Statistics and Registration Service Bill

I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 181 and 183. Amendment No. 181 would remove the exception allowing the board lawfully to share information in pursuit of a court order. This exception is necessary to avoid the board being put under competing legal obligations—from the court order and the confidentiality obligation at Clause 36. If the board were made the subject of a court order requiring it to disclose this information, the board’s employees would face conflicting legal demands. On the one hand, they would be subject to the limit on disclosure of information in the confidentiality obligation and, on the other hand, they would be required to disclose information as a result of an order of the court. Of course, if a court requested information from the board, the board could present arguments to the courts as to why they should not be required to release the information, as the ONS has done in the past. However, we do not want the board or its employees to face conflicting legal demands if, after considering those arguments, the court order requires the information to be passed to them. Amendment No. 183 would remove the provision which allows the board lawfully to share information with the intelligence services, in the interests of national security. This provision effectively replicates the current position, whereby we believe that, if the intelligence services were able to make out a principled case for access to information, restrictions on disclosure of information could be over-ridden in the public interest. The provision ensures that the Statistics Board is not restricted from making a disclosure of this nature in the future, should it be regarded as necessary. As with all the exceptions to the confidentiality obligation, this exception allows, but does not compel, disclosure by the board. This is a discretionary gateway under which the board would be able to disclose if it was satisfied that the disclosure fell within the terms of the Bill. Should the board receive a request for information from the intelligence services, it would have to consider that request on a case-by-case basis. Additionally, before making a disclosure, the board would need to be satisfied that the disclosure did not breach the Human Rights Act 1998, particularly Article 8—the right to privacy—and was consistent with the Data Protection Act 1998. There are other existing legislative safeguards against abuse—in particular, the legislation establishing the intelligence services places statutory duties on the heads of the intelligence services to ensure that there are arrangements for securing that information is not obtained except in so far as necessary for the proposed discharge of their functions. I hope that my comments on these two amendments have reassured the noble Lord, Lord Newby, and that he will be able to withdraw his amendment.