Digital Switchover (Disclosure of Information) Bill

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The Committee consisted of the following Members:

Chairman: Derek Conway

† Brown, Mr. Russell (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab)

† Follett, Barbara (Stevenage) (Lab)

† Foster, Mr. Don (Bath) (LD)

† Griffith, Nia (Llanelli) (Lab)

† Grogan, Mr. John (Selby) (Lab)

† Holmes, Paul (Chesterfield) (LD)

† Irranca-Davies, Huw (Ogmore) (Lab)

† Khan, Mr. Sadiq (Tooting) (Lab)

† Lancaster, Mr. Mark (North-East Milton Keynes) (Con)

† Reed, Mr. Jamie (Copeland) (Lab)

† Robertson, John (Glasgow, North-West) (Lab)

† Syms, Mr. Robert (Poole) (Con)

† Tami, Mark (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)

† Vaizey, Mr. Edward (Wantage) (Con)

Wilson, Mr. Rob (Reading, East) (Con)

† Woodward, Mr. Shaun (Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport)

† Wright, Jeremy (Rugby and Kenilworth) (Con)

Hannah Weston, Committee Clerk

† attended the Committee

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Public Bill Committee

Tuesday 16 January 2007

(Morning)

[Derek Conway in the Chair]

Digital Switchover (Disclosure of Information) Bill

10.30 am

The Chairman: Good morning. I am sorry that we could not secure a larger Committee Room, but we will have to make do with this one. I remind Members that adequate notice should be given of amendments. As a general rule, I do not intend to call starred amendments, including any that may be reached during an afternoon sitting. I am quite content for Members to remove their jackets if they wish to do so.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Mr. Shaun Woodward): I beg to move,

That—

(1) the Committee shall (in addition to its first meeting at 10.30 a.m. on Tuesday 16th January) meet—

(a) at 4.00 p.m. on Tuesday 16th January;

(b) at 9.00 a.m. and 1.00 p.m. on Thursday 18th January;

(2) the proceedings shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at 4.00 p.m. on Thursday 18th January.

Good morning Mr. Conway. I welcome you to the Chair, and I welcome the Clerk and other Officers of the House to the Committee as we debate this important Bill and the motion before us. Mr. Conway, I am sure that you will add your normal skill and customary guidance to our deliberations. The room is cavernous, but as we know, size is no indication of quality, and I am sure that you will keep us in order during our sittings.

There have been a number of discussions through the usual channels on the programme motion. The discussions have been full and comprehensive, and I understand that all parts of the House have satisfactorily resolved that we have adequate time to discuss the important clauses, if hon. Members so wish, and any relevant amendments.

It is fair to say that, as a matter of principle, the Bill is not controversial. It has support from all parts of the House, and I am sure that hon. Members will wish only to improve the content of the legislation before the Committee and the House.

Mr. Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con): I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Conway. As this is the first Public Bill Committee that I have attended in my capacity as a Front-Bench spokesman, you can imagine that I am incredibly nervous. It is therefore reassuring to have a Chairman of your standing and experience in the Chair. I hope that you will indulge me, as I am almost certain to make a series of terrible faux pas and mistakes, and that you will use your experience to guide me through the maze of proceedings.

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The Minister is correct: the Opposition believe that there is adequate time to debate the Bill. However, I note, and my inexperience will now show through, that on Thursday when the Committee is due to sit at 1 o’clock, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport will be making an important announcement on the licence fee.

Mr. Woodward: Mr. Conway, it may be helpful for you as Chairman to know that through the usual channels, there has been discussion about that point. We are more than prepared and very happy to sit until at least 10 o’clock this evening if that would help the Committee to avoid the problem that the hon. Gentleman has posed. I thank my colleagues and hon. Friends in advance for that.

