Serious Crime Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 105: 105: Clause 61 , page 33, line 18, after ““order”” insert ““to be approved by affirmative resolution of each House of Parliament”” The noble Baroness said: I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 106 to 108. These amendments aim to insert the affirmative procedure for orders that contain statutory instruments made under Clause 61 as they affect the specification of an anti-fraud organisation and the Secretary of State’s powers under Clause 62, as underlined and suggested by the report from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee. It may be more convenient for the Committee if I deal with the coach before the horse and outline why we have tabled Amendment No. 106, since the Government appear to have conceded—the Minister is nodding—the point made by the DPRRC. The Government have tabled Amendments Nos. 129A and 132A, which fall later in the Bill. I know that the Government prefer to deal with such matters in that way. As the Committee will appreciate, the Opposition like to table amendments as they relate to the point of the Bill being debated in order that they are debated in the round of other issues. Part 3 is complicated enough without trying to dump these issues at the end of the Bill. Paragraph 11 of the committee’s report sets out its concern, which we share. It states: "““Clause 62 creates a criminal offence relating to onward disclosure of that information. But the offence applies only to the disclosure of ‘protected information’. This is defined in clause 62(5) as meaning certain revenue and customs information specified in the bill or ““any specified information disclosed by a specified public authority””, both specifications being by order made by the Secretary of State subject to negative procedure””." The report goes on to say that, "““The definition of protected information is central to the working of the scheme””," with which we agree. Whether or not information is protected by Clause 62 from onward disclosure may impact on the extent to which public authorities will share information under Clause 61. Broadening the definition will also extend the scope of the criminal offence. The committee therefore considers that orders under Clause 62 should be subject to the affirmative procedure. That is why we tabled our amendments, and the Minister will be able to comment on the Government’s amendments shortly when she replies to this group. I now turn to Amendment No. 105 relating to Clause 61 and the alternative drafting tabled to Clause 64. The aim is to ensure that anti-fraud organisations specified by order are subject to the affirmative procedure. It is important to ensure that the anti-fraud organisations to be specified are kept within a narrow scope of operation that can be justified to this House and to another place. The Minister has said that no decisions have yet been made on which organisation or organisations should be so specified, but that CIFAS, the United Kingdom’s Fraud Prevention Service, which is a non-profit-making organisation, provides a good example of the sort of body that the Government have in mind. It is unhelpful that the Government are not prepared to specify which anti-fraud organisations will fall within the schedule, so that we could scrutinise the list and challenge the inclusion or exclusion of organisations. It makes it very difficult for this House properly to scrutinise these provisions. Can the Minister give the Committee further examples of which other bodies the Government may have in mind as potential anti-fraud organisations to be so specified? Does it include potential public-sector members which the Minister mentioned as having taken part in the pilot in the past? Perhaps the Minister will set out which might be involved and why. What criteria will an organisation be expected to meet in order that it may become so specified as an anti-fraud organisation? What criteria will it have to meet to establish a CIFAS-type arrangement? For example, will the Government allow designation of only those organisations which have a certain quality of data? Do they have to be a specific size or remit? How will those organisations be judged as being appropriate to come within the specified status? One assumes that data sharing between CIFAS and CIFAS-like anti-fraud organisations in this legislation will be subject to review by the Information Commissioner. Will the Minister indicate whether that is the case? If so, what assessment have the Government made of the workload that will be required of the Information Commissioner? Members of the Committee may be aware that there have been trends for the Information Commissioner’s work to be substantially extended as a result of work by this Government. I realise that one or two of the amendments from this side of the House may so extend the commissioner’s work, but we would say that ours will be done in a perfectly proper manner. Finally, would the Minister consider whether there should be an appropriate amendment to Section 70 of the Data Protection Act 1998? After the definitionof ““school””, why should one not insert the definition of ““specified anti-fraud organisation”” as having the same meaning as in Part 3, Chapter 1 of the Serious Crime Act 2007? That might be a helpful proposal to make the legislation clearer and help to cut down on some of the provisions in the Bill. I beg to move.