Clause 91
Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Bill [Lords]
1:30 pm
Vera Baird (Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Department for Constitutional Affairs; Redcar, Labour)
Does the hon. Gentleman want my compendious knowledge or that of my civil servants? There is no change to data protection; there is no change for the Information Commissioner; there is no change to all the things that we have grown used to in the legislation. So that he has perhaps a better grasp of what “prescribed information” means, let me set out what the provision might also enable the court to request.
After careful consideration by the Government, and with the agreement of Revenue and Customs, it might be possible to use prescribed information as a category to request the details of the owners of a limited company if something were standing between, as it were, the creditor and the name and address of that person. It would not simply follow that it was the debtor’s name and address, because the name and address of the debtor could be that of Smith and Brown Ltd, and perhaps under prescribed information, in certain circumstances, people would want to go beyond that to get the actual people whose money they wanted to get at. That is, I think, the broadest category to which those who assist me have considered that the application of prescribed information might extend. We will set that out in regulations, of course, if it ever comes to pass, and there is a retention schedule, apparently, which is applicable to all information held by Her Majesty’s Courts Service.