Mr. Vaizey: It would certainly help the Committee, but it would be a blow to the new constituency of Hammersmith, because it is expecting me to launch the new Hammersmith Conservative Association, whose parliamentary candidate will take control of that seat, and whose local authority has already reduced its council tax by 3 per cent. after taking over from a hideous left-wing regime that taxed its residents through the nose. But I digress. I should not want the House to be deprived of the talents of the hon. Member for Bath or of the Minister when the TV licence fee is debated.

As the Minister said, the Bill is important but small. It is technical, but no doubt it will give members of the Committee an opportunity to raise some important issues. It is a great pleasure to see present so many Members who contributed in such a distinguished fashion on Second Reading. I exclude myself from that praise. Although the Bill is small, it represents the biggest civil project in Britain’s recent history, as the Secretary of State herself has said. We will want to probe the Minister on many of the details of how the scheme will operate. Some issues will be raised through the amendments and others will emerge as we debate the Bill clause by clause. I echo the Minister’s sentiment that there is consensus in the Committee that the Bill is necessary, and we wish it a speedy passage.

Mr. Don Foster (Bath) (LD): I, too, welcome you to the Chair, Mr. Conway.

We are looking forward to relatively brief deliberations on this important Bill. The Minister says that it is not controversial, and in one sense he is absolutely right. We saw on Second Reading that there is a great deal of support on both sides of the House for digital switchover. There is also recognition that, because the more vulnerable in society will need assistance, data should be made available so that we can go ahead with a package of help for such people. In that respect, the Bill is not controversial.

However, a number of issues need to be raised, so it is important that the programme motion should allow the necessary time for the debate to take place. The Bill is about making available data for a targeted help scheme, yet its scope is so limited that we will not have the opportunity to discuss who is going to be helped by the scheme. We see in the answers to a range of parliamentary questions that the number of people who are to be helped appears to grow almost daily. At the beginning of January last year, the Minister told us that 5 million

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people were going to be helped, and by the end of the year the figure had risen to 7.1 million. Although we do not know who these people are going to be, we are meant to be discussing access to data that will enable us to assist them.

We are not told how the help is going to be provided or by whom, how much it is going to cost or who will pay. Perhaps that will be the subject of Government amendments following the Secretary of State’s announcement on Thursday about the licence fee. Sadly, then, there are many matters with regard to the targeted help scheme that we cannot discuss. That will make some of our deliberations somewhat difficult.

Despite the limitations of the Bill, we have the opportunity to discuss some issues that need to be sorted out—for example, whether data will be needed not just from the bodies that are listed in the Bill but from others, such as local authorities, that provide information that relates to people who will, we are led to believe, be helped by the targeted assistance scheme. We will also be able to debate whether we need to be clearer about the way in which information is provided, not least to blind and partially sighted people; whether it is right for the Bill to create an offence in respect of disclosure of information, under which a person is deemed guilty unless he or she can prove innocence—a complete reversal of the normal procedure of innocent until proved guilty; whether there should be a time limit on the sharing of data, which will be particularly significant in the current climate of debate about the Government’s proposals for a much wider data-sharing scheme; and whether more should be said in the Bill about the targeted help scheme’s being platform neutral.

Mr. Woodward: It might be helpful to remind the Committee that the Bill is not about the help scheme; it is about access to information, about social security information and about the careful handling of that information. I am sure, Mr. Conway, that you will keep us in order in the course of our debates, but it is useful to remember that the Bill is about access to the information that will enable us to ensure that the scheme is effective.

Mr. Foster: I accept entirely that that is the scope of the Bill, Mr. Conway, but my point was that that is somewhat difficult for us. The Committee will be aware that what the Bill says about the scheme is in clause 5(1) which says that a

“‘switchover help scheme’ means any scheme for the provision of help to individuals in connection with digital switchover which is agreed between the BBC and the Secretary of State”.

That is all we are told about the scheme in the Bill, yet we are being asked to debate the provision of data on people who will be assisted by the targeted help scheme when we do not have in the Bill any details of who those people will be. That is why I hoped for a wider debate on the details of the scheme. However, I accept that we cannot have that debate, that the Minister is right, and that the Bill is limited in scope and will be difficult to debate for the reasons I have given. The programme motion gives us the opportunity to have a limited debate on that limited range of issues, but, sadly, they are the only ones that can be debated because of the limited scope of the Bill.

