My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Willetts for tabling this amendment. Like my noble friend, the Department for Education is fully committed to facilitating external research and
recognises its valuable contribution to the evidence base surrounding the education and skills system in England.
The intended purpose of this amendment, as set out by my noble friend—namely, to ensure that administrative data about learners is available for research and longitudinal studies in the public interest—is something that the department fully supports. However, public authorities, including the department, are already able to disclose information for research purposes under Chapter 5 of Part 5 of the Digital Economy Act 2017, as my noble friend referenced. For example, in line with the National Data Strategy, the department is already working with partners such as Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Higher Education Statistics Agency and the Office for National Statistics. Here the Act is being used to give researchers access to education data linked to benefits, employment and earnings in a de-identified manner via the Office for National Statistics Secure Research Service. This data, referred to as LEO—as my noble friend the Minister has already said—was opened for applications on 7 July this year. This example is one of almost 500 shares of departmental data using existing gateways which were live at the end of March 2021. As part of our commitment to transparency, details of all live shares are published quarterly on GOV.UK.
Given that the department and other public authorities are therefore already able to and do actively share data for research in the public interest, I hope that my noble friend is reassured that this amendment is not necessary and is able to withdraw it.