I beg to move amendment No. 45, in page 9, line 2, leave out

`it appears to the Secretary of State'

and insert

`the Secretary of State is satisfied'.

With this it will be convenient to take amendment No. 46, in page 9, line 37, leave out

`it appears to the Department'

and insert

`the Department is satisfied'.

The two amendments would make changes similar to those that have been made previously, although they concern information exchanged with overseas authorities. Throughout our proceedings, we have suggested that tightening up some wording may be beneficial to the Government. The amendments would remove some conditionality and ensure that the Secretary of State and the Department were satisfied with the arrangements.

There could be a need to exchange information with overseas authorities and we would not wish to prevent that. However, we want to ensure that the information that is sought, given or used by either authority is properly guarded. I am sure that Under-Secretary will assure us that the European Union and the United States of America have proper systems that already satisfy the Department and the Secretary of State, but may I quietly suggest that one or two EU states may not have in their systems the degree of safety that we may expect from others that are used to computers.

We must also consider closely the well-known issue of benefit fraud--one or two serious cases have involved people from Nigeria. I hope that, sooner rather than later, many central European countries will join the EU, which leads us to ask whether they will have systems that the Department is satisfied are sufficiently robust. Many constituencies, including mine, have experienced an influx of asylum seekers and refugees from the Balkan states. In due course, when the area has settled down, which we hope devoutly that it will, many such people will return, but they may have been given national insurance numbers and have access to our benefit system, which, in certain hands, could be used improperly.

At the same time, those who are legitimate, as I assume the bulk of them are, would not have to cope with information that was used improperly either in their original country or in this country. Will the Under-Secretary give us some idea of the criteria and assure us that the Secretary of State and the Department will be most rigorous in ensuring that the systems will not be open to abuse? Will she publish lists of countries that the Department believes to have sufficiently and insufficiently rigorous systems? It would be useful if she were to tell us what criteria the Department would use to satisfy itself that the safeguards in the Bill have been met by those countries.

I hope that I can satisfy the hon. Lady that the safeguards are adequate to protect information and our citizens' rights in relation to exchange of information.

The Secretary of State may supply information only when it appears to him that arrangements are in place for the legal transfer of information and when it appears that the other country has adequate safeguards against the abuse of information provided to it by the Secretary of State. The amendment suggests leaving out the words

``it appears to the Secretary of State'' and replacing them with

``the Secretary of State is satisfied''.

A similar change is suggested with regard to Northern Ireland.

In reality, however, the amendments would have no effect; they would achieve the same purpose as the Bill. I hope to persuade the hon. Lady that the Bill does what her amendments suggest that it should. For the Secretary of State to be satisfied that something is so, it must appear to him that it is so. Therefore, for a Secretary of State to be satisfied that a country has adequate safeguards against the abuse of information, it must appear to him that those safeguards are adequate. The amendments would not add anything.

I shall explain to the hon. Lady how we envisage the operation of the Secretary of State's decision-making process under the clause. There is a European convention on human rights and a European Union data protection directive, which govern what can be done with information held by a Government about a person and also safeguard that person's privacy. For it to appear to a Secretary of State that the other country has adequate safeguards against abuse, he must therefore be satisfied that the other country is subject to the ECHR and the directive or to similar enactments in other countries. We would also consider other factors such as whether the other country has a stable, democratic system of government. We would not transfer information to a police state or a country with a bad human rights record, where such information might be abused.

The Secretary of State would be under a duty to act reasonably at all times, and would be subject to judicial review if he did not do so. A decision that it appeared to him that there were adequate safeguards against abuse would therefore have to be reasonable. If it was not, the decision would be open to judicial review and could be set aside if the review was successful. If the Secretary of State transferred information unreasonably—for instance, to a country that did not have adequate safeguards against abuse—he would have acted unlawfully. Therefore, his action might also breach the Data Protection Act 1998. If so, it would be open to challenge by the Information Commissioner.

The Information Commissioner could serve the Department with an enforcement notice informing it that it would have to stop sending information to the country causing concern. If it failed to comply with that notice, the Information Commissioner could serve it with a further enforcement notice to stop it processing data altogether. I hope that the Committee agrees that that would be a significant deterrent against wrongdoing by the Department. Clearly, it would have no desire to become involved in wrongdoing or to transfer information to countries that did not meet the criteria.

