Clause 9 - Information databases
Children Bill [Lords]
9:15 am
Ms Annette Brooke (Home Affairs Spokesperson, Home Affairs; Mid Dorset and North Poole, Liberal Democrat)
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He is exactly right; we just do not know the answer to the question. Is it right to store data beyond the age of 16 or 18 or after an issue in a family has long since been resolved? The problem is that we have seen no draft regulations. I understand that, for many other Bills, draft regulations are available at least before Report.
The Joint Committee's report states clearly that it has written to the Minister asking what the justification is for not dealing with the details of the proposed database—singular—in primary legislation and for answers to the questions that it lists above. I should very much like her to respond to all the outstanding questions during this morning's debate; otherwise, we cannot move on.
Finally, I echo the comments of the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham on the concern about the success of Government IT systems generally. Interestingly, just this week we have had the Government response to a Select Committee report on IT and, in turn, the Select Committee's response. The Work and Pensions Committee published the Government response to its
''major report into why many IT projects in the public sector become defective, waste large sums of taxpayers' money and cause distress to thousands of clients.''
The potential for distress in the area that we are discussing is incredible, as the hon. Gentleman said.
The Chairman of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Sir Archy Kirkwood), said:
''Overall, we are very dissatisfied with the Government's response. The Government's record on IT projects needs to get better. We produced a well-argued report into how the Government's record . . . could be improved. Our report was widely recognised throughout the media and industry . . . However, we have received a response from the Department that all too often does not fully engage with the letter or spirit of the report's recommendations.''
The feeling is that there is not a learning experience from past failures. Again, we must be very wary of the introduction of a complex system with which things
could go badly wrong. I am not sure that we can support the amendment, but nevertheless an important point has been made by flagging up the phrase ''one or more databases''.