Data Protection and Digital Information Bill

Debate between Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Buscombe

Committee stage
Monday 22nd April 2024 Grand Committee

[Baroness Buscombe (Con)]

It is important that my noble friend answers that question. The point is that if we find—I am sorry, I still speak as if I am involved with it, which I am not, but I promise noble Lords that I have spent so much time in this area. If the DWP finds that there is a link that needs pursuing then that obviously has to be opened up to some degree to find what is going on. Remember, the most important thing about this is that the right people get the right benefits. That is what the Government are trying to achieve.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I note that the DWP has been passed a parcel by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology—and I am not at all surprised. I am sure it will be extremely grateful to have the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, riding to its defence today as well. Also, attendance at this debate demonstrates the sheer importance of this clause.

We on these Benches have made no secret that this is a bad Bill—but this is the worst clause in it, and that is saying something. It has caused civil society organisations and disability and welfare charities to rise as one against it, including organisations as disparate as UK Finance, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Davies, and the ICO itself. They have gone into print to say that, for this measure to be deemed a necessary and proportionate interference in people’s private lives, to be in accordance with the law and to satisfy relevant data protection requirements, legislative measures must be drafted sufficiently tightly—et cetera. They have issued a number of warnings about this. For a regulator to go into print is extremely unusual.

Of course, we also have Big Brother Watch and the Child Poverty Action Group—I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Lister—the National Survivor User Network, Disability Rights UK, the Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. We have all received a huge number of briefings on this. This demonstrates the strong feelings, and the speeches today have demonstrated the strong feelings on this subject as well.

There have been a number of memorable phrases that noble Lords have used during their speeches. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, referred to a “government fishing expedition”. The noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, called it “breathtaking in its scope”. I particularly appreciated the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, who said, “What happened to innocence?” In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, this is not “nuanced”: this is “Do you require suspicion or do you not?” That seems to me to be the essence of this.

I was in two minds about what the noble Lord, Lord Sikka, said. I absolutely agree with him that we need to attack the fat cats as much as we attack those who are much less advantaged. He said, more or less, “What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander”. The trouble is that I do not like the sauce. That was the problem with that particular argument. The noble Baroness, Lady Lister, talked about stigma. I absolutely agree. The noble Lord, Lord Vaux, more or less apologised for using the word “draconian” at Second Reading, but I thought the word “overreach” was extremely appropriate.

We have heard some powerful speeches against Clause 128. It is absolutely clear that it was slipped into the Bill alongside 239 other amendments on Report in the Commons. I apologise to the Committee, but clearly I need to add a number of points as well, simply to put on record what these Benches feel about this particular clause. It would introduce new powers, as we have heard, to force banks to monitor all bank accounts to find welfare recipients and people linked to those payments. We have heard that that potentially includes landlords and anyone who triggers potential fraud indicators, such as frequent travel or savings over a certain amount. We have seen that the impact assessment indicates that the Government’s intention is to “initially”—that is a weasel word—use the power in relation to universal credit, pension credit and employment support allowance. We have also heard that it could be applied to a much wider range of benefits, including pensions. The Government’s stated intent is to use the power in relation to bank accounts in the first instance, but the drafting is not limited to those organisations.

Of course, everyone shares the intent to make sure that fraudulent uses of public money are dealt with, but the point made throughout this debate is that the Government already have power to review the bank statements of welfare fraud suspects. Under current rules, the DWP is able to request bank account holders’ bank transaction details on a case-by-case basis if there are reasonable grounds to suspect fraud. That is the whole point. There are already multiple powers for this purpose, but I will not go through them because they were mentioned by other noble Lords.

This power would obviously amend the Social Security Administration Act to allow the DWP to access the personal data of welfare recipients by requiring the third party served with a notice, such as a bank or building society, to conduct mass monitoring without suspicion of fraudulent activity, as noble Lords have pointed out. Once issued, an account information notice requires the receiver to give the Secretary of State the names of the holders of the accounts. In order to do this, the bank would have to process the data of all bank account holders and run automated surveillance scanning for benefit recipients, as we have heard.

