Protection of Freedoms Bill

Baroness Sharp of Guildford Excerpts

Wednesday 15th February 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington]

I shall speak to Amendment 51, which stands in my name. Unfortunately, my noble friend Lady Heyhoe Flint is unable to be here. I am afraid that she is going through a learning curve on this Bill and has learnt the great rule about parliamentary procedure in the Lords that it does not matter how late you stay, sometimes the proceedings just will not get to your amendment.

I thank the Government for what they have said. They have listened to the concerns brought to me through the Sport and Recreation Alliance, which represents all the major sporting bodies. Its concern will probably be mirrored in every body that deals particularly with children and virtually any vulnerable group: that is, we do not exactly know how much authority a person will have over a child, which will change with each sport or activity over a period of time. If you are helping a dancer with flexibility or strength work, it is slightly different from assisting with strength work for a young shot putter. There will still be a very intimate level of interaction and a degree of authority.

Giving those bodies in charge the chance to interact with the Government and to make sure that there is a two-way dialogue means that there will be a better chance of getting this right. I thank the Minister for what he has said and for all the work that he has done on this. However, will he give an assurance that this will be updated periodically? Training techniques in virtually all sports change. Philosophies of engagement with groups of youngsters have certainly changed dramatically and will probably change again. A degree of change and a continuation of flow of information would be good, and what the Government have done is good. It addresses virtually all our points.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I regret to say that my noble friend Lady Walmsley is unable to be here today and has asked me to speak on her behalf on Amendment 52. The Minister has already mentioned this amendment. I take it from when he talked about the fact that the situation in further education colleges has yet to be finalised, and that the precise application can be ensured in regulations, that there is still some room for manoeuvre.

I should like to take up the two letters that the Minister wrote to my noble friend on 11 February and the other to my noble friend Lady Randerson on 1 February. I believe that it has been circulated to noble Lords. We are anxious that further education colleges should be treated in the same way as schools and that every full-time, and to some extent part-time, member of staff should be subject to the same vetting and barring rules. We were arguing that the staff should have a statutory CRB check. My noble friend has made the point many times as to the illogicality of the two types of institution being treated differently, but I will not dwell on that.

In his letter to my noble friend Lady Randerson, the Minister says:

“We do not consider it is right that, apart from special circumstances such as those applying to fostering and adoption, barred list information should be available in respect of posts which are not themselves subject to barring. This would effectively provide barring information to employers which is not relevant to the post and could lead to disproportionate and detrimental decisions”.

My noble friend Lady Walmsley and I do not agree that this information is not relevant to the post. We believe that it is relevant to the post if the employer thinks it is: in other words, if the employer thinks that the post, albeit not a regulated one under this Bill, would give the employee an opportunity to develop a relationship of trust with a young person.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Bew]

My Lords, I support Amendments 55A and 56. I must confess the interest of being a working professor in one of our universities. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Henley, who has spent much time with those of us who have been concerned about these matters. I am very grateful to him for that.

The Government’s view is that the exemptions already present mean that many of the fears held in this Chamber are unjustified. I want to make one brutal, simple and crude point, which partly picks up on the points already made by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. We must think about multinational concerns and how the country is viewed from outside. For example, let us take the case of our libel law. Our senior judiciary genuinely believes that it is wrong to believe that London is the libel capital of the universe. Genuinely, it says, “If you look more closely at the facts of the case, it is not quite so”. Perhaps that is right; perhaps it is wrong. The world has made up its mind that London is the libel capital of the universe. That clearly affects the way that the world behaves. It may be unfair, but the world has made up its mind. Similarly, in this case, it is not worth taking the risk of the world making up its mind that there might be this or that exemption in existing law but somehow universities in the United Kingdom are not as secure places to invest in research as universities in France or the Republic of Ireland—or even in Scotland—where there are higher barriers. I wish to underline that brutal point about international perception.

Unfortunately, my noble friend Lady O'Neill has had to go. I want to make one point which I know was on her mind in moving her amendment. Her concern relates to public authorities—here, meaning universities and other publicly funded institutes—being required to release research data sets on which they hold copyright in a reusable form without any conditions on their subsequent dissemination. A research data set that is released without conditions on its further use is, in effect, made available to the entire world and so will be fully available in jurisdictions where respect for intellectual property is poor and remedies for its violation are non-existent. In other words, we are talking about something entirely different from the case involving Cambridge, King’s College London and Professor Crick, which we talked about earlier. It is an entirely different utilisation of another person’s data set.

I was discussing this with a distinguished researcher at our university at the weekend. She said to me, “Actually, I’m sitting on a very sophisticated data set and it is just about possible that I am not asking the right questions of it. There might be somebody in another United Kingdom university who would ask different questions and could do something with it. It is just about possible that that might be so”. However, the danger—and it is the concern that the amendment of my noble friend Lady O’Neill addresses—is: if we do not control the reusable aspects of such an exchange, we will leave ourselves open in a way which is not sensible from a national point of view. I am sure it is the view of my noble friend Lady O’Neill that we cannot ignore the reality that science is both international and competitive and that sophisticated science is now done in some places where there is scant respect for intellectual property. An unreciprocated requirement for United Kingdom university researchers to provide any data sets that they create and hold without any conditions on their republication or dissemination will damage the competitive position of UK researchers and so of UK science.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I have spoken before in favour of Amendment 56 and shall not repeat the arguments which illustrate how much work goes into cleaning up the raw data necessary to form data sets to develop meaningful analysis and the problems that can arise from forced distribution before those data have been properly presented and analysed.

I should like to reinforce the arguments made around the Chamber about what a disincentive to young researchers it is if they feel that all their work can be poached and used by somebody else. As the noble Lord, Lord Oxburgh, mentioned, it is also open to foreign researchers to poach and make use of those data, pre-empting the results. Similarly, it can be a disincentive to commercial collaboration, although, as the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill, suggested in relation to her amendment, one way to prevent the data being poached is to collaborate with a commercial partner. However, at a time when Her Majesty’s Government are trying to encourage collaboration between commercial partners and universities, it seems very unfortunate to encourage the use of freedom of information in this way.

What I cannot understand is the Government’s opposition to the amendment. Effectively, this scheme has been piloted in Scotland and has been found to be very satisfactory. It is very unusual for us to have legislation that has been piloted in this way. Given that it has proved so satisfactory, I cannot understand why the Government are so resistant to accepting it.

[Lord Nickson]

My Lords, I have made a rare appearance here because I thought that the Scotland Bill would be coming up yesterday and was suitably disappointed. I did not come to speak in this debate. However, having spent a lifetime in industry and having also been fortunate enough to be the chancellor of a very junior Scottish university to that of my noble friend Lord Sutherland, I should like to say to the Minister and the Government that I have never heard a debate in this House containing such conviction, unanimity and passion, and given with such authority from so many sides. I am deeply impressed by what I have heard. I merely rise to support the amendments and to plead with the Minister and the Government to take what has been expressed with great seriousness.