Lord Phillips of Sudbury
Main Page: Lord Phillips of Sudbury (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Phillips of Sudbury's debates with the Home Office
Identity Documents Bill
Lord Phillips of Sudbury Excerpts(14 years ago)
Grand CommitteeRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Baroness Hamwee
I have Amendments 13 and 15 in this group, which also contains Amendments 14 and 16 in the name of my noble friend Lord Phillips. Amendment 13 is in my name and that of the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, who has asked me to say that he is sorry that he cannot be here this afternoon and that he very much supports the amendment, which in a way is a little embarrassing for me, as this is only a probing amendment, as indeed are all my amendments this afternoon.
Amendment 13 would insert the words “knowingly and” before “without reasonable excuse” in Clause 6(1). On the first day of Committee, the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, took us into some Latin terminology and I suppose that I shall, too, in asking whether mens rea—a guilty mind—is included in Clause 6(1). It is not obvious that it is covered by the phrase “without reasonable excuse” but, as the clause creates an offence, the “knowingly” aspect may well be imported in any event.
Amendment 15 would remove paragraphs (e) and (f) from Clause 7(1). It enables me to ask the Minister whether offences already exist relating to the misuse of driving licences. It struck me as odd to think that such offences came into effect only with the 2006 Act, so I would be interested to hear why it is necessary to refer to them at this point. I beg to move.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
My Lords, the other two amendments in this group, Amendments 14 and 16, are in my name. I reiterate what my noble friend said about the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, who has put his name to both my amendments.
The purpose of Amendment 14 is to get on record—this may help those who have to interpret the statute—an explanation of the difference between Clause 6(1)(a), which my amendment would delete, and Clause 4(1)(a). If the Minister could explain the intended difference between the offences laid out in those two paragraphs, that would be extremely helpful, as they are close in wording, albeit with different conditions. Amendment 14 is truly a probing amendment.
Amendment 16 relates to Clause 8, which is headed, “Meaning of ‘personal information’”. The phrase “personal information” is used in Clauses 4 and 5. My amendment seeks to clarify paragraph (l) of Clause 8(1). I ask the Committee to humour my error in framing the amendment. Its first word, “or”, is redundant and my amendment should therefore read,
“in relation to any identity documents”.
The paragraph, as it stands, refers only to “documents”, not “identity documents”, which my amendment does. The term “identity document” is defined in Clause 7, but I am concerned that the paragraph could refer to, for example, a rating return, a television licence or any one of many other documents which identify the person to whom they relate and which contain numbers allocated to person A. I should be grateful if the Minister could say whether I am right or wrong in seeking to confine the personal information defined in paragraph (l) to that which relates only to identity documents, as defined in Clause 7.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)
My Lords, I am not sure as to whether I am lost. Let me try to explain the differences. One of the difficulties that noble Lords are having relates to whether there is a difference between Clauses 4 and 6, to which my noble friend Lord Phillips referred. Clause 4(1)(a) requires proof of improper intention and so requires proof that a person has used a document or has allowed it to be used by another person. On the other hand, Clause 6(1)(a) requires only proof of possession of such a document. There is a difference between having something in your hand and having it in your hand when someone else has knowingly permitted you to use it wrongly. These clauses are different in their purpose.
More generally, I confess that I am concerned about the amendments, which are intended to bring greater clarity to the offences that are being re-enacted. I remind noble Lords that these clauses are re-enacted from the Identity Cards Act 2006. We do not believe that the proposed amendments offer anything of substance and we are concerned that they may cause confusion at the level of investigation and enforcement. As I mentioned on Monday, the definitions of offences work well on a daily basis—there are more than 3,000 convictions a year for false applications and attempts to get false documents. That is clearly an important element in trying to prevent identity fraud. Therefore, we are anxious to keep the effectiveness of these provisions in the Act.
As we know, the Identity Cards Act is four years old and, as I mentioned previously, we want in the near future to review the existing offences under this Act, the Fraud Act 2006 and the 2001 legislation on fraud and counterfeiting. We want to ensure consistency between these pieces of legislation. The review will consider not only areas of overlap but what potential improvements can be made as part of the rationalisation work. As I mentioned in our discussion on Monday, we would welcome the views of noble Lords on that when the review work is completed. As things stand, we would like to transpose—the transposition would be direct and unaltered—the existing clauses in the previous Act. We do not want to start altering them now, because we will be carrying out a more extensive and substantive review in a short while.
The noble Lord also asked about the definition of “personal information”, which is relevant to the offences set out in Clauses 4 and 5. As drafted, included within the definition of personal information is information about numbers allocated to a person for identification purposes and information about documents to which the numbers relate. For example, this could include the number of a departmental pass or the fact that the number related to a pass issued by a particular department. If you suspect that someone is trying to assume another person’s identity, that kind of information would be helpful to them and they would be all the more likely to use a guise of that kind given their knowledge of the document to which it relates.
