Welfare Reform Bill

Perhaps I may come back to the situation. I shall not repeat what I have already said, but it is clear from it that I agree with many of the worries that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has just expressed. One comment that I must make about what she has just said is that page 27 of the Peers’ information pack clearly states: ""All these will be one-way data flows. We do not intend that jobcentre Plus will pass information back to the criminal justice agencies"." Can I take it from that that the noble Baroness is slightly skewed in her thinking and that the information will not come out of the jobcentre in any event but will always go in? That would be an important safeguard. Where does the Bill tell us that? I have not found it and it is clear that the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, has not found it, but the Peer’s information pack clearly has. I am not convinced of the need for Amendment 99, which would restrict the use of this information in civil trials. There may be circumstances—in proceedings for negligence against the jobcentre, for example, although I have not developed my hypothesis with any level of detail—that might require the revelation of some details. In other words, I could see occasions when information might come out in the case of a civil trial, although that would be pretty rare. Perhaps the Minister could help me there. I note that the amendment qualifies that exclusion with the caveat that the person might consent to the release of the details to a third party. If the permission is on the claimant, that puts a totally different complexion on the whole matter. I have no doubt that concerns will be raised about the provisions that allow for the sharing of data between the jobcentre and various law enforcement agencies, but, as I said, I do not believe that this is a genuine worry. I hope that the Minister will be able to explain why. Data security is extremely important and something on which I have to say the Government have a less than inspiring record. I expect that we will see this matter raised again at the next stage of the Bill if the Minister does not do quite such a good explanatory job as he did on the previous amendment, which was masterly. I would have thought it would be in his best interests to be as open and explicit as possible about the Government’s intentions here in Committee so that, with a bit of luck, there will be no need to return to this matter on Report. We will just have to see.