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Earl Russell: I support the amendment. I wish to remark in passing that the use of the word "reasonable" in this subsection is an argument that it would be possible to use the word "reasonable" in the same way in line 33 of the subsection. I entirely agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty had to say about cross-charging; it leads to an immense amount of confusion. At this time of night I shall not delay the Committee with the story of the two men who planned to sell a barrel of beer at the Derby. Well, if the Committee tempts me, I shall do so.
In the days of horse-drawn transport, the men were going to take the barrel of beer from Putney to the Derby to sell the beer at threepence a glass. They were going to make a great fortune but their horse went lame. It was a glorious fine morning and they were not going to be cheated out of their profit, so they decided to roll the barrel of beer. They set off up Putney Hill and halfway up one said: "Thirsty work, mate. Can I have a glass of beer? I'll give you threepence". He handed over threepence and had his glass of beer. But after a little while the other chap said: "Yes, mate, you're quite right, it is thirsty work. Can I have a glass of beer? I'll give
you threepence". Before they had got halfway, the barrel was empty. Each one had paid for their glass and they could not understand why there was only threepence in the kitty. Those men were the inventors of the internal market.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I knew it was a mistake to tempt the noble Earl, but the thought of a glass of beer prompts one to try to get through the amendment quickly.
Perhaps I may try to explain what was intended by the clause, which may help the noble Lord, Lord Whitty. A great deal of information is currently exchanged between the Department of Social Security and local authorities under existing powers. I wish to be clear at the beginning that we do not intend to use the fee-charging power to charge local authorities for the supply of the kind of information we are currently exchanging. However, we are conducting a study into the feasibility of providing local authorities with direct access to the department's computer systems--as I mentioned a few amendments ago--and direct access to the information relevant to housing benefit and council tax benefit that the DSS holds. This will involve additional information technology costs which will depend in part on the extent to which an individual local authority uses the systems available.
If local authorities are to be linked to the department's systems then it may be sensible for the department to be the customer of the corporate system and for it to meet not only the costs of its own usage but also the costs arising from local authorities' use. A fee would then be charged to authorities, a fee which would reflect the costs. The proposed power in the Bill is designed to allow for that.
If the amendment were to be accepted, the opportunity for such an approach would be removed. That could be to the disadvantage not only of the department but of the authorities too. It would potentially weaken us in our efforts to introduce more efficient and effective administration of benefits and it would, I believe, be a setback in our battle against benefit fraud. Moreover, if the costs of the system were simply to be met by the Government and provided as a "free good", then the local authorities would have no incentive to use the system economically, with the risks of increasing total costs to the taxpayer.
As I mentioned earlier, we are already in consultation with the local authority associations about establishing links between local authority systems and the department's systems. There will be further consultation on this subject and, in due course, if links are to be established there will be discussion and consultation about any fees that might need to be introduced. No final decisions will be taken before such discussion has taken place. We are still in the early stages of all this work, but the provision to charge fees lays an important foundation to support the financial arrangements that may be necessary in future if local authority and departmental computer systems are to be linked.
Amendment No. 39 would enable local authorities to charge a reasonable fee in respect of the cost of supplying the Secretary of State or Northern Ireland
Department with benefit administration or benefit policy information. I am afraid that this argument is rather a false one because there are no plans for the DSS to use the local authorities' computer systems and it is hard to conceive of any circumstances in which it might make sense to do so. There is no intention on our part to charge local authorities for the supply of information already routinely supplied in the course of benefit administration. So clearly it would not be right for local authorities to charge us for information that they are required to supply.Most importantly, we should not forget that local authority funding for the administration of housing benefit and council tax benefit, including the provision of information to the Secretary of State, comes from the Government in the form of administration subsidy and the revenue support grant. We review these arrangements periodically and discuss them between the local authorities associations and ourselves. But the truly important point that I make is that we do not envisage the power that we take here being used in the current arrangements--only if we move to the next step and the local authorities make use of our system. We obviously pay for that system and we should then wish them to be able to pay their fair share of the usage of our system. It is to be hoped that it will save them some money and they will not have the same need to run their own system.
With that explanation of why we want to take this power, I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendments.
10.45 p.m.
Lord Whitty: I fully accept that the Minister has indicated that he has no intention to use the power in present circumstances and any future use of it will be subject to further consultation and consideration.
I am not entirely sure that I follow his rejection of the subsequent amendment. If we are envisaging a change of computer configuration for the DSS, it is quite likely in the course of a number of years that there would be direct access to local authority computers as well. However, at the moment we are dealing with that slightly futuristically. On the basis of the assurance that we received tonight, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 38 to 43 not moved.]
Earl Russell moved Amendment No. 44:
The noble Earl said: This amendment intends to place a moratorium on the preserving of information collected under the proceedings of this Bill. It attempts to restrict the time for which information may be preserved to one month.
If the Minister wishes to argue that that time is too short, I should be prepared to listen to him. I am concerned that information should not be preserved indefinitely. This is the same kind of principle as the principle of the spent conviction. Information should not lie around in ambush waiting to haunt one for the rest of one's life.
