Mr.
Vaizey: I support the amendment, which makes an important
point about the need to provide specific help for the visually
impaired. Indeed, when we debate my amendment later, which seeks to
write platform neutrality into the Bill, we will see that it is
important that the technology provided to people who need targeted
assistance for digital switchover is interactive, can be upgraded and
can provide the specific help that people with visual impairment
need. Earlier this
morning we were debating the BBC’s role in providing digital
switchover help. I am surprised that the Government have decided to put
all their eggs in the BBC basket, because those of us who talk to other
broadcasters know that they are also advanced in helping vulnerable
groups, particularly the visually impaired. This amendment gives me the
opportunity to advise the Minister about Sky’s services for the
visually impaired, which include a dedicated accessible service team
with a ring-fenced telephone number giving direct access to an adviser,
accessible TV listings information, disability awareness training for
all engineers and the availability of alternative
media—including Braille, large print and audio—to all
correspondents. As far as the technology is concerned, an easy-to-use
remote control device is also available. I urge the Minister to take
this opportunity to set out in specific detail the training that will
be given to the engineers responsible for targeted
help.
Mr.
Woodward: Again, I am tempted to debate far and wide the
details of the help scheme. The hon. Gentleman is putting that
temptation before me, knowing full well that the Bill is about access
to information. None the less, he has made an important point, as well
as a good commercial on behalf of Sky television, to which, he might
wish to declare to the Committee, he is a regular contributor late at
night, providing us all with great amusement as he attempts to analyse
the newspapers. The
amendment deals with an issue rightly recognised by all hon. Members as
important. It would be extremely unfortunate were we to go ahead with a
targeted help scheme that could not help people as fully as we intend.
In the best spirit, the amendment probes whether the legislation will
achieve its objectives as far as possible. Hon. Members are quite
rightly probing whether there may be a more effective way to achieve
them, but there is no difference between us on the outcome that we
want. The question is whether there is a better way of achieving
it. My
comments relate to whether the amendment will achieve its stated ends.
I must say at the beginning that I am advised that the amendment as
drafted might do less good than he intends. Drafting is always a
problem for Opposition Members, and where the Government can accept and
improve an amendment, it is a problem that we always wish to help with.
However, I hope if I give an explanation that the hon. Member for
Chesterfield will recognise why the amendment is
unnecessary. I shall
begin by outlining the amendment’s effect. It would effectively
ensure that when the relevant person defined made contact with persons
who might be eligible for help under the switchover help scheme, he
would have to ensure that any information about the scheme supplied to
visually impaired persons was provided in formats accessible to them.
However, there is no need for the amendment in this case because of
existing duties under the Disability Discrimination Act.
In rising quickly to
his feet, the hon. Member for Wantage, who joined the hon. Member for
Chesterfield in tabling the amendment, might not have had the
opportunity last night to do his homework on the Act and discover that
the issues that he presented to the Committee are already set out in
the Act’s duties and requirements. Provisions in part 3 require
service providers in providing their services and public bodies in
delivering their public functions to make reasonable adjustments to
enable disabled people to access those services and functions. Such
duties will apply to the relevant person when making contact with and
providing information to disabled persons who may be eligible for the
switchover help scheme.
In light of that, I hope that
hon. Members will recognise that we are not for one moment trying to
water down or undermine accessibility for target groups. The Disability
Discrimination Act already establishes and imposes duties on individual
bodies in such a way that everything intended in the amendment is
already provided for in legislation, so the amendment would not improve
the
Bill. 11.45
am
Paul
Holmes: May I first make it clear that I do not associate
myself with adverts for Sky TV, an organisation to which I would not
want to lend my
name? Before I moved the amendment and the Minister replied, I wrote my
likely response. The first sentence reads, “The Minister says,
and it might well be, that of course the information would be provided
in an accessible format because it is already required by law.”
I made that point in moving the amendment. However, I know from my
experience that what is required in law under the Disability
Discrimination Act is not always followed through.
