Clause 79
Serious Crime Bill
11:15 am
Jeremy Browne (Shadow Minister, Home Affairs; Taunton, Liberal Democrat)
These amendments, taken together, would require affirmative resolution for the Secretary of State to be able to specify an anti-fraud organisation, such as the Credit Industry Fraud Avoidance Scheme, under clause 63. Clause 63 currently allows the Secretary of State to specify by negative resolution an anti-fraud organisation to which a public authority may disclose information. In the other place there was some concern at the arrangements surrounding the Secretary of State’s ability to designate anti-fraud organisations, and what the criteria for acceptability would be. As sensitive issues of privacy, secrecy and security surround these data matching powers, and the likelihood is that only a handful of organisations will be capable of appropriately undertaking the task, the change from negative to affirmative resolution will allow an appropriate level of parliamentary scrutiny.
On Second Reading in the House of Commons, the Government repeatedly indicated that they would not wish to have a monopoly of one organisation processing this data sharing and going forward with this initiative. Although that is welcome, it should be within the remit of Parliament to scrutinise and approve other organisations that the Secretary of State may name. That is why I have tabled amendments Nos. 12 and 11.