I believe that the principle is also of considerable importance to those responsible for the storage of records. The storage of records takes a very great deal of space. I am told that the records of the King's Bench in the Public Record Office take up 11 miles of shelving. I understand that with computers the records take up a great deal less space. But even computer records take a certain amount of space. The Minister understands that space in central London is expensive and that transport is expensive; even electronic conveying of records can be expensive. Therefore, the preserving of this vast mass of records is bound to create a considerable expense somewhere.
The Minister frequently accuses me of being indifferent to the interests of the taxpayer; but I occasionally feel like retorting the charge upon him. Under this Bill he is proposing to produce an immense and unwieldy mass of data which are going to create a situation a little like the one which affected the unfortunate countryman from the 16th century, who was offered a chance to sell his corn. He was to pay one grain of corn the first month; two grains the second; four grains, and so forth. By the time the case reached the Court of Requests, which unfortunately for him was a court of equity, he was owing a debt of several billion grains of corn. I cannot help thinking that the Minister's records, if he does not do something about them, will grow in very much the same way.
The Minister occasionally talks to us about costings. Do we have any costing of what it will cost to store all those records? How was that costing arrived at? Why does the Minister think that it is a responsible expenditure of public money? I beg to move.
Lord Mackay of Ardbrecknish: I suppose there is a slight relationship between the man from Ipswich and these matters about data matching, because the man from Ipswich had not studied his mathematics properly. Equally, the teller of the tale of the man from Ipswich does not realise that most of the data will be held in computers and not on paper on great shelves. However, I leave the man from Ipswich to one side and look at the amendment.
The amendment requires information supplied to the DSS under the provisions of the Bill to be destroyed within one month if it is not being actively used in a particular investigation. The sixth data protection principle requires that,
The noble Earl makes a valid point. From our point of view we would not want to keep it longer than necessary. Although a computer disk may contain a vast amount of information, it still takes up space, though less space than do paper records.
It is our intention that the retention of social security information should be in line with the sixth data protection principle. In the case of data matching, the normal practice would be to put the information which has been supplied to use quickly. It is important to identify discrepancies within the existing social security information system quickly, so that they can be investigated while the trail is warm. However, the amounts of data involved are vast and there are several benefit databases involved. Therefore, for operational reasons, one month would certainly be too tight a time limit.
Also, there are circumstances where it would be appropriate and efficient to retain the data supplied beyond a single data-matching exercise. For example, the Revenue obtains certain information only once a year, whereas our data are continuously changing to reflect new benefit claims. The Inland Revenue data may be needed to check the new claims and it would be wasteful for the Revenue to supply exactly the same information again and again. When new information is available and is being supplied to us, the old information can be destroyed. The retention period in each case will be determined in accordance with the data protection principles. In all cases the information will be held in secure conditions.
Those are examples, but development work is being done on exactly how the data will be used. The noble Earl's amendment recognises that it may be necessary to retain information while an investigation is in progress. That is right. While we try to investigate inconsistencies quickly, some of the inquiries may take some time--for instance, if the case is complex or if the claimant has moved and cannot immediately be contacted. However, the condition of active investigation is too onerous. Experience of data matching has shown that a particular anomaly might be identified in several different data matching exercises. It is clearly in the interests of the claimant and of the taxpayer that a case is not reinvestigated unnecessarily. It puts the claimant to extra inconvenience and diverts investigative resources. So information about each match found is retained and any new match is checked against that information to identify any duplication. But, if information on previous matches needed to be discarded once active investigation ceased, there would inevitably be more nugatory investigation.
The noble Earl asked about estimated costs. The costs for use of the powers are set out in the Financial Memorandum; £1 million in 1997-98 and £1.5 million a year thereafter. The cost of storing the data will be a relatively small part of that. We will store data for only as long as we need it both to satisfy the data protection principle and for exactly the financial reason the noble Earl raised with me.
The amendment would apply to all supply of information under provisions of the sections stated and not just information supplied for the purposes of the prevention and detection of offences and of checking accuracy. That would have extremely damaging consequences for the efficient operation of our system where the information is supplied in the course of routine administration. For example, there is information about national insurance contributions. That is not kept for a month or a year. It may need to be kept for 40 years or more because the future entitlement to a retirement pension may well depend on it; indeed, a good deal more than 40 years because it depends how long the person lives and then if there is a dependant who outlives that person. Those records have to be kept for a very long time. However, I know the noble Earl was not thinking about those particular records.
While I appreciate the point being made--the desire to keep the cost of this down--the amendment seeks a firm and far too short time limit on the retention of data. As I think I have explained, no one stands to gain by using out-of-date information or keeping it. None of us--ourselves, the Northern Ireland department or the local authorities--will keep data longer than we absolutely need to in order to comply not only with the data protection principles but also with the simple finances of storing the data.
I hope the noble Earl appreciates that his month is indeed far too tight. But it is rather more complicated than that, because the Contributions Agency's information and data are also encompassed by this and they are needed for a very much longer time. With my assurances about our care over the costs, our intention to obey the principles of the Act and that we will not keep data for longer than is absolutely necessary, I hope the noble Earl will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Page 9, line 38, at end insert--
("Destruction of information not being actively used in an investigation.
122F. Any information disclosed pursuant to sections 116, 116A, 116B, 122, 122A, 122B, 122C, 122D or 122E above shall be destroyed within one month unless it is being actively used in a particular investigation or prosecution of a criminal offence."").
"Personal data held for any purpose or purposes shall not be kept longer than is necessary for that purpose or purposes".
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