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Lord Laming: My Lords, I strongly support the general thrust of the amendment so ably outlined by the noble Earl, Lord Northesk. I am particularly grateful that he and his co-supporters have recast the amendment to meet some of the concerns expressed at an earlier stage of the proceedings.

The sharing of information is crucial and complex. It is important that as the Bill progresses towards becoming an Act it strikes the right note to ensure that the way in which information is shared commands the support not only of the general public, parents, children and young people but of the many professional people in the different organisation who will have responsibility in this field.

I believe that great progress has been made. Like other Members of the House, I was very impressed by the meetings we had with those carrying out pathfinding work in this area. I hope that the House will support the thrust of this amendment and that as the Bill progresses the amendment will be reshaped. In other words, I hope that the House will support the
 
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thrust of the amendment without signing up to the exact wording. I hope that is not too disappointing or too confusing.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, the purpose of this speech is to seek to establish at this stage common ground on two assumptions. The first is that another place shall restore Clause 2 and not accept the amendments to it. The second assumption is that Clause 9, which is declaratory and supplemental to this amendment, shall stand part, if Amendment No. 6 commends itself in principle.

On that basis and on those assumptions, there are four matters of fundamental principle on which I seek common ground. The first is that the respective functions of the Children's Commissioner and of the Secretary of State should be clearly defined on the face of any clause. Secondly, on sharing information, the Secretary of State should have functions relating to the drawing up of guidance in consultation with the Children's Commissioner. Thirdly, the parameters and purposes of such guidance should be clearly defined in the Bill. Lastly, the Secretary of State should be enabled to make regulations to proscribe and penalise the contravention of any such guidance—in other words, the trigger clause of the Bill for secondary legislation.

If such be common ground, the fly in the ointment is the drafting, for which I take total responsibility. A parliamentary draftsman who had the requisite expertise could remove the fly from the ointment before the Bill reaches another place. In such circumstances, if the Minister could give a wholly satisfactory undertaking, there would be no need to divide on this amendment, and the House would no doubt wish to accept the undertaking.

My noble friend Lord Northesk will attend with unusual care to what the noble Baroness may say in the hope of not having to divide your Lordships' House.

The Countess of Mar: My Lords, I have added my name to this amendment because for many years the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, and I have discussed my concerns about mothers, in the main, who have had the wrong information entered into the current Samson computer. The noble Baroness knows that I have asked many times why it is that false information cannot be expunged from that computer, and I have been given a variety of reasons in response.

The amendment covers many of my concerns, especially about the accuracy and security of information to be shared, as well as the appropriate deletion of information shared in compliance with data protection principles. It will give a great deal of hope to many people. I should say that I have received many letters from mothers who have been falsely accused of Munchausen syndrome by proxy just on the word of someone en passant. That goes on to the record where it remains for ever. Such mothers are never able to work with children again. If we can prevent that happening, I would be absolutely delighted.
 
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I recognise that it may be necessary to brush up the amendment a little, but I would be extremely grateful to the Minister if she were prepared to accept it in spirit.

Lord Lester of Herne Hill: My Lords, I have considerable sympathy with the object of the amendment, but I shall be extremely boring and pedantic as a lawyer. I hope that noble Lords will also forgive me for the fact that I have a terrible cold and therefore it is a pain to listen to me at all.

I simply do not understand why it should be a proper function of the Secretary of State to give such guidance rather than the Information Commissioner. Under our data protection legislation, which is comprehensive, the Information Commissioner normally gives guidance to all bodies in all circumstances about how to comply. Therefore it seems strange that one should write very detailed provisions into this Bill, including that the Secretary of State, in consultation with the Children's Commissioner, the Information Commissioner and many other bodies, should give guidance. I may be wrong about that, but I wanted to make the point.

My second point is more substantial than one simply of drafting, and it may be that the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, will be able to explain it to me. Turning to subsection (3)(d) of the proposed new clause, I do not understand how the Secretary of State could give guidance,

"as to procedures designed to govern the circumstances in which information can be lawfully shared notwithstanding any rule of law which prohibits or restricts the disclosure of information".

The rules of law which prohibit or restrict the disclosure of information are rules of law. Those rules are embodied in the European directive on data protection and in our data protection legislation. I do not understand how any Secretary of State could effectively lay down guidance that is contrary to rules of law. These points probably can all be answered, but I am puzzled.

Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, I would be delighted to intervene, but we have reached Third Reading and an intervention in response would be complicated and take up much time. Since we are not in Committee, I decline to entertain the intervention.

Earl Howe: My Lords, I should like to add my support to the amendment tabled in the names of my noble friends. It addresses an issue of fundamental importance quite distinct from the debate that we have had about databases and the rules surrounding them. With the arrival of statutory joint working between agencies of many descriptions, governmental and non-governmental, we are entering territory in which one thing is depressingly predictable; that is, huge incertainty as regards what information it is legally permissible for one agency to share with another. There is enormous scope for confusion about what is legal and permissible under the Data Protection Act.

Where a child is at serious risk of harm, there is perhaps less confusion about information sharing—although the Soham case makes me hesitant about
 
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saying that. However, if a child is not at risk of immediate or serious harm, what are the rules then? What information is it permissible for a professional to share, and with whom? What principle determines whether information can be shared? The medical profession, to name but one example, is extremely exercised about this.

Equally, I suspect that there are many professionals who have no measurement tool by which to analyse and balance risk. Many are simply not trained to do this kind of thing. One has to ask how they are expected to adhere to the obligations set out in the Bill without some sort of clear guidance, and how can the public be confident that there is a real imperative for such guidance to be followed unless it is laid down in regulations that people have to do so—regulations that will, if necessary, provide the basis for judicial review in the event that they are not followed? Moreover, the procedures that are followed and the interpretation put on the legal duty of co-operation as it relates to information sharing need, as far as possible, to be consistent and uniform throughout the country. Only statutory guidance will achieve this, which is why, with some hesitation, I take issue with the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill—which I do not do lightly—in his suggestion that it should be the Information Commissioner who draws up this guidance. If the guidance is to be statutory, a Minister of the Crown should be the one to draw it up.

I believe that my noble friends are to be congratulated on having pinpointed this very important issue and on having pursued it so tenaciously throughout the passage of the Bill. I support them.

Baroness Barker: My Lords, throughout our debates on information sharing, noble Lords who have considered this Bill will know that I have worked quite closely with the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, and the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway. As I have said on many occasions, I believe that we stand on one side of a line and the noble Baroness stands on the other. We take very different views of the extent to which information sharing should be set within a tight framework.

Both noble Lords are to be congratulated on doing what this Bill singularly fails to achieve in Clause 9, which is to set out coherently and in one place all the points that professionals who need to share information about children need to know and observe. It is quite clear, from all the cases and reports cited by noble Lords, that perhaps more than ever before there is now deep confusion on the part of statutory agencies about exactly what information they may share and how they may do so. I agree with the comment that this matter will have to be returned to when this Bill is sent to another place, and I am sure that it will. However, the issue of information sharing between statutory bodies goes far wider and perhaps should be the subject of a whole new piece of legislation, which I suspect may well happen in the next Parliament.
 
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In the mean time, I hope that when the Minister returns to us with the regulations and guidance, having consulted the trailblazers and so forth, they will bear a greater resemblance to the amendment tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Northesk, than to Clause 9.

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