Climate Change Bill [HL]

moved Amendment No. 168F: 168F: Schedule 4, page 53, line 21, leave out paragraphs (b) and (c) The noble Lord said: Amendment No. 168F is a probing amendment. We wish to examine the degree of privacy that might be involved in this part of the Bill. Does the word ““persons”” in these two paragraphs refer to private individuals? If so, does it mean that personal information about households and their consumption can be passed on from a supplier? At this point of the Bill there are strange echoes, which the Minister will appreciate, of yesterday’s statutory instrument debate. In such a case, what restrictions will apply to the detail that is passed on? Will there be a restriction on handing over names and addresses or any other personal information that the supplier may have gleaned; for example, age, nature of any disability or number of people in the household? If personal matters are involved, has the Data Protection Commissioner been consulted during the drafting of the Bill and will he be involved in determining the detail of information to be supplied under any trading scheme? If ““persons”” also encompasses privately owned businesses, what safeguards will operate that information passed across will not breach commercial confidentiality limits? Finally, what rights will individuals or businesses have to vet information relating to themselves or their undertaking before it is passed on? Amendment No. 168G is also a probing amendment. What sort of persons would these potential co-participants be? Could the supply of detailed information under paragraphs (e) or (f) at the potential stage ever amount to divulging sensitive commercial information? Could the supply of this information take place without the knowledge or the permission of the potential co-participant? If such information supply did take place without the knowledge or permission of the potential co-participant, who then felt that he had been disadvantaged in some way by it, would he be able to claim against either the participant who divulged the information or the environmental authority that used it in establishing a trading scheme? Finally, is there in this paragraph an implication that a named potential co-participant, considered by an environmental authority to be suitable for a particular scheme, will have no right to refuse? I beg to move.