From 2002-05, in the last
Parliament, I was my party’s spokesman on disability. It is an
area I have taken a strong interest in since the last election. The
Department for Work and Pensions has a central role in dealing with
equality issues, but is often slow in producing White Papers, annual
reports and consultation documents in accessible formats, even though
it should be the foremost Department in ensuring that that happens. One
reason for this probing amendment was to press that
point. In this short
debate, we have at least put it on record that we absolutely and
clearly expect the contractors who end up implementing this scheme to
make every effort in the initial and subsequent contact that they have
with people to provide the information in accessible formats. They will
have to go out to the target group of up to 2 million people, some of
whom may, for example, have sight problems.
Mr.
Woodward: Again, it is important for all hon. Members to
understand that legislation alone is not enough; it is about the spirit
with which we enter into the whole enterprise. I say to the hon.
Gentleman that we will see that in Whitehaven with the work of my hon.
Friend the Member for Copeland. We want this to work and we must ensure
that everyone who is in receipt of the information can access it,
regardless of disability. I give an undertaking now to the hon.
Gentleman that regardless of legislation, we will work with the charity
groups and with those helping target groups to ensure that the
information is available in a form that is accessible. I want to put it
on record that that really matters to everybody living in this country
regardless of political persuasion. Wherever people live and whatever
constituency they come from, this information must be made available in
a format that is accessible. We undertake to ensure that that
happens.
Paul
Holmes: I thank the Minister for those repeated
assurances. I am sure that organisations such as the Royal National
Institute of the Blind and the Disability Rights Commission or its
future replacement, the Equality Commission, will in years to come
quote that in evidence if needs be, as will we. I beg leave to withdraw
the
amendment. Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn. Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
Mr.
Foster: May I detain you, Mr. Conway, and the
Committee briefly to ask two quick questions on aspects of clause 1
that have not yet been debated? In determining the relevant people who
will be eligible for access to data, we note that subsection (3)(c)
states that a relevant person would be anyone carrying
out “any function
connected with switchover help functions.”
Clearly, that enables a very broad
definition of the number of people who might be helped. For example, a
very small aerial erection company might be contracted to put up one or
two aerials in a particular locality. It would clearly be carrying out
a function connected with the switchover help function and would be
given data about the people that it was expected to assist. However,
one assumes that it would not receive access to the wider data. I would
be grateful if the Minister could give some assurances in respect of
the way in which data will be given out at the minimum level and how it
will be ensured that people who get data receive only the minimum
amount that they need in respect of the function they are to
perform. The Minister
will probably reply that clause 3 should give me the comfort that I
need because it ensures that it is an offence for people to disclose
information that they are given without lawful authority. The Minister
may well tell me that there are a number of aspects of data protection
legislation covered in paragraph 9 of the explanatory notes and that
that should give me some assurance that data would not be given to
people who did not need them. In fact, having looked at those aspects,
I did not get the reassurance that I
seek. I
should like an absolute assurance from the Minister that no individual
or organisation covered by the clause will be provided with more data
than it needs for the purpose of carrying out the specific help
function that it is required to
provide. Clause 1(4)
defines switchover help functions as, in paragraph (a),
“the identification of persons who
may be eligible”, in
paragraph (b), “making
contact with such persons with a view to the provision of such
help” and, in paragraph
(c), “the establishment
of any person’s entitlement to such
help.” I should be
grateful for some clarification from the Minister, because the
explanatory notes tell us clearly who, in broad terms, will be
eligible. I have to rely on the notes because the matter is not covered
in the Bill. The last sentence of paragraph 7 of the explanatory notes
says: “Help
will be available free of charge for those who are eligible and in
receipt of pension credit, income support or income-based jobseeker's
allowance; others will pay a contribution towards the cost of
assistance.” That
sentence is slightly odd compared with the statement on the Department
of Trade and Industry website
that “We will
charge a modest fee to
others.” One is left
wondering how high the fees will be for other people. However, were I
to probe that matter, you would rule it out of order, Mr.
