Coroners and Justice Bill

I rise briefly to speak to the two amendments tabled in my name and those of the hon. Members for Hendon (Mr. Dismore) and for Ealing, Southall (Mr. Sharma), as members of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. As we have heard, amendment 133 is analogous to amendments 23 and 24. The CBI told the Public Bill Committee that there were not sufficient safeguards to protect the privacy of individual data controllers in the private sector, but we concluded, after examination, that the safeguards already in the Bill are significant; indeed, they provide greater protection than other compulsory powers of entry, search and seizure in the Bill. For instance, an assessment notice must specify the time at which a search or other inspection will take place and the time within which an individual data controller must comply. Rights to appeal against the term of any notice are provided, and there is express protection for legally privileged material. Those are all safeguards that we had called for in respect of other Bills when the Government had said that they would put them only in secondary legislation. In this case, they are in the Bill and yet the CBI is still concerned. We thought that the CBI's objections were insufficient, and possibly even invalid, and reinforced the point, which has just been made, that there is a significant amount of contracting out of public functions to private data controllers. There should therefore be no exemption or lower degree of protection in respect of the powers of the Information Commissioner in those cases, at the very least. I would be grateful if the Minister addressed those arguments. Our other point relates to new clause 38. The Information Commissioner has called for the power of sanction, and we consider the additional powers for the commissioner to be a human rights-enhancing measure. We noted the Government's view that it would be unusual for a Department or other public body to ignore an assessment notice or fail to comply with its terms, but there is no reassurance in the Bill that that will not be the case, which is why we tabled the new clause. I hope that the Minister will respond to that point.