Data Protection and Digital Information Bill

Robin Millar Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 29th November 2023 Commons Chamber

I am nervous about the amendment, simply because the Welsh Government have not been consulted. I do not know about the Scottish Government or others. I do not want to stir the devolution pot in a way that is unhelpful, so we will abstain on the amendment. The hon. Member is looking pregnant with something; I do not know whether he intends to intervene.

[Robin Millar (Aberconwy) (Con)]

indicated dissent.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

He does not—great.

Finally, new schedule 1 would grant the Secretary of State the power to require banks or other financial institutions to provide the bank account data—unspecified—of any recipient of benefits to identify

“cases which merit further consideration to establish whether relevant benefits are being paid or have been paid in accordance with the enactments and rules of law relating to those benefits.”

It is a very broad and, I would argue, poorly delineated power. My understanding from the Commons Library, although I note that the Minister was unable to answer the question properly, is that it includes the bank accounts of anyone in the UK in receipt, or having been in receipt, of state pension, universal credit, working tax credit, child tax credit, child benefit, pension credit, jobseeker’s allowance or personal independence payment.

The Minister says that the Government do not intend to go down some of those routes at the moment, but why, in that case, are they seeking that power? They could have come to us with a much more tightly written piece of legislation, and we would have been able to help them draft it properly. The proposed new schedule would mean that millions of bank accounts could be trawled without the Department for Work and Pensions, as the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) referred to, even suspecting anything untoward before it asked for the information. The 19-page new schedule, which was tabled on the last day for consideration, would grant powers to the Government without our having any opportunity to scrutinise it line by line, assess its implications or hear evidence from expert witnesses.

We should of course be tackling fraud. The Government have completely lost control of fraud in recent years, with benefit fraud and error skyrocketing to £8.3 billion in the last financial year. The Minister seemed to think that it was a good thing that he could cite that figure. The year before, it was even higher—a record £8.7 billion. On the Conservative party’s watch, the percentage of benefit expenditure lost to fraud has more than trebled since Labour was last in power.

Let me be absolutely clear: Labour will pursue the fraudsters, the conmen and the claimants who try to take money from the public purse fraudulently or illegally. That includes those who have defrauded the taxpayer over personal protective equipment contracts, or have not declared their full income to His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. My constituents in the Rhondda know that defrauding the taxpayer is one of the worst forms of theft. It is theft from all of us. It undermines confidence in the system that so many rely on. It angers people when they abide by the rules and they see others swinging the lead and getting away with it.

I back 100% any attempt to tackle fraud in the system, and we will work with the Government to get the legislation right, but this is not the way to do it, because it is not proper scrutiny. The Minister with responsibility for this matter, the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, who is present in the Chamber, is not even speaking in the debate. The Government are asking us to take a lot on trust, as we saw from the questions put earlier to the Minister for Data and Digital Infrastructure, so I have some more questions for him that I hope he will be able to answer.

As I understand it, the Government did a test project on this in 2017—all of six years ago—so what on earth have they been doing all this while? When was the new schedule first drafted, and why did the Minister not mention it in the discussions that he and I had two weeks ago? How many bank accounts does it potentially apply to? The Government already have powers to seek bank details where they suspect fraud, so precisely how will the new power be used? I have been told that the Government will not use the power until 2027. Is that right? If so, how on earth did they come to the figure of a £600 million saving—that was the figure that they gave yesterday, but I note that the Minister said £500 million earlier—in the first five years?

What will the cost be to the banks and financial institutions? What kind of information will the Government seek? Will it include details of where people have shopped, banked or travelled, or what they have spent their money on? The Government say that they will introduce a set of criteria specifying the power. When will that be introduced, how wide in scope will it be, what assessments will accompany it, and will it be subject to parliamentary scrutiny?

There is clearly significant potential to use data to identify fraud and error. That is something that Labour is determined to do, but it is vital that new measures are used fairly and proportionately. The Department for Work and Pensions says that its ability to test for unfair impacts across protected characteristics is limited, and the National Audit Office has also warned that machine learning risks bias towards certain vulnerable people or groups with protected characteristics. Without proper safeguards in place, the changes could have significant adverse effects on the most vulnerable people in society.

On behalf of the whole Labour party, I reiterate the offer that I made to the Government yesterday. We need to get this right. We will work with Ministers to get it right, and I very much hope that we can organise meetings after today, if the Bill passes, to ensure that the debates in the Lords are well informed and that we get to a much better understanding of what the Government intend and how we can get this right. If we get it wrong, we will undermine trust in the whole data system and in Government.

Broadly speaking, Labour supports the changes in the Bill that give greater clarity and flexibility to researchers, tech platforms and public service providers, with common-sense changes to data protection where it is overly rigid, but the Government do not need to water down essential protections for data subjects to do that. Our amendments set out clearly where we diverge from the Government and how Labour would do things differently.