Conway. However, can the Minister give me an assurance that the aspect
of the switchover help function referring to the establishment of a
person’s entitlement to such help includes establishing the
level of fee that they should pay, if such a fee is required to be paid
by such a
person?
Mr.
Woodward: I am pleased that we are making good progress. I
can see Hammersmith looming towards the hon. Member for Wantage, if he
so desires. Of course, whether he goes to Hammersmith this evening is
entirely in his hands.
We have debated some of the
details of the clause in discussing the amendments. Clause 1 is
critical to the Bill: without it, the Bill fails. It is central in the
purposes that the Government have set out for access to information.
The clause provides the legal authority for the Department for Work and
Pensions, the Department for Social Development in Northern Ireland and
the Ministry of Defence to supply social security or war pensions
information to the administrator of the digital switchover help scheme.
It enables the DWP, the DSDNI and the MOD to disclose
information—I am beginning to answer the questions asked by the
hon. Member for Bath—for limited purposes only, that is, for use
in connection with switchover help
functions. It
may be helpful to remind the Committee that there is extensive primary
legislation setting out the circumstances in which and to whom social
security information about individuals may be disclosed. Unauthorised
disclosure of such information is, and remains under the Bill, a
criminal offence under section 123 of the Social Security
Administration Act 1992. The provision in the Bill is very similar to
the one in the Television Licences (Disclosure of Information) Act 2000
that enables social security information to be provided to enable those
aged 75 and over to have a free television
licence. I remind
Committee members that, under the Data Protection Act 1998, the
disclosure of the information in question must be necessary and, under
third party data protection principles set out in that Act, the
information must be relevant and not excessive for the purpose. It is
critical that hon. Members recognise that information is supplied on
the basis that it is necessary and proportionate to the
purpose.
Mr.
Foster: May I suggest to the Minister that that answer
would have been more helpful had it been given in his response to my
amendments relating to the BBC? If he is saying that there will be a
clear calculation of the minimum amount of data sufficient for the BBC
to carry out its role in switchover—and, similarly, for the
Department for Culture, Media and Sport and my little aerial man in
some sub-region—we might have made a lot of progress very
quickly.
Mr.
Woodward: I hope that we have made a lot of progress
quickly. I did not respond to the hon. Gentleman’s earlier
probes on the BBC because I am quite sure that you, Mr.
Conway, would have ruled me out of order as it was not appropriate at
that point. I resisted being tempted by the hon. Gentleman putting the
amendment before me. It is sometimes difficult to resist temptation but
it was the right thing to do in this case if we managed to put on
record and remind hon. Members about the importance of information only
being passed if it is necessary and proportionate.
It is not only the safeguards
in the Bill on handling information that are relevant; provisions on
the handling of information covered by the Data Protection Act 1998 are
found in many other statutes and have an impact on the Bill. I
understand why hon. Members might wish to probe to ensure that those
protections are offered, but of course they are. Subsection (1)
provides legal authority to the Secretary
of State and DSDNI to supply social security information to a
“relevant person”, as defined in subsection (3), for
use “in connection with
switchover help
functions.” as defined in
subsection (4). As I
have said, the clause is important. The hon. Member for Bath asked
about the “modest fee”. On Second Reading, the Secretary
of State said that the fee would be approximately £40, but I am
happy to answer questions outside this Committee and to continue
corresponding with hon. Members. I wish to underline to hon. Members
that our purpose, and the reason for the Bill enabling information to
be derived from social security data, is to ensure that the targeted
help offered in the scheme achieves its ends. If we are able to improve
the Bill, either in the course of its passage through Parliament or
through guidelines and practice, we are open to doing so. We therefore
wish to enter into continued consultation beyond the Bill
itself. Question
put and agreed
to. Clause 1
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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