Question put and agreed to.

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The Chairman: Before I put the next motion, and for the guidance of the Committee, when it suspends tonight is in my gift as Chairman, but when it adjourns is in the gift of the Government Whip. If we are still sitting at around 8 o’clock, it will probably be wise for us to suspend for dinner because we must bear in mind those who serve the Committee and not just those who wish to take part in it.

Mr. Woodward: I beg to move,

That, subject to the discretion of the Chairman, any written evidence received by the Committee shall be reported to the House for publication.

I welcome the opportunity to move the motion as part of the new process that I believe will help all hon. Members. It allows the Committee to report written evidence to the House and for it to be published.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1

Disclosure of information

Mr. Foster: I beg to move amendment No. 3, in clause 1, page 1, line 9, at end insert—

‘(2A) Local authorities may, at the request of a relevant person, supply a relevant person with information on persons registered as blind or partially-sighted in their area for use (by the person to whom it is supplied or by another relevant person) in connection with switchover help functions.’.

The amendment stands in my name and those of my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield and the excellent hon. Member for Wantage, whose first appearance in his new post we look forward to with relish. I look forward to a passionate speech from him in support of the amendment.

I said in my opening comments about the programme motion that we had difficulty in discussing various aspects of the Bill because we were not in a position to discuss the detailed arrangements for the targeted help scheme and, in particular, who is to be helped by the scheme. However, the purpose of the amendment is to make provision for those who are not registered on the Department for Work and Pensions database but who might be eligible for assistance to be identified so that that help can be given to them. It relates specifically to providing information in respect of some blind or partially sighted people who will not be covered by DWP data, which cover over-75s in receipt of disability benefits. Those people will be covered by the data collection to which clause 1 refers. My argument is that some people may not be covered and we need an alternative source of information.

Clause 5(1) states clearly that the switchover help scheme simply provides help for individuals as agreed between the BBC and the Secretary of State. Bizarrely, that agreement will not come before the House for approval. It says nothing about who those individuals will be.

10.45 am

To find out, we have to look at the Department of Trade and Industry website or at paragraph 7 of the explanatory memorandum for the Bill, both of which make it clear that the targeted assistance scheme will

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help households in which one person is registered as blind or partially sighted. We know, therefore, not from the Bill but from ancillary documents that blind and partially sighted people will be helped by the scheme. I am sure that the Committee will recognise that it is important to have access to data about all the people in those categories.

I was not able to attend the Second Reading debate, because I was winging my way to Australia to see how well England’s cricket team would do—we all know the outcome of that—but I have read the report of it with interest. In it, my hon. Friend the Member for Chesterfield, said that

“30 per cent. of blind and partially sighted people who could benefit from the scheme will not be identified by the Department for Work and Pensions database,”—[Official Report, 18 December 2006; Vol. 454, c. 1194.]

and he was correct. The Government do not keep a register of people who are registered blind or partially sighted but who are not in receipt of Government benefits; that information is held by local authorities. The amendment is about enabling us to access the local authority data on that group of people. Local authorities keep those data because, in many cases, they seek to give blind and partially sighted people access to civic facilities and additional assistance by way of bus passes, blue badges and various forms of social service. Therefore, we know that local authorities have the additional data that would be valuable to us.

We could deal with that situation in two ways. The first is to say to local authorities, “This is the scheme that we have in mind. Please use your good offices to identify those people and notify them that assistance is available to them, so that they can contact a central body to access it.” The second, which I believe is consistent with the approach adopted in respect of other databases, is to enable the body that has been charged with the delivery of the scheme to access those local authority data centrally.

The amendment is relatively simple, but its effects will be far reaching for a large number of blind and partially sighted people who will otherwise find that they are not being identified for the targeted help scheme and could lose out.

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Prepared 19 January 2007