Statistics and Registration Service Bill

moved Amendment No. 189: 189: Clause 36, page 16, line 11, at end insert— ““( ) A disclosure of information by virtue of subsection (4) must be authorised by the Board. ( ) Section 33(1) does not apply to the Board’s power to authorise a disclosure under subsection (4).”” The noble Baroness said: This probing amendment would insert two new subsections into Clause 36. We have talked about various disclosures of personal information which may be permitted under Clause 36(4). We have varying degrees of enthusiasm for some of those categories. Amendment No. 189 addresses a related concern; namely, the level at which disclosure may be authorised. The first new subsection says that only the board may authorise disclosure, and the second says that the ability to delegate set out in Clause 33(1) does not apply to disclosure under Clause 36(4). We are concerned with the liberal delegation powers allowed by Clauses 33 and 29, through which the authorisation of disclosure may slip down the organisation and what should be exceptional and subject to a high level of scrutiny may become routine and unsupervised. I mean no suggestion of dishonesty or negligence if the board staff were handling disclosure, but when disclosure becomes routine and out of the close oversight of the top of the organisation, it is easy to forget that crucial issues of data confidentiality are at stake. That is why it is important that disclosure of personal information never becomes routine. I hope that the Minister will explain what controls the Government would expect the board to exercise over disclosure. Given that the Government are not supposed to interfere with the board, how will they be sure about what actually happens, if it is not laid down in statute? I beg to move.