My Lords, far be it from me to get the Minister off that hook. It is always humbling to be in the presence of those who have seen the heat of the day and borne the burdens of bringing some complicated pieces of legislation on to our statute book. Perhaps we can all breathe a sigh of relief as we notice the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, depart from his place.
I will restrict my remarks, since I was not in possession of the briefing that the noble Lord had, to the observations I made on the simple basis of reading these papers. It was a jolly weekend and some good bedtime reading—150 pages on a very complicated matter—but as far as the regulations themselves are concerned, it seemed mildly reassuring that multiple disadvantages, such as television retuning, fuel poverty and water poverty, were all to be held in view with a view to ensuring that people who might suffer in these areas had their suffering minimised as far as possible. One million vulnerable energy consumers might qualify for help. From this side of the House, we cannot particularly grumble at that.
The thing that worried me was that, since these are the first tinkerings with or things that ensue from last year’s Digital Economy Act, it is incumbent on us to ensure we monitor very carefully the direction of travel as the Act lives its life and is implemented. For that reason, I find myself again and again wondering whether—while, yes, three years down the line it all has to be embedded and to work itself out—we should not promise ourselves a bit more micromanagement than that as things go along.
I liked the way that liaison with devolved bodies—to ensure that a UK-wide measure is implemented in Wales and Scotland in a way consistent with legal provision—was set out because, with another hat on, when we were arguing the devolution clauses in the EU withdrawal Bill we talked all the time about frameworks within which UK-wide pieces of action would have to be worked out in consultation with, and with consent from, the various interested parties. Here is a lived example, I thought, of how that might work.
I worried about how on earth we would keep together pieces of action that would see nine departments of state share information across their boundaries, as well as the Revenue and 32 local and regional bodies, as we considered how best legitimately to allow these bodies to share information. What kind of computer system do we have in place? We have had such a string of unfortunate experiences of supportive technology for mountainous pieces of government activity going wrong that I just look at this and am glad that it is not me operating it.
7.30 pm
Transparency is spoken of again and again from the point of view of citizens, so that they can,
“easily understand what … is being shared and why”.
Let it be said that such a noble objective is to be welcomed. The document further states that we must,
“help make the digital delivery of government services more efficient and effective”—
more efficient, effective, easily understood, transparent and all the rest of it.
In a Question earlier today, we talked about just this whole business of Explanatory Notes being understandable—it is what it says on the tin: “explanatory” should mean explanatory; it should explain things. In this area of digital technology and the sharing of information, data and so on, we can see just how things might go awry, so we need to keep a lid on that one, too.
Reference is made to “robust safeguards”, “secure” transfer, “information-sharing pilots” and so on. All the safeguards are mentioned. I do not have the same reservations as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones; I did not base my scrutiny of these documents on the same evidence as him. On that basis, and with those precautionary words, the regulation passed my scrutiny.
Then I came to the codes. It is always lovely to have the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, here because he will do what I cannot—and it is just nice to know that he is there. We have four codes of practice. I set myself the task of looking at them from two points of view. Once upon a time, I used to mark undergraduate essays and held as two important criteria the structure of the essay and the content. On all those grounds, apart from an exception that I shall talk about in a moment, these codes—since they are aimed at their users—seem admirably succinct and comprehensible.
I also looked at them from the point of view of someone who for 20 years before coming into this position ran what I can only call a small business— £1 million turnover, 10 to 12 staff and 100 volunteers. It was a small business; it was a church. I think of how I started that 20-year period, with a desk reasonably clear and a diary reasonably empty to be able to address the pastoral needs of a group of people, to represent them in the community at large and to go about doing good. Twenty years later, my desk was heaving with regulatory material from one direction or another and, frankly, I was glad to get out at that point. It was astonishing. We had to outsource the work of a compliance officer, because we could not afford to employ one, just to keep up to date with all the things that we were expected to do. So we should bear in mind that some of these things will ask an awful lot of people whose desks are already full of regulatory material from this direction, that direction and the other direction. I do not see any way out of it, but it is worth saying.
I like the codes; they are clear. The explanatory document states that public authorities must follow their code when,
“making changes to their data systems”,
and that the code imposes,
“a duty on data suppliers to consult the UKSA before making changes to the data they collect”.
So they have to anticipate changes, seek the permission of the necessary body and then implement their plans. It is again an area where I see things happening the wrong way round.
Noble Lords will be glad to hear that I am coming to the end of my remarks. On the transparency and comprehensibility criterion, there is one wonderful consideration. Paragraph 9 in the draft information sharing codes states:
“While we consider the terms ‘information’ and ‘data’ to have the same meaning, ‘personal information’ in the Digital Economy Act 2017 has a slightly different meaning to ‘personal data’ in the data protection legislation. In this Code, personal information is information which relates to and identifies a particular person or body corporate (but which does not relate to the internal administrative arrangements of a person who may disclose or receive information under the Digital Economy Act 2017)”.
I then miss out a bit. It continues:
“You need to apply both definitions when you use these powers because you must both observe the requirements for ‘personal information’ under the Digital Economy Act 2017 and make sure that you have also complied with the requirements for ‘personal data’ under the data protection legislation”.
I am glad I do not have to implement that statement. If they have not worked out a way of communicating to us a uniform instruction that takes all those ambiguities into account, I cannot see how they can expect Tom, Dick and Harry around the place to do what they have been unable to do themselves.
There we are. That is enough of a Welsh rant from me; I did not even get in on the Swansea lagoon, which I thought was a load of rubbish as well—I would have liked that one, too. Conscious that the Minister—this man across the Dispatch Box from me is sublimely self-assured—is now impaled on the hook left for him by the departed noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, I am happy to register my observations for what they are worth, but in the name of clarity, consistency and monitoring, I urge that those points be taken into consideration.