Clause
37
Freedom
of
information
Question
proposed, That the clause stand part of the
Bill.
John
Healey:
I will not detain the Committee long, but the
clause is important because under it the board will be able to refuse
to release personal information following a freedom of information
request, whereas, in contrast, public authorities that have received
personal information from the board might have to release it following
such a request. I think that that might require some explanation and
justification.
The
clause does not mean that it will always be necessary for a public
authority that holds such information to release it. Depending on the
information in question, there might be reasons for not releasing it
that are permitted under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. For
example, in certain circumstances an authority could refuse to release
information that identifies a living individual. The clause will allow
historical information to continue to be passed to researchers and is
consistent with the Government’s commitment to openness made in
the 2000 Act.
The FOI
Act gives any person the right to ask for, and be given, any
information held by a public authority. It also sets out, however, a
number of situations in which data are to be protected from release.
One of those situations, which are called “exemptions” in
the Act, is when there is a legal bar to data being released. The
confidentiality obligation for personal information in clause 36
provides such a bar, as we have discussed, as it legally obliges the
board and its employees not to pass personal information to others
except in the limited cases set
out.
As such, personal
information held by the board will not have to be released under the
FOI Act. That will help to ensure that survey respondents have
confidence that personal information passed to the board is unlikely to
be released. However, that provision must be balanced against the
commitments to openness made in the FOI Act and the value to
researchers of historical data. Clause 37 therefore sets out that when
personal information is passed by the board to other public
authorities, it will not automatically be exempt from release under
freedom of information simply because of the confidentiality
obligation. It may, however, be exempt from release on another basis,
as I have said, such as in certain circumstances if it may identify a
living individual.
To
that extent, the clause replicates the current situation. For example
census records, which are personal information, will continue to be
passed by the board to the national archives in time for release after
100 years, and the clause ensures that the archives can continue to
release historical census information in accordance with the Public
Records Act 1958 and freedom of information
obligations.
The
Information Commissioner’s view is relevant to the clause.
Overall, he welcomes the fact that the Bill recognises the importance
of ensuring that personal information is used only when necessary, that
confidentiality is respected and that the criminal offence of illegal
disclosure of personal data will help to underpin the system.
Finally, Sir John, there has
been some suggestion that the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act
2002 should be included in the clause. I am actively considering that
and working with parliamentary counsel and the relevant Scottish
authorities to determine what, if anything, needs to be done. I hope
that the Committee will understand that should an amendment be
required, I propose to table it on
Report.
Question
put and agreed
to.
Clause 37
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause 38
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
39
Information
relating to births and deaths
etc
9.30
am
Mr.
Hoban:
I beg to move amendment No. 163, in
clause 39, page 17, line 6, leave
out subsection
(4).
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 164, in
clause 39, page 17, line 10, leave
out subsection
(5).
No. 165, in
clause 39, page 17, line 12, leave
out subsection
(6).
Mr.
Hoban:
These probing amendments were tabled to enable us
to understand the process. I suspect that the clause was drafted so as
to maintain the existing arrangements but I want to understand why that
is, given that the role of the National Statistician and the Registrar
General are being prised apart by the Bill. I understand why the
National Statistician needs to receive information from the Registrar
General but why will the board pass the data to the Department of
Health? Why cannot the Registrar General pass it directly to the
Department? What is the reason for routing it through the
board?
John
Healey:
I shall answer the hon. Gentleman’s
questions simply and specifically, as they refer to what appears to be
the main concern about the clause. There will of course be
circumstances in which the Registrar General, both now and when the
role is separated from the office and function of the National
Statistician, passes data directly to the health service. Information
that could include name, date of birth, place of birth, usual address
and other such data may go straight from the Registrar General to the
health service. As the ONS is currently able to do, the statistics
board can add to that data coding by post code, by ward and by
administrative area. In other words, the statistics service may add
further data that enrich what can then be passed to, and used by, the
health service.
There
are circumstances in which and data on which the ONS can add further
analysis of a quality that is of value to the health service. The
clause is designed to cover and make provision for circumstances in the
future when the Registrar General and the National Statistician are no
longer legally and operationally the same
person.
Mr.
Hoban:
I am content with my understanding of the rationale
for the process through the board. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause
39 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause
40
Information
relating to NHS
registration
Mr.
