Clause 62
Education and Skills Bill
6:00 pm
Nick Gibb (Shadow Minister, Children, Schools and Families; Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, Conservative)
I beg to move amendment No. 107, in clause 62, page 34, leave out lines 9 to 13.
Clause 62 replicates the data sharing provisions of clause 16 to facilitate local authority support services. I will not repeat all the concerns that were raised in relation to clause 16, except to say that it would have been better if the protections that the Minister outlined in his last contribution had been incorporated into these two clauses for the sake of certainty and clarification. I will not repeat all the arguments that have been made about the dangers and threats to privacy arising from such a vast power to share information.
The amendment seeks to remove from the list of bodies from which a local authority can request information all those organisations that do not relate directly to the education and training of the young person. It would remove the primary care trust, the strategic health authority, the chief officer of police, the local probation board and a youth offending team. It gives the Minister, should he need it, the opportunity both to justify why the power is needed and to set out the protections that he will introduce to ensure that the information is protected in transfer, and will not result in the long term in people being reluctant to disclose information lest it be used for purposes other than those for which it was originally intended.