Data Protection and Digital Information Bill

Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Baroness Kidron

Committee stage
Wednesday 24th April 2024 Grand Committee

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

That is one of the questions that I can now answer. The power will allow this, in so far as it pertains to helping the Secretary of State establish whether the benefits are being paid properly, as with paragraph 1(2) of new Schedule 3B. Rules around living together are relevant only to some benefits. That is a very short answer, but I could expand on it.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

May I add to the very long letter? I have been sitting here worrying about this idea that one of the “signals” will be excess capital and then there are matching accounts. If the matching account has more capital—for example, the person who has a connected account is breaking the £16,000 or £6,000—does that signal trigger some sort of investigation?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

That is a very fair question, and I hope that I understand it correctly. I can say that the limit for the DWP is that it can gain only from what the third party produces. Whatever goes on behind the doors of the third party is for them and not us. Whether there is a related account and how best to operate is a matter for the bank to decide. We may therefore end up getting very limited information, in terms of the limits of our powers. I hope that helps, but I will add some more detail in the letter.

Data Protection and Digital Information Bill

Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Baroness Kidron

Committee stage
Monday 22nd April 2024 Grand Committee

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I have a response to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, about signals. The signal is where the criteria or rules for benefit eligibility appear not to be met, and Parliament will have agreed those rules.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, the Committee will be grateful to hear, I hope, that I will not try to capture such a rich conversation. I thank the Minister for his careful listening and consideration. I will read carefully what was said at the Dispatch Box and what is about to be said during our discussion on the next two groupings because, without seeing all that in the round, I cannot truthfully say whether the questions asked by noble Lords have been answered.

I share a little of the concern that I can see agitating the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, about the words “signals”, “criteria” and “codes”, which are not promised in the Bill but are suddenly appearing. Indeed, the Minister will remember that, in a private meeting, we talked about how those criteria might be gamed and, therefore, how detailed they could possibly be. There may still be some differences of opinion, and possibly differences of practice, that need to be worked out.

Of course, for now, I will not press my opposition to Clause 128 standing part. I welcome further conversation between now and Report but, I have to say, I lost count of the number of times noble Lords have said “proportionate” in this debate and how many times the issues of scope, sweeping powers and so on were stated by some very expert people—both in and outside of this Room, not simply noble Lords.

The noble Baroness, Lady Buscombe, mentioned a pilot but I seem to remember that some of the outcomes on equality in that pilot got lost in translation. Perhaps it would be good to find out exactly what the pilot did and did not reveal—that is, not just the things that the department would like to reveal but some of the things that were not tested.

I do not doubt the personal integrity of the Minister in the slightest but I am unsure about the idea that the “test and learn” approach has no boundaries around it in the Bill. It is like saying, “Trust us. We test and learn, and all those powers exist”. With that, I will withdraw my stand part notice on Clause 128, but we have quite a lot of questions still to answer in our discussions on the next group of amendments and beyond.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The Government do wish to have that power. I should make it clear that an appointee could be a claimant as well, so there is a dual issue. It is important that we retain that power, to be sure that we cover the whole ground. But I will reflect on the noble Baroness’s point.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

There were a number of questions on the other group that related specifically to people’s willingness to take these roles on and what the unintended consequence of putting appointees and carers in this position might be for the DWP, with people saying, “Actually, not me, then”.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The noble Baroness makes a very good point. I may be able to give her further reassurances in a letter because, on the one hand, we do want the power to be able to cover the ground. On the other hand, there are necessary protections that we must put in place. So further reassurances probably need to be given. There is that balance to be struck, but I hope I can continue to do that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I will finish this answer, if I may. The DWP personal information charter lists banks and financial institutions, and other parties, among the parties with which DWP may share data and from which we may receive data. It also lists checking accuracy and preventing and detecting fraud among the purposes for which we may share or receive information.

A claimant will not be notified if their account details have been returned to DWP by a third party as that could alert fraudsters to the criteria, enabling them to evade detection—I think that is a valid point—but they will be notified if a DWP agent determines that a review is required as a result of the information provided by the third party. That notification will be done through the business-as-usual processes.

Moving on to defining working-age payments in legislation, which relates to the final amendment in this group, Amendment 235, which was tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, it would require the Government to specify in regulations the working-age benefits with which this power could be used. As she demonstrated, there is a wide range of benefits and therefore potential avenues for fraudsters to seek or exploit or for error to creep in. That is why it is important that the power enables the department to respond proactively as new fraud risks emerge.

That said, as the noble Baroness knows, the power will not be exercisable in all the benefits she listed—I took note of her long list—such as child benefit, which we have just mentioned, because the legislation is drafted in such a way that it could reasonably be exercised in relation to benefits for which the Secretary of State is responsible. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, and the Committee that in the first instance, we plan to use this with universal credit, employment and support allowance—ESA, pension credit and housing benefit. That is the way forward.

There may be a number of questions that I have not addressed, but I hope that I have continued to make the case for why this measure is so important and our aim to tackle fraud and error. I continue to make the case that it is proportionate and that proportionate safeguards are in place. With that, I hope the noble Baroness will agree to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

Will people with power of attorney over the account of someone who receives a benefit also be caught up in all this? That is another vulnerable group, so this could be extensive and quite worrying. Secondly, I am concerned by the Minister’s answers on this group. They have made me feel somewhat more strongly than I did when giving my response on the previous group, so I feel I should put that on the record.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

That is understood. I know that I need to provide further reassurances. Attorneys are included for the reasons that I set out for appointees.

Trade Bill

Debate between Viscount Younger of Leckie and Baroness Kidron

Committee stage & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Thursday 1st October 2020 Grand Committee

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I believe I should respond to the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, if I may. The noble Lord makes a very fair point. It is fair to say that this is, just by dint of the coincidence of timing, tied up with all the work we are doing on the online harms White Paper. He will know that more detailed proposals on the regulations will be released alongside the interim voluntary codes. We need to look at this in tandem with what we are doing with free trade agreements. That is the answer I can give to him at the moment. Again, I will write to him with more details on this because it is a very important subject.

[Baroness Kidron (CB) [V]]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, for asking half of my question, but, as the Minister just said, it is tied up with online harms, we are tied up with trade—I think that is our collective anxiety, if you like. At what point do these things start impacting on each other in ways that are negative to children? The reason for having a standard going in is to make sure that children are not victims of what happens over the next months and so on. I want to make that point.

I have another question, if the Minister would be kind enough to answer. He mentioned, a couple of times, high standards of data protection, but does he mean the standards that we negotiated so long and so heavily during the passage of the DPA 2018? Are those the standards, and will those remain the standards, or are we talking about some other general high standards of data protection?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

To answer the second question from the noble Baroness, we could well be. I think I have said, in other respects, when we do finally leave the EU after the transition period, because we will have left the EU it will be up to us to look at our standards and raise them if we think that is right. On the way forward on online harms, which is very close to the heart of the noble Baroness, I reassure her that there is a lot of cross-departmental work going on here. Although this is DCMS-led, I reassure her, on behalf of my noble friend Lord Grimstone, that the DIT and other departments are working together on the way forward, bearing in mind the White Paper.