Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Charlie Dewhirst and Andrew Western

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Andrew Western]

Q That was since the pandemic. The overall figure is £35 billion, and last year it was £9.7 billion.

Ellen Lefley: I am grateful. It is a difficult one. For example, we could have almost zero crime in this country if everyone’s house had 24/7 surveillance installed. There will always be a way of decreasing privacy to increase state surveillance and therefore reduce unwanted behaviour, but the balance needs to be struck. Justice’s view is that when the state is getting new powers to investigate people’s private affairs, the balance is struck by having that reasonable suspicion threshold, which requires reasonable grounds for believing that a crime has been committed. That ensures that the powers given to the state in any primary legislation are not open to abuse or arbitrariness. Of course, the laws in the statute book must be written narrowly so that they protect rights on the face of it, rather than being written broadly and relying on the self-restraint of future Administrations to exercise them proportionately.

[Charlie Dewhirst (Bridlington and The Wolds) (Con)]

Q The Information Commissioner has indicated that some of the areas of previous concern on the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill have been answered. Do you not share that position, and do you continue to have concerns in that area?

Ellen Lefley: We continue to have concerns, acknowledging that there are two key oversight mechanisms in the Bill that were not in the previous one: this independent reviewer role and the code of practice. It would be far easier for Justice, but more importantly for Parliament, to be assured of the proportionality of any human rights infringement if that code of practice were before us.

Paragraph 79 of the human rights memorandum to the Bill notes that the code of practice will significantly impact whether the EVN measures are proportionate and prevent arbitrary interference with people’s privacy. It would therefore be very helpful to see that detail in order for Parliament to be confident about the content of that code of practice and how these powers will actually be used.