Health and Social Care (National Data Guardian) Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Peter Bone

Committee Debate: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 6th June 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Mr Bone]

The problem is that we could easily say that we need to have a regulator, but that is not what the Data Guardian does. We do not want to come along afterwards and say what has gone wrong; we want to get this right at the beginning and work with the different holders of data. It is a different approach. The comparison I think of is when I was involved with combating modern-day slavery. We now have a commissioner for that whose job is not to regulate but to expose and say what is going well or badly, and that helps. There could be pressure on an organisation—for instance, if it gets really bad publicity it will do something about it, but equally the commissioner will show where things are going well. We do not want to move towards a regulator or have lots of enforcement powers because that is totally different to what we have already established with Dame Fiona. Each hospital has a Caldicott guardian in it, so we are basically putting something that works on a statutory footing for the future.

I am pleased by the conversion of the hon. Member for Rhondda to concerns about cost, and I shall remind him of that if there is ever a Labour Government in future—

[Chris Bryant]

When!

[Mr Bone]

Well, I am sure there will be a Labour Government sometime in the next century.

The hon. Gentleman makes a very important point about MPs and data provided by our constituents. Although I do not think it is particularly relevant to this, I do think all Members are wrestling with what the new regulations mean. Medical practitioners have to hold information for a very long time. I have very detailed medical information from some of my constituents, and serious issues might arise if we were forced to destroy such information. Perhaps the National Data Guardian could give some advice on that point. I get very frustrated when I have to deal with the local hospital, if I do not get a consent form. That is clearly a delaying factor and definitely needs to be cleared up.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule 1 agreed to.

Clause 2

Interpretation

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bone]

The clause introduces amendments to other legislation as a consequence of the Bill. Schedule 2 lists five Acts to be altered, following parliamentary counsel’s advice. Those are the Public Records Act 1958, the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967, the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975, the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and the Equality Act 2010.

[Chris Bryant]

Why is the hon. Gentleman so keen on disqualifying a Member of the House of Commons from being the Data Guardian?

[Mr Bone]

We have taken parliamentary counsel’s advice—as always, I take advice from people. That is the reason: it is as a consequence of advice given by parliamentary counsel, and I am happy to accept that, unless the hon. Gentleman is thinking of himself in that role.

[Mr Bone]

The clause sets out the Bill’s territorial extent. The Bill extends to England and Wales only. The Committee will note that clause 1 provides for the Data Guardian to publish guidance and give advice, information and assistance, but that applies only to the processing of health and social care data in England. However, in regard to application, the provisions extend to England and Wales but apply only to England. The provisions do not extend or apply to Scotland or Northern Ireland. I hope that is perfectly clear.

[Chris Bryant]

Well no, it is not really. In fact, it is a little bit worse than that. We return to clause 2(5), which says:

“‘The health service’ means the health service continued under section 1(1) of the National Health Service Act 2006”,

but that Act states:

“The Secretary of State must continue the promotion in England of a comprehensive health service”

and so on. I therefore do not understand why the Bill extends to England and Wales. Will the provision will have any relevance whatever in Wales? If not, I do not know why it says that it does.

European Union (Withdrawal) Bill

Debate between Chris Bryant and Peter Bone

2nd reading: House of Commons
Monday 11th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)]

It is a great honour to follow the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett). She made a very thoughtful speech. One point on which I entirely agree is that, as this Bill passes through the House, we can look at better ways to scrutinise secondary legislation in particular. It seems that the Government are right that they will have to use secondary legislation, but it does not mean that all Delegated Legislation Committees must look the same. We do not have to have a one-and-a-half-hour DL on a technical matter of no importance whatsoever. However, if there is a Committee of some importance, why not extend the hours? Any Member can speak in a DL Committee, so there are ways we can improve scrutiny. That is what the Committee of the whole House should do when it considers the Bill.

I would be very surprised if the Bill finishes up in exactly the same format at the end as at the start. The Government would be well advised to accept reasonable amendments that improve the situation, but the principle of this Bill is quite simple.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

On delegated legislation, the hon. Gentleman seems to think that it is okay if something is debated in Committee, but the truth of the matter is that the only motion that can be considered in a delegated legislation Committee is whether the Committee has or has not considered the matter in hand. In other words, if every member of the Committee voted against, the legislation would none the less come into law. That is the danger of relying on secondary legislation.

[Mr Bone]

I think the hon. Gentleman would agree that if the affirmative mechanism were used, the whole House would vote on the matter, so I do not accept his argument.

This Bill is about a principle: I think it is called the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, and I think I introduced—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bone]

I thought that was the point I made: that this House could ultimately reject a DL. That is clearly what happened: we vote on it. I remember, and we vote on them all the time—my hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) mentioned at least eight times that they had been annulled.

[Chris Bryant]

Under the negative procedure, which is referred to regularly in the Bill, it is entirely up to the Government whether to allow a debate and a vote at all, and in the last 12 instances where the House has demanded a debate and a vote, including on very important issues, they have granted them on only four occasions.

[Mr Bone]

I entirely accept that point about the negative procedure. I want to move on to—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Bone]

No!

Basically, this Bill is about the principle of ending EU control over this House and incorporating those laws. That is fine, and that is why every Member of the House should vote for it tonight. What they should then do is look in Committee, clause by clause, at how we are proposing to scrutinise, change and incorporate laws. I wholly accept that the negative SI procedure is probably not the best way of proceeding.

Another thing that has been mentioned—the right hon. Member for Derby South brought it up, and it is probably what I wanted to talk about most—is programme motions. As a principle, I am against programme motions. I accept entirely the answer she gave me, which is that it was a lot worse before. However, she did not go on to say that it is great now, and I do not think it has been. There have been a lot of problems with the Government deciding programming and the timing of scrutiny.

Now, this particular programme motion is one of the better ones, because the debate is eight days long, with eight hours’ protected time each day. I am fed up of sitting here waiting for a debate, only to find that there is statement after statement, which reduces the time we have for that debate. Thankfully, we are not doing that this time, and if there is a need for extra time, the Leader of the House would be well advised to grant it.

I was here at business questions on Thursday, and the shadow Leader of the House did not complain about the timetabling. [Interruption.] Well, I must have been deaf, because I was listening out for it. She moaned about a lot of things, but she did not complain about the length of time.

[Chris Bryant]

She did.

[Mr Bone]

Well, I will stand corrected if that is the case.

Anyway, the point I wanted to make is that it should not be up to the Government to timetable business in this House. By fortune, I have a ten-minute rule Bill tomorrow that introduces a business of the House commission. If that Bill was law, we would not be worrying about all of this now, because timetabling would be decided by the House, with a commission putting its recommendations to the House once a week to vote on. So we are having a row about something when we do not need to.

If only we had listened to David Cameron, the former Prime Minister, when he said in his “Fixing Broken Politics” speech—one of his best speeches ever—that we should have this House commission. It was, of course, also in the coalition Bible, and we guaranteed that we would have that House commission within three years of the coalition’s coming into power. I do not know why that did not happen; I assume it just got overlooked. It would be quite wrong of me to say that the two Whips Offices were absolutely opposed to losing their power—it could not possibly have been that.

All that I am doing tomorrow is, hopefully, reintroducing something that was the policy of the former Prime Minister, the Conservative party, the Liberal Democrats and the Wright reforms. If we had had that commission, all the arguments and worries on the Opposition side would have disappeared.