My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow my near namesake, the noble Lord, Lord Foulkes, and endorse his words. This group contains a number of different amendments. I will focus on Amendment 43 in my name, but that does not indicate that I do not support elements of the others.
I have done what the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, advises against, which is to table an amendment to one element of this clause in order to speak to a larger confusion that I have. This is a probing amendment, but the real point is: what is this centre for and why will it operate as it does? We have established a few facts at Second Reading and through previous amendments, so we know that the Government foresee one overarching centre rather than four national ones, and to do this, the Minister has painted a picture of two people and a website—a landing page. Forgive me, but this is a website requiring 48 lines of primary legislation, so it must have some importance in the mind of the Government to go to this much trouble when it replaces what was a sentence in an EU directive, which is the previous assistance centre. So much for red tape. We have 48 lines of primary legislation to establish a website run by two people.
My amendment leaves out Clause 7(4), which deals with disclosing information. Clearly, it reinforces that certain information cannot be disclosed, but to whom will this information be disclosed? It paints a picture of the collection and dispersing of individuals’ data, so what is the point? Why is it there? What data is it—whose stuff? I do not understand what it is for. I understood that it was to point people in certain directions. This is saying that it is a requirement to disperse data, but what data, and to whom? That is the central reason why I have put my name to this amendment. Of course, if it is collecting important data, it would be nice to know that it is doing so properly, so the terms of this subsection are of course correct, but we need to know why this centre is being set up as it is and what on earth it is for.