Hoban:
I beg to move amendment No. 166, in
clause 40, page 17, leave out lines 20 to
26 and insert—
‘(3) The
information disclosed may not include any information which would allow
the identification of an
“individual”.’.
The
Chairman:
With this it will be convenient to discuss the
following amendments: No. 167, in
clause 40, page 17, line 30, leave
out subsection
(5).
No. 168, in
clause 40, page 17, leave out lines 32 to
35 and insert—
‘(6) Section
36 does not permit the disclosure by the Board of any information
received under this
section.’.
No.
169, in
clause 41, page 18, line 14, leave
out subsection
(5).
Mr.
Hoban:
These are probing amendments through which we are
attempting to understand the data flows through the system and to probe
what information is required. Amendment No. 166 would delete subsection
(3) and replace it with the provision stating that information about
NHS registration can be passed but that it should not
“include any information which
would allow the identification of an
‘individual’”.
The
amendment would reduce the detail of the information supplied in order
to protect confidentiality.
I have a question about the
amount and detail of the data supplied. Subsection (3)(d) will allow
information about the history to be transferred. With reference to
amendments Nos. 167 and 169, will the information be used for any
purpose other than the production of the mid-term population
statistics? Such statistics—in particular Slough’s
problems estimating mid-term figures—have been a feature of
debates in Committee and were a feature of the Second Reading
debate.
Amendment No.
168 would remove subsection (6). Will the Minister explain how the
exemptions relateto clause 36(4)(c) and (h) and how they apply
toclause 40?
Mr.
Brooks Newmark (Braintree) (Con): I shall support my hon.
Friend’s amendment unless the Minister can provide me with a
little comfort about a concern that I have. I understand the
Government’s objectives and the reasons for their proposals, but
the Bill should not conflate statistics, which try to identify general
trends, and personal information, which might identify individuals. I
hope the Minister will reassure me that that will not
happen.
Mr.
Fallon:
I, too, support the amendment, because subsection
(3) ranges extremely widely. The Minister tries to ensure that
information about registrations between general practices—people
moving from one general practice to another, or from one health
authority area to another—is properly captured. The explanatory
notes describe the process as the creation of an information gateway; I
think they mean the creation of a power to ensure that the board still
receives the information.
In subsection (3)(d), which the
amendment covers, the information to be provided as part of the
measurement of flows of people from one general practice to another
includes the reasons for an individual’s cancellation or
re-registration. There may be many reasons why one cancels one’s
registration with one’s general practitioner, and they may have
nothing to do with one’s relocation to a different part of the
country. One may be unhappy with the performance of the general
practice, for example. I am not sure that it is appropriate for the
board to start piling up information about why people have moved.
Surely the board needs only the statistical information that an
individual has moved or has changed GP. I should be grateful if the
Minister could explain why subsection (3) must go so far as to cover,
in paragraph (d), the reasons for people registering or not
registering.
John
Healey:
Clauses 40 and 41 provide for the Secretary of
State for Health, public authoritiesor Welsh Ministers to
share patient registration information with the board for the
production of population statistics. To be clear, clause 40(4) makes it
explicit that patient registration information does not include any
information about the health, care or treatment of
individuals.
Patient
registration information is information about persons who are or who
have been registered in any place in England or Wales as persons to
whom primary medical services are provided. That may include, but is
not limited to, information such as a person’s address, their
date of birth, their gender or their NHS number. The provisions
replicate the current data sharing arrangements within the Office for
National Statistics.
It may be helpful to the
Committee if I explain exactly what happens to such information.
Patient registration information is collated and held in the national
health service central register, which is currently maintained at the
Office for National Statistics and is used primarily to manage the
transfer of medical records between GP practices and between the NHS
and the armed forces’ medical services. Statisticians in the ONS
have access to that information, and that access enables the ONS to
derive and estimate migration within England and Wales and between
England, Wales, Scotland and Northern
Ireland.
The data
covered by the clause will therefore allow greater monitoring and
analysis of migration and population movements—something in
which the Committee has taken an interest, as the hon. Member for
Fareham said. I think that all Committee members want there to be
better quality, more up-to-date data to assist in some important areas
of policy-making.
