but I believe that it is right and is contained in that report. I would be grateful if the Minister could comment on that at some length to satisfy me.
The clause is an obvious target of criticism by the Joint Committee on Human Rights. Perhaps the Government will allow that Committee to report fully before the Bill has left the House of Commons, although I do not suppose that they will allow it to do so. In responding to the debate, the Minister has a golden opportunity to bring us up to date on the timing of the Joint Committee's report and its relevance to this matter.
My amendment links clause 22 with article 8 of schedule 1 of the Human Rights Act 1998, the first paragraph of which sets out a general duty of a public authority to respect an individual's private and family life and communications. The second paragraph outlines the exceptions from that obligation, so as to permit a public authority to interfere with private and family life, and therefore sets out the legitimate purposes that must underpin clause 22 disclosures in human rights terms. The second paragraph says:
''There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.''
It will not have escaped the attention of Government Members and my right hon. and hon. Friends that clause 22 makes no mention of necessity, hence amendment No. 118, which introduces a proportionality test.
The Committee will note that my amendment makes no mention of article 8 requirements in relation to the words
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''necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security''
and
''for the prevention of disorder or crime''.
I have no need to deal with those purposes. Crime, national security and taxation are the subject of clauses 19 to 21. We have also dropped the public ''morals'' part, too.
If one removes those elements of article 8, what is left pertaining to clauses 19 to 21 are the words,
''no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of public safety . . . the protection of health . . . or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.''
So the database could be used in public health emergencies when, as is sadly possible, thousands of corpses have to be identified and buried quickly. I think that the amendment is consistent with article 8, because it requires the disclosure without consent to be necessary in a democratic society, and requires the purpose to fall within an article 8 exception.
10.45 am
Mr. Browne: May I say that the timing of the Joint Committee on Human Rights report is out of my hands, which is entirely appropriate? I am aware that it is conducting an inquiry, although I am not aware of any particular communication from it that would assist hon. Members as to when it is likely to report. The Bill was published in November and what the Committee chooses to prioritise in its significant amount of work is a matter for it. I want to put it on record that there would be no question of the Government's allowing or disallowing it to do anything. This is entirely a matter for that Committee and the Government would in no way seek to interfere with the timing of any of its work.
I can deal with the amendment relatively quickly. We expect most checks on the register to be done with the consent of an individual. There are, of course, powers in the Bill that authorise the provision of information without consent in certain specified circumstances—for example, in relation to the police or security services. We have gone into the detail of those. However, in the light of the great variety of situations in which the scheme will operate, it is necessary to leave a certain discretion to provide relevant information from the register to relevant authorities.
Clause 22 is necessary to ensure flexibility and to prevent the need for further primary legislation. The hon. Gentleman figured out one set of circumstances where it might be necessary to provide a relevant authority with information. I am not entirely clear from the way he introduced the example whether it would precisely be covered by the Bill as drafted. That set of circumstances might already be covered.
However, there are circumstances where the Bill does not already cover the provision of information and where Parliament might decide it would be appropriate to give such information. Such examples
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might include giving information to local government for fraud investigation, to the Registrar General for statistical purposes or to the emergency services in the event of a major incident, if Parliament decides that that is necessary. None of those are covered thus far in the Bill by the definition of those to whom information may be given without consent. I am suggesting that there is the flexibility for provisions to be written in response to individual sets of circumstances if Parliament decides that that is appropriate and necessary.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: I am getting more and more concerned. One might have been concerned about the provisions in clauses 20 and 21, but clause 22 is even more draconian. This is a case where the stricter provisions under clauses 20 and 21 do not apply and the purposes can be extended by order of the Secretary of State. The Minister has just given the example of ''for statistical purposes''. We are talking about matters without the individual's consent. Why on earth would anybody want to make an entry in the register without the individual's consent for statistical purposes? His example makes me even more worried about the clause.
Mr. Browne: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, he might well have misunderstood me. I did not say that people would be able to make entries in the register for statistical purposes. As I understand it, the Registrar General will not be a Department in terms of clause 19(5), but we can understand that sometime in the future Parliament may wish persons who are not authorities covered by the Bill to have access to that information. If Parliament chooses not to do that, they will not have access.
Mr. Allan: On the principle of how we deal with legislation in the House, if the Minister is saying that he has a list of bodies that he anticipates will want access in the future, why has he not included them in the primary legislation in a schedule that lists them all? Why has he left it to this catch-all clause if he can imagine today that they are going to need access at some point?
Mr. Browne: With respect to the hon. Gentleman, I am not anticipating that bodies will need access. I was asked what bodies the provision could cover. The hon. Member for Woking set out circumstances in which it would clearly be in the public interest for Parliament to consider whether access to the register by an authority that was not already a public authority under the Bill should have access to identify, for example, a significant number of bodies of people who had been killed in a major disaster. That would of course be a matter for Parliament.
Standing here before the Committee, I cannot envisage every set of circumstances in which, when the register is in place, Parliament may decide that it would be in the public interest for access to be granted.
Mr. Clifton-Brown: I must press the Minister on this point, because if he does not satisfy me on it I suspect that he will not satisfy a large number of bodies outside the Committee. He has given the example of collecting statistics. That may be a legitimate reason for seeking to look at an entry on the register, but it is
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not a good reason for doing so without the individual's consent. We have to restrict the occasions when an entry on the register is going to be inspected without an individual's consent to purposes of national security and serious crime, rather than the much more trivial purpose of statistics. The fact that the Minister gave me that example makes me more, not less, concerned.
Mr. Browne: I gave the hon. Gentleman that example because we are in a situation where, for historical reasons, the Registrar General for Northern Ireland will be a public authority—
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