The link between the number and the document would be lost by the wording of the amendment because the amendment would bring within the definition of personal information,
“information in relation to any identity documents”.
We are not clear about what is intended or to what extent the amendment adds to the matters set out in paragraphs (a) to (k) in Clause 8(1).
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
The Minister mentioned that a departmental pass would be a document under this paragraph. What about a television licence or a rating demand, both of which have specific numbers and relate to a particular individual? Would they be documents within this paragraph? It may be unfair to ask the noble Baroness that on the hoof—in fact, it is unfair—and I would be content to hear the answer later. But, no, here comes an answer. This is Roy Rogers at his best.
Baroness Neville-Jones
The advice that I am getting is that that would not be the case because a TV licence or similar document does not identify the individual but relates to them. That is right. You get back a receipt for the money that you have paid but it does not verify in any way the identity of the person who has paid the bill.
Lord Maxton
Perhaps I may briefly clarify that. A TV licence does not relate to an individual; it relates to the property to which it applies.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
It would seem that I have given a bad example. Does it not have the name of the licence holder on it?
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
Right. It therefore identifies that person and there is a number in relation to it.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Before the noble Baroness agonises over whether to withdraw the amendment, perhaps I may ask the Minister about the review. Will it be a departmental review or will it be a more public review? Can she say something about its timing?
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
My Lords, perhaps before the Minister answers, I could just ask her about what it says at the top of page 6 of the Bill, in Clause 10(3)(i). Following my noble friend’s intervention on qualifying the credit reference agency, I notice that there is an open-ended paragraph that says,
“any other person specified for the purposes of this section by an order made by the Secretary of State”.
It would be helpful if the Minister could let me know either now or in writing what sort of “any other person” might be mentioned. There was a concern about the credit reference agency, but I would actually have a rather wider concern about the open-ended nature of that provision.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
To follow on from what the noble Lord has just said, I think that is why he and I and the noble Lord, Lord Brett, had an amendment asking for some oversight of the process. This is a vulnerable clause which involves discretions, and it needs some sort of review process to ensure that what should be done is done.
Lord Hunt of Kings Heath
Can I respond to that, as we are in Committee? The noble Lord raises an important point. I have no objection whatever to the general principle behind Clause 10, which seems entirely sensible and in the public interest. It is simply a matter of ensuring that there is due process and accountability.
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, several questions have been raised. It is indeed the case that the contract with Experian was inserted in this Bill. We are transposing it, as it was negotiated by the previous Government. I do not think that it is contrary at all to the public interest, as it is a very reputable agency and, without doubt, it provides up-to-date and accurate information in a way that financial credit reference agencies are liable to have that information, which may be less up to date in departments of government or other organisations.
Other points were raised about the power of the Secretary of State or,
“any other person specified for the purposes of this section by an order made by the Secretary of State”.
That should be related to the question of how such orders can be made, under Clause 11, of which subsection (3) states that it has to be by affirmative order. So there would indeed be opportunity for debate. I do not think that this power could conceivably be exercised on an arbitrary or unaccountable basis.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
There is a difference in how the power is granted, and the Minister is quite right in saying that the affirmative order is protection enough. But there is the practical issue of how the order is implemented. That is where one needs to come back to this matter of some sort of independent review.
Baroness Neville-Jones
I take what the noble Lord says. We come back in all of this to the relationship between the Information Commissioner, the operation of these Acts and the assiduity with which the data protection provisions are applied. The Secretary of State is in discussion with the Information Commissioner about precisely these kinds of issues to ensure that there is proper internal accountability and that he is satisfied.
I was asked how we could be certain that these powers of retaining information could be properly held and used and about the power to exercise spot checks. The noble Lord, Lord Brett, also asked a question in relation to that. The other day, we debated the different powers that would be used for different parts of the operation of this Act. If I remember rightly, a procedure is laid out that applies particularly to the destruction of information that is not part of the register but connected to the applications that go to it. They are covered by a destruction process and that process would apply in this instance because it would be in connection with the application process.
The noble Lord, Lord Phillips, asked whether there could be judicial input. I understand that a requirement to attend a magistrates’ court on every occasion that a person is working for the IPS has suspicion—I am sorry, I cannot read this. What we appear to need to do is to ensure that there is operational capability to deal with suspected offenders. I am afraid that that is not an adequate answer and I will try to clarify it in a moment. I wonder whether any Members have any other comments that they want to make.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I think that the point of this is that, before the Secretary of State can start demanding verification information from people, there must be statutory authority and that Clause 10(3)(i) is a longstop provision in case some other category of potential informants is thought by the Secretary of State to be necessary for the verification process. It seems logical, I must confess.