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I have a question about the younger age range. Paragraph 7.3 of the Explanatory Notes tells me that, at the younger end of the age range, the only institutions from which the information will be called in are the maintained nurseries and the direct grant nurseries. There are lots of early years settings other than those two categories. Of course, local authorities provide a great deal of resource and have an obligation to ensure that there is enough provision, not just in terms of what they provide but also from the private sector, the voluntary sector and other organisations. As they have this obligation, I should have thought that it was necessary to collect information about children in the early years setting age range. Currently this provision is available for three year-olds but some state-funded provision will soon be available for two year-olds from the poorest families. Therefore, local authorities need to have the relevant information. If that were collected, it would certainly help them to fulfil their obligation to ensure that sufficient provision is available in the area. Is there any proposal to extend the collection of data to cover those very young children in order to assist local authorities to demand appropriate resources from the Government?
4 pm
Lord Brett: I thank the noble Baroness and I am grateful for her kind good wishes. I was absolutely terrified to find that the noble Lord, Lord Bates, is truly fascinated by databases—things that send horror and shivers through my spine. The questions posed by noble Lords self-evidently require simple and clear answers. However, some go beyond the scope of this rather narrow secondary legislation.
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As regards why information is required, we think that it is essential in order to assess the plausibility of existing assumptions about school-age children. It is also a question of understanding change over time—we are talking about censuses which are 10 years apart—improving existing methods for estimating the school-age population, monitoring variations in number and characteristics of migrant children and data linkage and matching. I shall come back to security. It is easier to deal with the questions on which I can give clear reassurance.
The key thing to note is that this legislation provides for information to be used only in a particular way. The problem we have with the school census is that it does precisely the same thing. It allows the statistics collected therein to be used for education purposes only. This legislation allows it to be used to study migrant populations as well. The noble Lord asked the simple and seductive question, “Why not wait until 2011?”. We believe that more and better information is required for the next comprehensive spending round in 2010, but information from the census will not be available until 2013. Therefore, collecting information through this secondary legislation will be very important in that area.
As regards whether this constitutes a final list, further secondary legislation would be required if things needed to be added. The ONS has asked for all the data that it needs, and therefore there are no plans to seek any extension thereto but, if there were, your Lordships would have to be consulted, as further legislation would be required.
On security, the statisticians who will receive the information once it is transferred will number no more than 20. Therefore, we are talking about a very small number of people. The data transmission will be conducted at a high security level with the information being encrypted or sent in another secure manner. The Government and every parent are rightly concerned about the transfer of information regarding their children. The ONS has a very good record of retaining and holding on to information, and we believe that there is no reason for great concern in this area. However, we are not complacent. A series of incidents has reminded us of the need for improvements to be made in the transfer of data. That issue will be taken on board.
The noble Baroness referred to the coroners Bill. What is provided for in this secondary legislation can be used only for the purposes of this legislation. It is not possible for it to be used for any other purpose without further secondary legislation being introduced, as I said.
The other thing that I should say is that there is no link whatever between the 400,000 people having access to the contact point and the regulations in respect of the school census which, as I said, is restricted to a number of statisticians in the ONS numbering no greater than 20. On parental permission for sharing, the fair processing notice already advises parents that the data may be used for statistical purposes only. In that sense, the parents’ notification at an early stage meets the point raised.
I am sure that I have not answered adequately a number of points raised by the noble Baroness in particular, but some of them seemed to go beyond the
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Baroness Walmsley: When the Minister writes to me, will he perhaps address the issue of whether it is necessary to give the full address of the child, rather than just the local authority ward?
Lord Bates: I have one question that it would be useful to get on the record. On TeacherNet, under the school census data, where the field has been completed by the school as, “No, permission refused by parent or guardian for data to be used and passed on”, can that specific data be used by the ONS?
Lord Brett: First, the noble Baroness asked why we need a full address. That is required in order to make the necessary data linkages. No information will be seen by anyone other than the 20 named—or, at least, numbered—statisticians who will examine the data, but it is needed for data linkage purposes. The simplest, shortest and sweetest answer that I can give is to the noble Lord. I can give him the assurance he seeks: the answer is no.
European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (Agreements concluded under Article XXI GATS) Order 2009
Copy of the Order
2nd Report from JCSI
Considered in Grand Committee
4.07 pm
That the Grand Committee do report to the House that it has considered the European Communities (Definition of Treaties) (Agreements concluded under Article XXI GATS) Order 2009.
Lord Brett: This order is intended to give effect under domestic law to a series of agreements—17 in total—reached with other members of the World Trade Organisation. This is a piece of routine WTO business. It is not related to the ongoing Doha round development agenda, nor is it part of negotiations on trade liberalisation.
The agreements have been necessary because of successive enlargements of the EU, first from 12 to 15 member states in 1995 and then to 25 in 2004. In
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There are 17 substantively identical agreements, each setting out the same withdrawals of commitments by the new member states and each setting out the same compensatory adjustments which have been agreed. The agreements are consistent with the WTO principle that commitments which are offered to one member are offered to all: the principle of most favoured nation—or MFN—treatment. These 17 agreements were published in Command Paper 7430 in July 2008.
All member states have made some compensatory commitments, and for the original 12 members covered by the EC’s GATS schedule at the end of the Uruguay round, including the UK, these are very minor. Most compensatory commitments are made by the acceding member states. The UK has agreed to take on three commitments: first, that, in line with current legislation, no area of the telecommunications services or computer and related services sector covered by our GATS commitments is reserved to the public sector; secondly, that we should bring forward from our current GATS offer in the Doha round the sectoral offer in telecommunications services, which expands and reclassifies the sub-sectors covered; and, thirdly, that we should also bring forward from our current GATS offer in the Doha round the removal of the cover of an economic needs test in the further sub-sector of integrated engineering services for the temporary movement of highly skilled professionals.
