Digital Government (Disclosure of Information) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, similarly, I rise to support these regulations. I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on the manner in which he introduced them. They are specific in scope, as all good statutory instruments should be; I support that specificity in them.

My question for my noble friend concerns that specificity of scope. It is underpinned by perhaps one of the most important principles for government both at Westminster and in all the devolved nations: how we optimise the potential, not inevitable, benefits that we could have from the data that exists and the sharing of that data. What more is happening across Whitehall to enable the right level of data sharing to ensure that we have robust, reliable and real-time data in all government departments and that citizens are far more engaged with the opportunities and how we all may play our part in them? Certainly, there are areas where the data is patchy; it is even non-existent in some areas. As we know, none of us fits into one simple, vertical departmental silo; we need support and services horizontally from a number of different departments, in a number of circumstances and at a number of times throughout our lives.

As I say, the underpinning nature of these regulations is probably one of the most critical elements if we are to take advantage of the opportunity that this data can bring us and deploy all the elements of the new human-led technologies for the benefit of citizens and the state alike.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

To begin, I thought that was a very interesting question from the noble Lord. It probably stretches the scope of this discussion but perhaps we could return to it in a debate because it is something we are all trying to grapple with at the moment.

The Minister knows that an SI is uncontroversial when most of the questions are about the consultation. I think there is nothing of substance to object to here. As an aside to my noble friend Lord Jones, about parental lack of choice around childcare, let me say that the issue is that the lack of choice is down to the complexity of the available schemes, the lack of support, the lack of availability and the cost. I am surprised it has taken the Scottish Government so long to get to this measure, I must say, but it is welcome. It will enable more parents to have that choice, which we very much welcome because we know about the evidence of the benefits to pre-school children of participating in learning through play and childcare more generally.

As we are here, the Minister is here and there has been a consultation, I want to ask the Minister something. He spoke about percentages in his helpful and thorough introduction. Can he give us an idea of how many people took part in the consultation? What assurances can he provide in response to the concerns raised about the sharing and handling of sensitive data?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, I start by thanking all noble Lords who have spoken in this short debate. I am pleased that there is broad support for the regulations, so I will start with that and endeavour to answer as many questions as I can.

I will go straight in by speaking a little more about the consultation. A letter might need to be written to give further details about this, particularly the numbers of people involved, but I will have a bash. As I said, the responses received were broadly positive. No significant issues were raised during the consultation and, as a result, no changes were made to the proposed objective or the draft regulations. That is a start to understanding.

The UK Government carried out the consultation together with the Scottish Government, who engaged with specialist learning and childcare organisations, as well as Scottish councils. That takes us a little further. Further numbers than those I have given on responses that were negative rather than positive is probably a matter for a letter, so that I can get the technical details to noble Lords. It is understandable that those questions were asked by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Bennachie, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman. I have statistics in front of me that I have already read out, so I do not think they are particularly helpful.

Moving on, a question was asked about to what extent the devolved Administrations are engaged with this in general. As mentioned, the UK Government are taking this objective forward at the request of the Scottish Government. The territorial extent of the regulations is UK-wide and applies in England and Scotland only, as I mentioned. Under Section 44(4) of the DEA, the UK Government are required to consult the devolved Administrations—plural—on our proposed objectives. A formal consultation was carried out with the devolved Administrations at the time of the public consultation. Furthermore, ongoing liaison has taken place at official level to ensure that the views of Welsh and Northern Irish colleagues have been fully accounted for. I help that is helpful, particularly in answering the question from the noble Lord, Lord Jones.

A very fair question on safeguards was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Bennachie. It focused on misuse, which is a fair point. I alluded to this in my opening speech, but I will try to go a little further. The data-sharing provisions in Part 5 of the DEA include a number of robust safeguards, the most important being compatibility and strict adherence to the Data Protection Act 2018 and UK GDPR. The DEA goes further and includes a number of additional safe- guards, including sanctions for unlawful disclosure. That includes custodial sentences. Furthermore, public service delivery powers are permissive, which means that public authorities listed in Schedule 4 can choose whether or not to do so. This safeguard prevents inappropriate data sharing.

Finally, as the new public service delivery objectives are created by affirmative secondary regulations, new objectives are defined for use before data sharing can commence, following public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny.

The noble Lord, Lord Bruce, also asked what provision there was to ensure co-ordination of the desired results. I think this is more about dissemination. The Scottish Government are keen to ensure that those families who wish to take up the early childcare offer can do so. They plan to co-ordinate the update and use of the objectives, which will be reviewed after one year. It is quite important to mention that.

I listened carefully to the short speech from my noble friend Lord Holmes. If I have got it right, his focus was really on the openness and transparency of data. He also spoke of the importance of the opposite, which I have already covered. We are committed to being open and transparent by making information about data shared under the DEA easily available for all to find out and understand. This helps citizens, the Government and the Information Commissioner’s Office to understand what data sharing is taking place.

Public authorities using the public service delivery, debt, fraud and civil registration powers must add data shares to a public register. The Cabinet Office is responsible for this and for maintaining the register, and the Public Service Delivery Review Board oversees strategic consistency. All accredited research projects and researchers are published on the UK Statistics Authority’s website, along with Research Accreditation Panel meeting minutes, to uphold the transparency requirements set out in the Research Code of Practice and Accreditation Criteria.

Finally, for statistics purposes, a list of data sources is available on the ONS website to maintain transparency of the data sources that the ONS holds to support its statutory functions, including data sources obtained under the statistics powers. That was quite a long answer but I hope it helps my noble friend.

I shall try to answer two or three more questions, if I may. I was asked what more is happening to enable the right level of data sharing across the UK. I think it may also have come from my noble friend—I see he is nodding. The Cabinet Office is working with the devolved Administrations to ensure that more data sharing takes place across the UK. It is rather outside the scope of this debate, but I will consider the replies I have given and may well add to a letter that may be coming the noble Lord’s way. I shall copy in all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate.

One final response that has just come to me may be helpful to the noble Lord, Lord Bruce. It is about the responses. I can confirm that we received 69 responses. That is the only response I have. As I said, I think we should look at the full consultation details and I will furnish the noble Lord with more information, should we have it.