Protection of Freedoms Bill

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am very sad indeed to learn that my noble friend’s equipment is entirely inanimate, but if for the purpose of legislation that is the meaning of the word, I am sure that having it in Hansard will suffice.

I am not at all sure that I understood the scope of “reasonable” as he expressed it. He said that the biometric system had to be run by or for the school, if I remember his wording exactly. I do not see where the boundaries of that are. If a bit of software provided by the school is being used on the school’s computers, why should that fall outside the prohibitions in this Bill just because it is a built-in component of a commonly available system? I would be very grateful if I could sit down with officials between now and Report to go through that.

I would also like to explore the scope of electronic means where we are looking at this consent. What forms of registering consent will be acceptable? This occurs as a general question. How is a school to know that a parent has given consent? How is it to know that it is the parent who has given consent? Schools do not have a stock of signatures to compare signatures against. If it is hard enough with something in conventional writing, how they are going to do it in electronic form I am not at all sure.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I have listened carefully to this debate. My experience is that electronic means are needed to be used by parents because an awful lot of messages from school end up in the washing machine.

[Lord Lucas]

Yes, my Lords, and in the ordinary way where something is not, as it were, being mandated by law in the way that is occurring in the Bill, that would seem sufficient. I would like to be sure that that ordinary common-or-garden communication that the noble Baroness describes will be acceptable under the Bill. Clearly, there is the matter of a verifiable electronic signature. When we came to introduce electronic means into the definition of writing it was with the concept of an electronic signature that was verifiable so that you could complete documents by electronic means, but that is not what is being talked about here. What we are talking about is getting an email that says, “Yes, I’m happy and so is Fred”. Is that consent by both parents, or is there some greater degree of identification required for electronic communications to be acceptable under this thing? Or is it just the reasonable best efforts of the school? I am not asking the noble Lord to respond now if he has prepared—

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[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

Can the Minister clarify before the next stage of the Bill whether or not, in circumstances where a school were to decide to use this form of recognition for people entering and leaving the school premises, he thinks that there are many 14, 15 and 16 year-olds who would withhold consent in order that they can slip out in the lunch hour unknown?

[Lord Henley]

If it was a matter of getting in and out of the school, there would have to be some other provision—as with school meals and libraries and so on—by which they could get in and out. It would not just be by biometric data; it might be by a PIN or a smart card or whatever. But I will certainly look at the point made by the noble Baroness, who speaks, as I said, with such great experience in these matters.

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[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I can be quite brief on this. I start by agreeing with the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, that CCTV is a vital tool in fighting crime. I believe that the public and the police are generally supportive of its use. The provisions in the Bill build on that support and will, I hope, maintain public confidence in the use of CCTV. However, as we saw with Project Champion in Birmingham—the noble Lord will remember this—such confidence can be very rapidly undermined if CCTV systems are seen as spying on local communities, rather than as a tool that helps keep them safe and secure. Therefore, we propose that our code of practice—for which guidance is set out in Clause 29—will form a coherent framework that will enable the public to challenge any system operator over how and why they use CCTV. It will also assist operators in maximising the effectiveness of their systems.

Calling for an inquiry is not only a very expensive option, as suggested by my noble friend Lord Marlesford, at a time when we do not want to spend money on such things, but also adds very little other than delay to the proposed code of practice, which will help to ensure the right balance between protecting the privacy of the citizen and the security and safety of the public. Our approach is designed to make sure that those using CCTV do so appropriately, proportionately, transparently and effectively. I think that was broadly endorsed by the various responses to our consultation.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, the Minister helpfully referred to the responses. The Local Government Association develops guidance for member local authorities in many areas of activity. What was its view of this process for getting a code? Will it be fully involved in looking at how a code would work?

[Lord Henley]

I cannot at this stage remember precisely what the LGA’s response was. However, I can assure the noble Baroness—who, with her local government background, is presumably a distinguished former member of the LGA—that we will certainly want to listen to its views as we get that code of practice sorted out. The Secretary of State must prepare it, as set out in Clause 29. We want to make sure that it is appropriately, proportionately, transparently and effectively designed to ensure that the right approach is taken in dealing with these things and we get—dare I say it again—the balance exactly right. I believe that there is consensus that further regulation is necessary. However, there is also consensus that there should be no further delay in this matter.

I object to the amendment, although I am grateful to the noble Lord for tabling it because it is useful to discuss the code, because we want to move ahead with getting that code of practice right. We will consult not just the LGA on that but a great many other bodies. However, having the inquiry, as suggested by the noble Lord’s amendment, would not achieve much. It might be that other inquiries will take place later but, for the moment, we want to get the code right and that is exactly what we will do. I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.