Statistics and Registration Service Bill

Actually, it is my amendment. I should not really speak for my noble friend, but I very much doubt that the Minister response will have satisfied him, because I am not sure that he addressed his points. I accept what the Minister has said on information for which consent has already been given or which has already been made public. He then concentrated on disclosure outside the board. My amendment was designed to probe the procedures within the board to ensure that disclosure was made only in proper circumstances. I asked what controls would be exercised over disclosure. The Minister gave a long explanation, which I shall read carefully in Hansard, none of which dealt with controls over disclosure of information, although it dealt with security of information, passwords and so on. I was concentrating on conscious, not accidental, acts of disclosure and on how decisions were made to disclose information. The Minister’s response did not deal with that, and if he were prepared to say that he would look carefully at my questions and write to me before Report, I would find it relatively easy to withdraw my amendment.