I will, if I may, respond to those points. I thank Members for making them and for participating in this Committee debate.
Taking the points in turn, the hon. Member for Sheffield Central (Paul Blomfield) asked about instances covered by clause 2(7). As he noted, reference to investigatory powers legislation is absent from the Trade Bill. That is a minor drafting error. I should have made that clear. An equivalent change will be made to the Trade Bill in due course during its passage.
The hon. Gentleman asked a series of more general questions about borders and ports and I will try to answer those as best I can, recognising that almost all of his questions are within the remit of other Departments, rather than the Department for International Trade.
The hon. Gentleman asked how the border operations centre will assist the movement of medicines and vaccines. That will be a key part of the priorities that we have set for the border after 1 January, to ensure that vital goods continue to flow quickly and efficiently. I will give an example of the sort of data that would be within scope for the border operations centre, assuming that the Bill becomes law. The ability to analyse customs declarations, transit declarations, export declarations, safety and security declarations and things such as highways data would, I think, allow medicines and vaccines to be moved more quickly and more efficiently than would otherwise be the case without the data.
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The hon. Gentleman asked about the Department for Transport’s new ports fund, and he commented on how popular it had been; I welcome his welcome of the popularity of that fund. In response to his question, I am not aware of any specific ports, but ports are not within the remit of the Department for International Trade directly, so I will pass on his questions to the Department for Transport. We have cross-governmental discussions on ports readiness all the time, in particular between the border and protocol delivery group, the Department for Transport and the Cabinet Office. I can reassure him that those discussions are very frequent. In terms of the number of customs agents recruited, I will have to refer him to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, in charge of HMRC, to answer his specific point.
I turn to amendment 1, in the name of the hon. Member for Dundee East (Stewart Hosie). I would like to briefly set out why clause 2(7) is required and aim to alleviate any concerns he may have. As he rightly said, subsection (7) provides for a general disapplication of existing restrictions on the disclosure of information and applies only to Government Departments and public bodies listed in clause 2; I do not think he doubts for a moment that that is the case. It provides that restrictions on the disclosure of information will not apply when information is disclosed under clause 2(1).
Certain information held by the public authority specified in clause 2 has been identified for building up critical data from which insights may be derived regarding the flow of traffic, goods and services in and out of the United Kingdom. It is anticipated, however, that those insights are, in themselves, likely to highlight other areas where information is needed in order to provide as complete a picture as possible of border flows and activity relating to trade. As Members will be aware, further public bodies may therefore be added to the gateway through the delegated power in clause 2(9). It is not possible at this stage to anticipate what specific restrictions may apply to those additional public bodies, and therefore a general disapplication of restrictions is appropriate, bearing in mind all the other protections on the face of the Bill.
Removing subsection (7) would limit the information capable of being disclosed to the Cabinet Office and would ultimately impact the Government’s ability to mitigate disruption to the flow of traffic, goods and
services at the border. I should stress that the Government take the protection of data held by Departments, public bodies and private companies acting on their behalf extremely seriously. As I have said, the gateway is permissive. It does not mandate that bodies listed in clause 2 must share information. Individual Departments and public bodies will need to be satisfied that data sharing is necessary to support functions relating to trade.