By maintaining subject access request protections, establishing a definition of high-risk processing on the face of the Bill, and defending the public from automated decision making that encroaches too significantly on people’s lives, a Bill with Labour’s amendments would unlock the new potential for data that improves public services, protects workers from data power imbalances and delivers cutting-edge scientific research, while also building trust for consumers and citizens. That is the data protection regime the UK needs and that is the protection a Labour Government would have delivered.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose]

I wish I had seen something, because then I would be able to pull my amendment or inform the House. I have not seen something, and I think such a plan is essential, not just for Members in the Chamber this afternoon, but for all those investors, business leaders and app developers. That would allow them to work out the critical path, whatever the minimum viable products might be and everything else that is going to be necessary, and by what date, for the sectors they are aiming for. So the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right in what he says, and it is vital that if the Minister cannot come up with the timetable this afternoon, he can at least come up with a timetable for the timetable, so that we all know when the thing will be available and the rest of the open banking industry can work out how it is going to become an “open everything” industry and in what order, and by what time.

So this is fairly straightforward. There are promising signs, both in the autumn statement and in the Government’s new clause 27, but further details need to be tied down before they can be genuinely useful. I am assuming, hoping and praying that the Minister will be able to provide some of those reassurances and details when he makes his closing remarks, and I will therefore be able to count this as a probing amendment and push it no further. I am devoutly hoping that he will be able to make that an easier moment for me when he gets to his feet.

[Robin Millar]

I apologise to right hon. and hon. Members for any confusion that my movements around the Chamber may have created earlier, Mr Deputy Speaker.

New clause 45 is about the comparability and interoperability of health data across the UK. I say to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), the Opposition spokesman, that I have never been called pregnant before—that is a new description—but I will return to his point shortly in these brief remarks. There are three important reasons worth stating why data comparability is important. The first is that it empowers patients. The publication of standardised outcomes gives patients the ability to make informed choices about their treatment and where they may choose to live. Secondly, it strengthens care through better professional decision making. It allows administrators to manage resources and scientists to make interpretations of the data they receive. Thirdly, comparable data strengthens devolution, administration and policy making in the health sector. Transparent and comparable data is essential for that and ensures that we, as politicians, are accountable to voters for the quality of services in our area.

We could have an academic and philosophical discussion about this, but what brings me to table new clause 45 is the state of healthcare in north Wales. We have a health board that has been in special measures for the best part of eight years, and I have to wonder if that would be the case if the scrutiny of it were greater. One of the intentions of devolution was to foster best practice, but in order for that to happen we need comparability, which has not proved to be the case in the health sector.

For example, NHS Scotland does not publish standard referral to treatment times. Where it does, it does not provide averages and percentiles, but rather the proportion of cases meeting Scotland-only targets. In Wales, RTTs are broadly defined as the time spent waiting between a referral for a procedure and getting that procedure. In England, only consultant-led pathways are reported, but in Wales some non-consultant-led pathways are included, such as direct access diagnostics and allied health professional therapies, such as physiotherapy and osteopathy, which inevitably impact waiting times.

On cancer waiting times, England and Scotland have a target of a test within six weeks. However, there are different numbers of tests—eight north and 15 south of the border—and different measures for when the period ends—until the last test is completed in England or until the report is written up in Scotland. Those who understand health matters will make better sense of what those differences mean, but I simply make the observation that there are differences.

In Wales, the way we deal with cancer waiting times is different. Wales starts its 62-day treatment target from the date the first suspicion is raised by any health provider, whereas in England the 62-day target is from the date a specialist receives an urgent GP referral. Furthermore, in Wales routine referrals reprioritised as “urgent, with suspicion of cancer” are considered to be starting a new clock.

What can be done about this and why does it require legislation? New clause 45 may seem familiar to hon. Members because it was first brought forward as an amendment to the Health and Care Bill in 2022. It was withdrawn with the specific intention of giving the Government the time to develop a collaborative framework for sharing data with the devolved Administrations. I pay tribute to all four Governments, the Office for National Statistics and officials for their work since then.

Notwithstanding that work, on 5 September 2023 Professor Ian Diamond, the UK national statistician, made the following remarks to the Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee about gathering comparative health data across the devolved Administrations:

“You are entirely right that statistics is a devolved responsibility and therefore the data that are collected for administrative purposes in different parts of the United Kingdom differ. We have found it very difficult recently to collect comparable data for different administrations across the UK on the health service, for example.”

On working more closely with the devolved Administrations’ own statistical authorities, he said:

“We have been working very hard to try to get comparable data. Comparable data are possible in some areas but not in others. Trying to get cancer outcomes—”

as I have just referred to—

“is very difficult because they are collected in different ways… While statistics is devolved, I do not have the ability to ensure that all data are collected in a way that is comparable. We work really hard to make comparable data as best as possible, but at the moment I have to be honest that not all data can be compared.”

Mr Deputy Speaker, new clause 45 was brought forward as a constructive proposal. I believe that it is good for the patients, good for the professionals who work on their healthcare, and good for our own accountability. I do not think that this House would be divided on grounds of compassion or common sense. I thank all those Members who have supported my new clause and urge the Government to legislate on this matter. Today was an opportunity for me to discuss the issues involved, but I shall not be moving my new clause.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

With the leave of the House, I call the Minister to wind up the debate.