Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill — House of Lords, 2021-10-25
Topic: Law and Crime
Richard Rosser (Labour, Centre-left): My Lords, I will be relatively brief, for two reasons. The first is the time. The second is that many of these issues were raised in our earlier debate on medical confidentiality The amendments in my name in this group would remove provisions in a number of clauses in this chapter of the Bill, allowing for obligations of confidence and restrictions on the disclosure of data to be breached. They target the same provisions that have already been raised by noble Lords in this debate. At this stage, the intention of my amendments is to probe the intended effect of these powers As we have heard, the Bill provides: "The Secretary of State may by regulations authorise the disclosure of information" between authorities involved in the serious violence duty. Clause 9(4) provides that those regulations "may provide that a disclosure under the regulations does not breach … any obligation of confidence owed by the person making the disclosure, or … any other restriction on the disclosure of information" Subsection (5) goes on to qualify this somewhat, stating that the regulations must "not authorise a disclosure of information that … would contravene the data protection legislation" However, it then provides that, "in determining whether a disclosure would do so, any power conferred by the regulations is to be taken into account" What restrictions do the Government envisage being breached under the provision for "any other restriction" in Clause 9? What restrictions do they mean? Do these provisions differ from what is in place for existing duties that require joined-up working? The Bill states that the one restriction the regulations are not intended to breach is data protection legislation but, as I have said, it then seems to suggest that this will be qualified by the powers under the Bill. Can the Government expand on that in their response? In what way should "any power conferred by the regulations" be taken into account? Can the Minister give some examples The sharing of information and the prevention of silo working are, as has been said, vital for tackling crime and for safeguarding purposes. We have heard in previous groups, not least from my noble friend Lady Blake of Leeds on housing provision, what can happen when services are not able to work together to put necessary or urgent support in place. However, the wording in the Bill has given rise to considerable concern in organisations working on these issues, as has been said already. I will not repeat the points already raised but will touch briefly on a few issues before I conclude First, one of the key concerns that has been raised by organisations, and which was raised again during the debate this evening, is the erosion of trust that is risked if people feel that private information about them may be passed on in unexpected ways. In particular, there is a risk of young people feeling they cannot build the relationships of trust with social workers, teachers or service providers which are absolutely irreplaceable for preventing violence and keeping those young people safe. Do the Government recognise that risk that breaches of trust risk make it harder to achieve the aim of reducing violence? Who makes the decision about when it is or is not in a young person’s best interest that information is shared, an issue which my noble friend Lady Chakrabarti raised in an earlier debate Secondly, later in the Bill, we will spend time debating provisions to protect the privacy of victims of crime. This section explicitly defines "becoming involved in serious violence" as including victims of crime. How will these data-sharing provisions impact the victim of crime Finally, the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime and the Information Commissioner’s Office have both reported significant problems with the Met’s gangs violence matrix, an existing tool to identify and risk assess individuals involved with gangs. The key issues included the disproportionate inclusion of young black males on the matrix, and data protection, including serious data breaches. What proactive learning has been undertaken from the experience of the gangs violence matrix to prevent the same problems arising again under the provisions of this Bill I said I would be brief; I hope I have achieved that. Like other noble Lords, I look forward to the Minister’s reply.