Digital Economy Bill

Viscount Ullswater Excerpts

Committee: 3rd sitting (Hansard - continued): House of Lords
Monday 6th February 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Byford (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to move the amendment tabled by my noble friend Lord Willetts, who apologises that he could not be here tonight. I have the two other amendments in the same group. Clause 68 makes mandatory the provision of data by Crown bodies to the ONS for defined statistical research purposes. An alternative approach might be for an organisation such as the Information Commissioner’s Office to provide arbitration on contentious requests.

Clear insight into whether the Bill directs Crown bodies to share data from statistics is needed in Clause 68. At the Bill’s Committee stage in the House of Commons, where there was a long discussion on this, Chris Skidmore, Minister for the Constitution in the Cabinet Office, said it would be possible for a Crown body to refuse an ONS request for data and,

“where necessary, have their refusal put before Parliament”.—[Official Report, Commons, Digital Economy Public Bill Committee, 27/10/16; col. 379.]

The Royal Statistical Society’s primary objection to this is that it provides no subsequent mechanism for the ONS to secure access to the data. It is also unclear to it what the process means in practice, which part of the legislature will deal with that correspondence, what it is expected to do with it and what sanctions it can apply for non-disclosure. The RSS has been asking why this is in place and whether it is justified, especially as other countries, such as Canada, operate with less burdensome arrangements. I should say that I am very grateful to the Royal Statistical Society for its briefing, otherwise I would be really lost. The RSS says:

“Including the Minister’s contribution, we have heard two arguments thus far … The Minister explained the different treatments for Crown bodies and other public authorities as being due to conventions: ‘That way of working, set out in sections 45B and 45C, ensures consistency between how a Crown body interacts with another on the one hand, and how a Crown body interacts with a non-Crown body on the other’ … We have also been privy to a different, earlier argument that due to the indivisibility of the Crown, one Crown body cannot give directions to another”.


If we thought earlier discussions were difficult, I think it is getting even more so.

The briefing continues by saying that,

“we have sought and obtained legal advice, which suggests that Parliament could technically direct departments to do what it deems fit. The government’s position, although it is not unprecedented, appears politically or culturally based. It may be that the government has heard objections from some departments to a mandatory approach. We are aware that there could be reluctance on the part of some departments to share data generally, and with ONS and researchers in particular. However, problems of risk aversion to data sharing ought to be addressed without obstructing the proposed right for ONS to access data for statistical purposes, which has been more widely supported and called for, for example, by the Public Administration Select Committee (2013) and the Science and Technology Select Committee (2016), and in other reports described in the House of Commons Library’s analysis”.

There is much more material here but I shall not push the matter further. I hope I have given my noble friend enough to respond to.

My Amendments 208 and 209, which are linked to this, are much simpler and more direct as far as I am concerned, because I am not technically astute on the other topic. Large, well-known charities employ many people using many skills and who are occupied full-time in their jobs. Little charities rely on unpaid volunteers who may not have a wide range of skills and who use their free time to work purely for the charity. I have two examples in mind. The first is Freddie’s Wish, which commemorates a little boy who died in a car crash. His mother set up the charity to help local bereaved families and to raise money for the children’s hospital and the air ambulance. In two years it has raised over £50,000 and trained more than 100 volunteers in paediatric first aid.

The second example is Evelyn’s Gift, which has been a registered charity for less than a year although its founder and volunteers have been working for nearly four years. It is in memory of a seven year-old girl who died of respiratory illness. Its aims are to arrange CPR training and to continue her practice of doing little acts of kindness. The list of acts done in her name and in the name of people and the organisations that support them is inspiring. The charity employs no one and all the work is carried out by unpaid volunteers.

Organisations such as these have no resources to supply the Statistics Board with information. An unpaid voluntary worker would have to give time to filling in forms instead of doing the work he or she has signed up for and dearly wishes to do. It could be difficult to persuade anyone to donate even more time in this pursuit. A small charity with irregular income but making an important local contribution could well be destroyed by a fine levied under new Section 45F(3).

Most people nowadays have heard of charitable shoe boxes. These are sent, filled with practical gifts—hand-knitted hats, scarves and gloves, pens and paper, recycled soft toys, tennis balls and so on—to underprivileged children in Africa and eastern Europe, and, indeed, in our own country. Those who fill them spend their own money and devote much time to making up these boxes. The work is carried out throughout the year and each box going abroad to Africa costs at least £2.50 to transport in November and December. Villages, primary schools, care homes and religious groups donate goods, money, time and effort to reclaiming, recycling and packing huge quantities of otherwise unwanted items. They also raise funds for basic toiletries, small packs of sweets and things such as pens and paper, without which some children cannot go to school. I know of one village that last year sent 1,326 boxes to the central depot.

Who is to fill in the forms for the Statistics Board, and is that really necessary for these very small charities? The boxes come from all over the country. They must not contain liquids, chocolate or sweets dated for expiry before the end of March of the following year. Beyond this, there is no record of contents, value or hours worked. With such charities, my concern is that the figures available to the Statistics Board will be solely to do with the transport of the finished items. That would surely distort the results of any study by the board. I suggest that we should therefore exempt such charities from the Bill. I beg to move.

[The Deputy Speaker (Viscount Ullswater) (Con)]

I must advise your Lordships that, if this amendment is agreed to, I will not be able to call Amendments 200 to 202 because of pre-emption.

[Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support this amendment. There seems to be something quite perverse in obstructing the access of the Statistics Board to datasets that are in the hands of other public bodies. That is a very simplified account, but it is a curious place in which to have an obstacle. I hope that the Minister can consider this clause very seriously.