Clause 1
Digital Switchover (Disclosure of Information) Bill
11:45 am
Shaun Woodward (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Media & Tourism), Department for Culture, Media & Sport; St Helens South, Labour)
I am pleased that we are making good progress. I can see Hammersmith looming towards the hon. Member for Wantage, if he so desires. Of course, whether he goes to Hammersmith this evening is entirely in his hands.
We have debated some of the details of the clause in discussing the amendments. Clause 1 is critical to the Bill: without it, the Bill fails. It is central in the purposes that the Government have set out for access to information. The clause provides the legal authority for the Department for Work and Pensions, the Department for Social Development in Northern Ireland and the Ministry of Defence to supply social security or war pensions information to the administrator of the digital switchover help scheme. It enables the DWP, the DSDNI and the MOD to disclose information—I am beginning to answer the questions asked by the hon. Member for Bath—for limited purposes only, that is, for use in connection with switchover help functions.
It may be helpful to remind the Committee that there is extensive primary legislation setting out the circumstances in which and to whom social security information about individuals may be disclosed. Unauthorised disclosure of such information is, and remains under the Bill, a criminal offence under section 123 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992. The provision in the Bill is very similar to the one in the Television Licences (Disclosure of Information) Act 2000 that enables social security information to be provided to enable those aged 75 and over to have a free television licence.
I remind Committee members that, under the Data Protection Act 1998, the disclosure of the information in question must be necessary and, under third party data protection principles set out in that Act, the information must be relevant and not excessive for the purpose. It is critical that hon. Members recognise that information is supplied on the basis that it is necessary and proportionate to the purpose.