Health Bill [HL]

I should like to associate myself with those comments. I shall speak to Amendments 123 and 124 in the name of my noble friend Lord Howe. Sadly, the Committee is denied his customary elegance, but I shall do my best. Clause 32 provides for disclosure of information by HMRC to enable the Department of Health to collect statistical data about the earnings and expenses of GPs and dentists. I understand that this type of data gathering has been carried out annually over a number of years, but it appears that since 2005 the disclosure of this particular information by HMRC has been technically illegal, which is why matters need to be regularised by means of this clause. I have no difficulty with the principle of what is proposed. Subsection (4) specifies that the information that is disclosed has to be in a form which does not, ""enable information relating to a particular person to be ascertained from it"." The Explanatory Notes say that this means that the information has to be presented as an anonymised summary of earnings and expenses, and will not extend to matters unconnected with doctors’ and dentists’ professional activities. The trouble is that the clause does not quite say that. It says that the information has to be presented, ""in the form of a summary or collection of information so framed as not to enable information relating to a particular person to be ascertained from it"." Taken literally, that could apply for the disclosure of identifiable information relating to a specific GP practice with more than one partner. You would not be able to ascertain the income of one individual, but you would be able to ascertain the income and expenses of the partnership. The wording of the clause is not as tight as I would like to see it. It does not amount to a guarantee that all information will be anonymised. One could, for example, envisage a summary of information covering a particular town or area of the country. As I read it, such a summary could still, strictly speaking, be legally disclosed within the terms of this clause. When we talk about an anonymised summary, we tend to think of a brief resumé of aggregated data. But a summary could be much more elaborate than that. You could have an anonymised summary which showed clearly how doctors’ income varied between rural and urban areas, between the north and south of the country and whether they were dispensing or non-dispensing practitioners and so on. You could also have a summary which made it quite clear that the range was between the highest and the lowest levels of net income enjoyed by GPs—in other words, not just an average or mean. It would be helpful if the Minister could tell us what precise form these summaries usually take. Equally, nothing in the clause reflects the assurance contained in the Explanatory Notes that only information relating to doctors’ and dentists’ professional activities may be passed to the Department of Health. The wording of subsection (2) could allow the Department of Health to be given data about unearned as well as earned income. Again, the drafting is, to my mind, uncomfortably loose. It could be taken to allow the department to gather information for purposes other than the annual earnings and expenses inquiry. I appreciate that Clause 32 is meant to do no more than consolidate existing arrangements. I have no doubt that the Minister will assure me that there is no intention to go beyond those arrangements. Nevertheless. I argue that we could perhaps do better as regards the way in which the provision is framed. I beg to move.