Tenant Fees Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Daniel Zeichner and Paul Williams

Committee Debate: 2nd sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 7th June 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Daniel Zeichner]

Q But, as it stands, the Bill would not help you to do that.

Alex McKeown: I do not think so; not as it stands. To try to prove it beyond all reasonable doubt will be a lot more difficult, and you will get more people doing it.

Councillor Blackburn: If I may venture a view, however beautifully crafted and drafted the Bill is, the sector is already trying to, and will, find ways around it. We need to be careful about not disappearing down the enforcement rabbit hole. The most effective way of protecting tenants is for the Government to lead a high-profile campaign to remind tenants of their rights, and to remind the sector that such fees are outlawed. That will be the single most useful thing that we can do to inform tenants of their rights and to ensure that they do not engage with companies that are trying to extract fees from them.

Enforcement can do only so much. Even with all the resources in the world, the risk of companies just folding to avoid paying the fine, and our not being able to trace those responsible, will always be there. The most useful thing that the Government can do is to lead a national campaign and make it very clear to tenants that from date X such fees are outlawed. That is probably the most helpful thing that we can do, because alternative business models will spring up left, right and centre as a way of trying to get around it.

[Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)]

Q As the Bill stands, how will you even learn if a landlord or letting agent is charging a non-permitted fee?

Alex McKeown: It will be through the complaints. That is one of the problems in trading standards. When a tenant goes to make a complaint to their local citizens advice bureau, they will be referred to Shelter. Our first-tier advisory service is the citizens advice consumer service, and again they get referred to Shelter.

We would have to trawl the databases to try to find the complaints. The one thing the chiefs say is that we do not get the complaints from tenants, because they do not know to complain to us. The information that Shelter takes from tenants is not good enough to pass on. There is no memorandum of understanding between Shelter and trading standards, so we do not get a clear idea of the problems. Historically, when I have had meetings with Shelter and said, “We need the information you have,” they have said, “But we don’t take trader details.” I need trader details; I need to have that information. If we had access to the information that Shelter holds, the big problem would be shown.

Data Protection Bill [Lords]

Debate between Daniel Zeichner and Paul Williams

3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Wednesday 9th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Daniel Zeichner (Cambridge) (Lab)]

I want to endorse new clause 4, which was so ably set out my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) from the Opposition Front Bench. I went on the Bill Committee with a sense of optimism and excitement, perhaps naively, because it seemed that so much needed to be done at the moment. Almost every day new issues arise—I hardly need to say that for me, “Cambridge” and “analytics” is an unfortunate combination. In the past few days, there have been facial recognition issues in the Welsh police and Amnesty International has raised the issue of gang lists. I hoped that we could rise to the challenge. However, I fear that although the Bill is hundreds and hundreds of pages long—in the pre-digital age, it would probably have been described as being the size of a telephone book—as Members have observed, does anyone really know what it means? That is why we needed a simple set of rights that people could understand. The sad thing is that people in the wider world are doing such good work and we should be looking at it. Look at what Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt are doing to try to transfer the data away from the big tech companies to make it our data. That is key, and it is the underlying principle of the GDPR, but I am not sure that we have been able to translate it into legislation.

I make two final observations. First, the golden thread running through much of this is data adequacy, which was referred to by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford. In too many places there are genuine concerns, not just from Opposition Members but from Members in the other place, about our being tripped up on data adequacy, which is so important.

Finally, on the Information Commissioner’s role, a huge amount is being passed to her. We can have every confidence in her, but does she really have the resources, power and expertise? Most importantly, we are outsourcing some huge, really important judgments to the Information Commissioner, but I think it should be the role of this place to make those judgements in future, and I fear that we will come back to those points later in the day.

[Dr Paul Williams (Stockton South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner). I also pay tribute to the hon. Member for Totnes (Dr Wollaston), who is an extremely capable Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee and has shown real resolution and persistence on new clause 12.

In the sanctity of the consulting room, patients tell doctors, nurses and NHS staff all kinds of things. I have had all kinds of private and confidential issues disclosed to me in the 22 years that I have worked as a doctor, but the protection that the NHS gives to this information is absolutely fundamental. For years, the NHS has, on request from the Home Office, been sharing the address details of some patients that have ultimately been used to deport an unknown number of people over many years.

I recently visited a clinic run by the excellent charity, Doctors of the World, in Bethnal Green. I heard stories there of vulnerable people being afraid to approach NHS services because they cannot be certain that the information that they are asked to give will be treated confidentially. I heard about pregnant women not going for antenatal care, people with HIV not getting treatment and people who are afraid to take their children to the GP. The bond of trust between the NHS and its patients relies on the truth being told in both directions. Sadly, people have been avoiding the NHS because they do not trust it. That is bad for the reputation of the NHS, bad for the health of individual patients and bad for public health.

Doctors, nurses and other health professionals do not want information that is given to the NHS by patients to be shared except in the most extreme cases, when there is a significant risk to individuals or to the public. I am pleased that the Government have found a way to assure the House this evening that NHS information will be shared only in the event of a conviction or an investigation for a serious crime. This is the only way to preserve the integrity of the NHS and the immeasurable, vital and precious bond of trust between NHS staff and their patients.