New paragraph 2(1)(b) states that an account information notice requires,

“other specified information relating to the holders of those accounts”,

and new paragraph 2(1)(c) refers to other connected information, “as may be specified”. This vague definition would allow an incredibly broad scope of information to be requested. The point is that the Government already have the power to investigate where there is suspicion of fraud. Indeed, the recently trumpeted prosecution of a number of individuals in respect of fraud amounting to £53.9 million demonstrates that. The headlines are in the Government’s own press release:

“Fraudsters behind £53.9 million benefits scam brought to justice in country’s largest benefit fraud case”.


So what is the DWP doing? It is not saying, “We’ve got the powers. We’ve found this amount of fraud”. No, it is saying, “We need far more power”. Why? There is absolutely no justification for that. No explanation is provided for how these new surveillance powers will be able to differentiate between different kinds of intentional fraud and accidental error.

We have heard about the possibility and probability of automated decision-making being needed here. I do not know what the Minister will say about that, but, if there will not be automated decision-making—that is concerning enough—if the DWP chooses to make these decisions through human intervention the scale of the operation will require a team so large that this will be an incredibly expensive endeavour, defeating the money-saving mandate underpinning this proposed new power, although, as a number of noble Lords have pointed out, we do not know from any impact assessment what the Government expect to gain from this power.

It is wholly inappropriate for the Government to order private banks, building societies and other societies and financial services to conduct mass algorithmic suspicionless surveillance and reporting of their account holders on behalf of the state in pursuit of these policy aims. It would be dangerous for everyone if the Government reversed the presumption of innocence. This level of financial intrusion and monitoring affecting millions of people is highly likely to result in serious mistakes and sets an incredibly dangerous precedent.

This level of auditing and insight into people’s private lives is a frightening level of government overreach, in the words of the noble Lord, Lord Vaux, more so for some of the most marginalised in society. This will allow disproportionate and intrusive surveillance of people in the welfare system. In its impact statement, the DWP says it will ensure that data will be

“transferred, received and stored safely”.

That is in contrast to the department’s track record of data security, particularly considering that it was recently reprimanded by the ICO for data leaks so serious that they were reported to risk the lives of survivors of domestic abuse. With no limitations set around the type of data the DWP can access, the impact could be even more obscure.

We have heard about the legal advice obtained by Big Brother Watch. It is clear that, on the basis that,

“the purpose of the new proposed powers is to carry out monitoring of bank accounts”

and that an account information notice can be issued

“where there are no ‘reasonable grounds’ for believing a particular individual has engaged in benefit fraud or has made any mistake in claiming benefits”,

this clause is defective. It also says that

“financial institutions would need to subject most if not all of their accountholders to algorithmic surveillance”;

that this measure

“will be used not just in relation to detection of fraud but also error”;

and that this measure

“would not be anchored in or constrained by anything like the same legal and regulatory framework”

as the Investigatory Powers Act. It concludes:

“The exercise of the financial surveillance/monitoring powers contained in the DPDIB, as currently envisaged, is likely to breach the Article 8 rights of the holders of bank accounts subject to such monitoring”


in order to comply. It is clear that we should scrap this clause in its entirety.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Buscombe

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but I would like to ask him whether, when the Joint Committee was having its deliberations, it ever considered, in addition to people’s feelings and hurt, their livelihoods.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

Of course. I think we looked at it in the round and thought that stripping away anonymity could in many circumstances be detrimental to those, for instance, working in hostile regimes or regimes where human rights were under risk. We considered a whole range of things, and the whole question about whether you should allow anonymity is subject to those kinds of human rights considerations.

I take the noble Baroness’s point about business, but you have to weigh up these issues, and we came around the other side.

[Baroness Buscombe (Con)]

Does the noble Lord not think that many people watching and listening to this will be thinking, “So people in far-off regimes are far more important than I am—I who live, work and strive in this country”? That is an issue that I think was lacking through the whole process and the several years that this Bill has been discussed. Beyond being hurt, people are losing their livelihoods.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I entirely understand what the noble Baroness is saying, and I know that she feels particularly strongly about these issues given her experiences. The whole Bill is about trying to weigh up different aspects—we are on day 5 now, and this has been very much the tenor of what we are trying to talk about in terms of balance.