Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Bill

My Lords, this amendment would restrict the data-sharing powers introduced in the Bill in a manner that would help ensure the security and privacy of personal data. Clause 119 allows the bodies replacing the Learning and Skills Council—the chief executive of the Skills Funding Agency, the YPLA, a designated person, a member of the chief executive’s staff, a member of staff of a designated person, or a person providing services to any person out of those—to share information with each other and with a local education authority or a person providing services to a local education authority. It does not extend local authorities’ power to share information with each other. This latter was a concession, for which we are grateful. Nevertheless, we are concerned about the safety of private and personal information that can be shared among this very large number of bodies and people. We understand that it may sometimes be necessary to share information across different bodies that are responsible for different areas of the same service. This would seem to be an unfortunate consequence of the Government’s desire to introduce more quangos. Perhaps the Minister could indulge the Committee by providing a few examples of times when this would be necessary. Is this to aid the day-to-day workings of these new bodies, or is it to analyse the effectiveness of the Government’s policies as suggested in another place? If it is the latter, surely the heading, ""Sharing of information for education and training purposes"," is somewhat misleading. Perhaps the Minister will inform us that the data will need to be shared to help or to secure suitable education and training. We understand that this may be the case. However, in such an instance, does the Minister agree that it would still be more appropriate to ask permission of the individual? Given this Government’s appalling record on data safety, this would be a fitting amendment. Furthermore, as it is rather a standard safety device, it would appear to be difficult for the Minister to object to it. I beg to move.