Identity Cards Bill
4:00 pm
Tony McNulty (Minister of State (Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality), Home Office; Harrow East, Labour)
Welcome to our deliberations, Mr. Gale. Before the break, I was drawing my remarks on amendment No. 80 to a close. The only substantive point to make is about oversight in relation to an excluded matter when a particular case raises a concern of substantial public interest. I said that the notion that clause 24(3)(a) to (g) in any way deliberately limits the commissioner’s role is not correct. These jurisdictions overlap with those of other commissioners and bodies, including Parliament. However, I want to discuss the fair point about a concern that is of substantial public interest.
To a large extent, the amendment is seeking to do something that the clause does already. Let us take proposed paragraph (b) of the amendment. While it is not for the commissioner to review the actual exercise of delegated powers—that is Parliament’s role, not the national identity scheme commissioner’s—it is clear from subsection (2)(a) that it is the commissioner’s role to review the Secretary of State’s functions
“under this Act or the subordinate legislation made under it”.
In so far as statutory instruments, regulations and statutory rules in a Northern Ireland context need reviewing within the context of the Act, that is already covered under subsection (2)(a). It is right to exclude the wider scrutiny role of subordinate legislation in general terms, which is the purview of this place, from the commissioner’s deliberations.
To use the language of the proposed paragraph (a), I refer to the position in which
“any particular case affected by these powers or rules raises a concern of substantial public interest”
under the Bill. That will obviously fall within the jurisdiction of the commissioner.
By referring to appeals against civil penalties, proposed paragraph (b) of amendment No. 80 would do precisely what clause 24(3)(b) does. Appeals are for the civil courts and it would be inappropriate for the commissioner to have an overlapping jurisdiction. However, it is right that the commissioner has oversight of the rest of the civil penalties machinery, because that will be run by the Secretary of State and, without the commissioner, would not be subject to an oversight. Therefore, proposed paragraph (b) of the amendment, which would remove that part of the commissioner’s jurisdiction, is inappropriate.
Proposed paragraph (c) of the amendment would enable the commissioner to examine the prosecution of a person for a criminal offence under the Bill if that raised a matter of substantial public interest. I do not believe that that is right. Prosecutions are a matter for the police, the Crown Prosecution Service and the courts. In exceptional circumstances after the event, a prosecution will be the subject of an inquiry. It would be unusual to empower a commissioner to review prosecutions that he considered would raise a matter of substantial public interest. Although I understand the grain of the amendment, it is not necessary for the reasons that I have outlined.
Proposed paragraphs (d) and (e) would give the commissioner jurisdiction to review the provision of information to the security services, again subject to the substantial public interest test. The reason for leaving national security matters to existing statutory commissioners, who were created specifically to deal with national security matters, is obvious. I am referring to the overlapping of jurisdictions with existing commissioners. We do not want such sensitive issues to be dealt with in wide-ranging forums. It is better that they be dealt with by those who deal with them daily. Although I understand in which direction the hon. and learned Member for Harborough (Mr. Garnier) wants to draw us, I do not believe that amendment No. 80 is appropriate. It has raised some interesting points, but I ask him to withdraw it.