Clause 7 - Publication of information
Health Protection Agency Bill [Lords]
9:30 am
Miss Melanie Johnson (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department of Health; Welwyn Hatfield, Labour)
The clause takes forward a proposal made in the 2002 consultation paper that received wide support. Subsection (2) sets three limitations on the agency's powers. It makes it clear in paragraph (a) that publication is not permitted if it contravenes the Data Protection Act 1998. Paragraph (b) states that the agency must not contravene express restrictions in other Acts, and paragraph (c) states that it must not publish if it is not in the public interest to do so.
Amendment No. 14 proposes an additional limitation: the agency should not have the power to publish if publication were to contravene the express wishes of the source of the information. I appreciate that some people would not be willing to share information with the agency if they believed that there was a risk that it might be published without their consent. I agree that the agency's effective functioning could be damaged if essential information were withheld. However, the amendment is not the right way to deal with those problems.
In effect, the amendment would wreck the provision, because the agency would lose the power to publish if it was the wish—or even the whim or caprice—of the source of the information that publication should not take place. Not many would find that acceptable. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman can think of many circumstances in which the sort of information that we would expect to be published could be prevented from being made available in the public domain.