My Lords, I am extremely conscious that I will not excite your Lordships as much as our earlier debate on pints did. Nevertheless, I rise to move Amendment 106 on my noble friend Lord Fox’s behalf, and I will also speak to my Amendment 108. Both relate to issues arising out of Clause 7, which is about information sharing. Clause 7(1) enables the making of product regulations or metrology regulations permitting the sharing of information between persons who are specified later on in Clause 7(2). Those persons who can share information are described in, frankly, incredibly general terms:
“another relevant authority … the emergency services, or … a person specified, or of a description specified, in product regulations or metrology regulations”.
My noble friend’s amendment provides a list of additional persons and bodies that should be specified in relevant subsequent regulations, not least those persons or bodies responsible for investigating harms and deaths caused by products. The list of proposed additions is not, of course, exhaustive. After all, the Bill permits others to be added—but by adding the basic cadre of persons or organisations, we can ensure a healthy flow of information between relevant bodies to help develop future regulations.
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I give two examples to illustrate why we need to do a bit more than is currently in the Bill. For example, the concept of emergency services is already in the Bill at Clause 7(2)(b) but Clause 7(6) restricts the meaning of such services to those who can be summoned by 999 calls—the sort of services that deal with serious
injuries. But the vast majority of product-related injuries lead to people seeking walk-in services, not blue lights at all. Again, that is an argument for extending the list.
On the other hand—at the other end of the scale—the amendment adds coroners. Here there is real value in creating the data that coroners can provide to help us understand systemic problems with a product or its regulation. If the data is regularly collected, it creates the opportunity to identify patterns and trends that could point to the need for new regulation. The amendment also broadens the scope of bodies that could be permitted to receive information. At the moment, as well as emergency services, the Bill limits reporting to include only people specifically referred to in a given regulation. We have suggested that there is scope to extend this in a number of directions to include bodies such as Which? or CABs, which are able to make super complaints on behalf of consumers, as covered by Section 11 in the Enterprise Act.
I am acutely aware that I have been in Parliament for over 30 years and am well aware that Governments of all persuasions hate amendments that provide lists of things to be included. I am well aware that the Minister is about to stand up and say why he objects to a list. However, on this occasion, I hope that the Minister will be acutely conscious before he does that of a problem that he would face in so doing. That is because Part 9 of the Enterprise Act 2002 can be used to restrict the disclosure of vital safety information by a public body in the exercise of its statutory function, unless the information has previously been made public. However, the Bill makes it explicit that the disclosure of information would constitute the exercise of a statutory function. This means that, at least for the bodies listed, the Enterprise Act cannot be used to limit important information-sharing. If my list is included, the items do not fall foul of Part 9, brought in some years after 2002. So there is real value in including the list that my noble friend’s amendment has proposed. It is one occasion, therefore, where naming as many relevant bodies as possible will help to achieve the Bill’s aims. I hope it will not be lightly dismissed by the Minister.
I turn to my Amendment 108, which has a somewhat different purpose. I have already offered full support for information-sharing because of the benefits that it will bring but we should recognise the need for some limits or some guardrails to the information that bodies are required to share. That is standard practice in other pieces of legislation but currently absent in the Bill. As in other legislation, as the amendment says, information-gathering powers through information or interview notices cannot be used to gather privileged information, whether that be parliamentary or legal professional privilege or the right to be protected from self-incrimination.
All three of these protections are well established. For example, the protection from self-incrimination is covered by, among others, Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. Parliamentary privilege has been protected in common law ranging back for centuries to Lake v King in 1667; it is enshrined in the Bill of Rights of 1689.
I appreciate that the guard-rails I am proposing may be intended for inclusion in secondary legislation, but that would risk the relatively easy removal of such protections by any future Government. It would also risk the possibility of proper protection of privileged information not being included, even by this Government, in the product or metrology regulations that they will bring forward after the passage of the Bill. Protecting privileged information in the Bill insures against such possibilities; I hope the Minister agrees. I look forward to his response and beg to move Amendment 106.