Amendment No. 166 would prevent
the Secretary of State or another public authority from disclosing
tothe board any information that would allow the
identification of an individual. That would mean that all information
would have to be in an anonymised,
non-identifying format. I hope that the hon. Member for Braintree will
understand that the distinction he tried to draw between statistics on
general trends and data on registration represents a conceptual
difference, but in practice it is important to bring them
together.
Mr.
Newmark:
I believe that I understand exactly what the
Minister says, but my concern is that in trying to identify such
trends, one should not use personal information that might end up
identifying specific
individuals.
John
Healey:
I understand the hon. Gentleman’s concern.
Although information will be processed at an individual level by the
statistics board, only aggregate statistics will be published. The Bill
introduces legal provisions to maintain the confidentiality of
information and will penalise any breaches of those
provisions.
Alun
Michael:
It is interesting to see the way in which the
debate is going because it illustrates the importance of having
absolute clarity about the tension between having the quality of
information at the most local level and ensuring that confidentiality
is protected in the way set out by the Minister. That is important
because if one errs too far in one direction, one may find, as we did
in the past, that information simply does not pick up what happens at
the most local level, particularly in rural areas. The protection must
be there so that we can be assured that data are used in an appropriate
way to ensure that the interests of every area are properly analysed
and understood.
John
Healey:
My right hon. Friend is right. In dealing with
concerns about understanding flows of population, it is necessary for
statisticians to have access to the data. The important question then
is whether that takes place in circumstances that sufficiently
safeguard the confidentiality of certain types of data and the uses to
which they may be put. That is the essence of the debate that we are
having this
morning.
9.45
am
The reason is
that, just like the ONS at present, the board will need to have access
to identifiable information if it is going to continue to
produce—let alone improve— useful and meaningful
population statistics. Such statistics require the ability to identify
all moves where an individual has registered a change of permanent
address, thus enabling the board to identify which individuals should
be counted as migrants and in what data periods, areas and population
sub-groups. Individual records are required for matching and tracing
migrants between separate reporting periods; research into
understanding, for instance, patterns of migration by linking recent
and older records is possible only if the two types of records can be
matched
individually.
It has
become increasingly important for policy makers to be well informed
about migration, both to monitor the pattern and trends in flows and to
respond to changes in the position and impact of migrants within
society and the economy.
Fiona
Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab): This aspect of the data caused
some of the problems in Slough which I spoke to the Minister about, and
part of the failure to estimate mid-year populations accurately is to
do with such things. For example, young men in particular do not
necessarily have a health record, as they tend not to register with
GPs. Therefore, connecting all the pieces of information has
significance, if only to statisticians, who can work out whether
particular classes of people not registering and so on. That might help
to improve the accuracy of some of our poor counts, with results in
respect of the failings in our current population
counts.
John
Healey:
My hon. Friend has become something of an expert
in the field. She has powerfully made the case for the provisions,
which we continue in clause 40. The clause is drafted to create a
statutory gateway that will allow the board to continue to have access
to patient registration information for the production of population
statistics.
Amendments
Nos. 167 and 169 would widen the scope of clauses 40 and 41 so that the
patient registration information could be used by the board for any
purpose. The clause would, therefore, not restrict how the information
might be used by the board—although, clearly, when taken with
amendment No. 166, the usefulness of the information for the
board would be
limited.
I
have explained the Government’s intention, as part of the
reforms, to transfer the national health service central register from
the Office for National Statistics. Given that, placing the
long-standing data-sharing arrangement on a statutory footing is
necessary, so that the board can continue to use patient registration
information for the production of important population statistics. I
hope that that assures hon.
Members.
Mr.
Hoban:
I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which
he has talked through how the information can be used, but I still
wonder whether there is any way in which less detail could be provided,
while still achieving the objectives that the hon. Member for Slough
referred to.
I was
also struck by the Financial Secretary’s comments on subsection
(5), which restricts the use to which the data can be put. The
restriction is very clear. I am not sure that I would wish to remove
it, but it is a tight restriction compared to the broad ability
in clause 36(4)(a) for any enactment to be used to share the
data. On the one hand, we have provisions that enable broad use,
subject to legislation, and on the other, some tightly worded
subsections restricting the use of data. There is a contradiction,
which we need to explore later. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the
amendment.
Amendment,
by leave,
withdrawn.
Clause
40 ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
Clause 41
ordered to stand part of the
Bill.
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