The first two commitments are taken by all member states, while the third commitment is taken by the UK. Other member states have also made specific, albeit different, commitments. The agreements themselves are mixed in nature and cover matters falling within both the Community’s and member states’ competence. Such agreements do not take effect automatically in UK law, but the UK is obliged under the EC treaty to give them legal effect. This order is necessary as part of the UK’s domestic approval process of the agreements. It takes advantage of a procedure under Section 1(3) of the European Communities Act 1972 by which such “mixed agreements” can be specified by Order in Council as Community treaties, and thereby given legal effect. These agreements have already been considered in the relevant European scrutiny committees, who have given the proposed Council decision implementing the outcome of the negotiations “conditional” clearance: that is, conditional on the legal base of the decision being changed properly to reflect the content of the commitments withdrawn by the new member states. I commend the order to the Committee and I beg to move.
Lord De Mauley: I thank the Minister for introducing the order. The following questions are key to our understanding of the background to and respective
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The Minister will understand that not to have addressed these key questions would be somewhat negligent, risking our longer-term interests and the new trade and investment patterns that are now emerging.
4.15 pm
Lord Teverson: I, too, thank the Minister for his excellent description of this document, which I have struggled with for more than two hours to understand its implications. What surprises me is that, given the urgency sometimes associated with orders, this one has taken 14 years to get right in that the accession of Finland, Austria and some of the other countries mentioned took place in 1995. However, we have only just managed to sort out all the illegal or incorrect ways in which compliance with EU legislation was evaded but which this order now allows. One is tempted to ask, “What happened in the mean time?”. We are now up to EU25 in 2009, but the European Union has already moved on to 27. Can we expect to finally get around to considering Romania and Bulgaria in 2023? I would be interested to know where those negotiations have got to.
As the Minister said, this is a mixed competence area, and perhaps he could confirm that everything that needs to be done on the other side of the channel in Brussels has now been completed, so that when this is, I presume, agreed by all member states—all 25 or 27—it will go through. I would be interested to know when all the ratifications are expected to take place by, to give some idea of the pace of this.
When I first saw this, I thought that it was good to have a document that represents increasing international trade and globalisation at a time when we potentially have history moving back in the other direction. In a way, I was concerned that we seem to be withdrawing rights under the WTO to those 17 nations. Perhaps I should say 17 WTO members, because the order includes, as is described so well:
“The Separate Customs Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu”,
which we treat as being part of China. It seems to me that there is a move backwards to some degree here.
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I would like to understand what is meant in the Explanatory Memorandum by,
I would be interested to know the nature of one or two of those. The Minister gave a description of the areas that had been used in compensation, but not the other side, of what had been withdrawn. I assume that the only nature of the compensation is those agreements and there is no financial compensation in this. Perhaps the Minister could also confirm that.
Lord Brett: The Government’s view is that there will be no impact on the UK in effect from bringing these agreements into line. As someone who has suffered in my previous incarnation sitting through the Doha round and the Singapore round—I do not think I made it back to 1947 and the Cuba round, when the first meeting of GATS was in Havana—believe you me if you think we sometimes have difficulties in the British Parliament, trying to get things moving in the WTO makes even our Parliament at its slowest look like a well-oiled machine working at maximum speed.
For member states entering the European Union, there was a period in each case for a number of years prior to that where those states were anxious to meet their obligations to qualify for membership of the European Union. Only then can you turn to the international obligations. Each state would have different obligations, depending on what most-favoured-nation status agreements that they had with other members of the WTO. The WTO is seeking to bring about a liberalisation of trade and a level playing field; I think we all support this. One of the things that makes the WTO so slow is that, effectively, any single member state can veto the rest.
When you have a discussion such as this one, it is not limited to the European Union states and the 17, but other interested states, which would involve Commonwealth states—certainly major Commonwealth states such as India would be part of those discussions. In my experience, nothing happens at the WTO where there is not hawk-like attention on any member state from every member state. So we have a long, drawn-out but fairly thorough process, where the Commission and the Community speak as one. We have got to that point, but in each legal competence, including ours, you have to pass it into law.
I do not have a kind of ratification timetable, as we had with other European agreements; I do not know whether my officials have one. I do not know whether we can give a date. We can confirm the longevity, because it took 19 years to get to where we got to in
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The noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, asked a series of questions about the Commonwealth as a trading entity. It is not a trading entity; it is a commonwealth that occupies a unique position in our world. Commonwealth nations that are members of the WTO—not every one is, but the vast majority are—develop and press their views in that corner as do other member states. There are alliances in the WTO that are either regional blocks or alliances between nations that are developing quite well, although one would not consider them to be OECD candidates. I am more than happy to look into this and provide answers so far as I can, but, unless anything is given to me that tells me something different, I do not think that there is a Commonwealth flavour—or flag—that we can put on this. A note has been passed to me that Commonwealth countries are also covered by economic partnership agreements, which are negotiated with the European Union and more widely.
If noble Lords have any more points that they wish to raise or which I have not answered, I am happy to write to them. If their points are urgent, I ask them to ask me further.
Lord Teverson: I would just like to understand whether this process will apply to Bulgaria and Romania, too. That is of some consequence.
Lord Brett: The answer is that it is of a continuum with where we are. When those two countries are full members of the European Union, there will be a similar exercise. If that leads to a requirement on their part for greater or lesser relationships than they already have with other WTO members, there will be a similar exercise and similar secondary legislation to put before the House at a later stage. However, we can proceed with these things only state by state and member by member.
Committee adjourned at 4.23 pm.
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