Amendment No. 46 deals with Northern Ireland, to which everything that I have said about amendment No. 45 applies. I hope that those assurances satisfy the hon. Lady and that she will withdraw her amendment.

I beg to differ on the definition of ``appears'' and ``is satisfied''. Indeed, the Under-Secretary said that a decision would have to be reasonable, but did not qualify that through the use of ``appears''. We are concerned about the conditionality of that. Although I agree that all the countries in the EU are governed by the European convention on human rights and the data protection directive, I am also convinced that some computer systems are not as robust as they might be, and that could lead to abuse in some EU countries. That is a concern, but I hope and expect that such systems will become more robust.

The Under-Secretary did not address the admittance of central and eastern European countries to the EU. Taking into account their proposed transition periods, is the Secretary of State satisfied that, when admitted, such countries will have electronic infrastructures that are sufficiently sophisticated satisfactorily to exchange information with our Government? I shall refrain from asking related questions about the Balkan issue and housing benefit frauds committed by Nigerians, to which I referred earlier. I am not persuaded by the arguments concerning grammar and the use of ``appears''.

I have been advised that, as the law stands and given that the Secretary of State must always act reasonably, there is no practical difference between the phrase proposed in the amendment and the wording of the Bill, although the hon. Lady is not obliged to agree with that advice.

The Secretary of State would not reach an agreement with a country unless he or she were satisfied that it had in place robust protections for citizens and democratic systems. I have mentioned those criteria. However, I cannot give the hon. Lady a list of countries that would meet them; such matters must be decided case by case. The only country with which we have a bilateral agreement is Ireland, as our social security systems are similar, and the citizens of both countries can travel freely between the three jurisdictions--the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland as a separate jurisdiction.

I cannot give a view as to whether we would immediately come to an arrangement concerning exchange of information with any particular country in eastern Europe or the Balkans, but I hope that I have enlightened the hon. Lady about the criteria that would be used to decide such matters. Arrangements would not be considered with countries that have bad human rights records and inadequate protections for the privacy of the individual, or which lack agreements in law that largely conform to the European convention on human rights and the data protection legislation, which are subscribed to by the UK and the rest of the EU.

I am not sure what the hon. Lady has in mind when she refers to computer systems in the EU that are not sufficiently robust. There must be adequate protection and recourse in law for individuals who might be subject to some form of abuse with regard to the exchange of information between countries. Those are the criteria, which I set out to reassure her about the clause's intention.

The entire matter is unravelling before my eyes. I hoped that I would receive answers, but the Under-Secretary's comments are generating new questions in my mind. I am fascinated that we have a bilateral agreement with Ireland, given that it is a member of the EU and that, theoretically, under the criteria that she has explained, sufficient protections are in place.

With regard to potential difficulties with countries such as Nigeria, the Under-Secretary said that information would not be exchanged with such countries if their systems were not sufficiently robust. However, we might need information from countries such as Nigeria.

The Under-Secretary discussed my comments about robust computer systems. I had in mind mainly whether the electronic safeguards would be sufficient to protect people from hacking, to use the vernacular. If the systems were not sufficiently robust, the information could be available to people on a much wider basis and could corrupt our systems, despite the data protection legislation and the work of the Information Commissioner.

Those are just a few of my thoughts. I am fascinated that m'learned friends cannot see a difference between ``it appears'' and the conditionality implied in that phrase, and ``is satisfied''. I am interested in the Under-Secretary's response, but perhaps it will be best if I take the matter away for more detailed consideration. That extra time might allow her to produce the list that she implied that she would be able to produce. In a couple of weeks, when we consider the Bill on Report, we may return to the matter.

I am sorry if I have given the hon. Lady the wrong impression. I said that each country would have to be dealt with case by case, so I cannot provide her with a list of countries that would qualify or that we would want to involve in the information exchange immediately. Under the provisions, we could not exchange information with a country until it had legislated to give us its information. That country's legislating would allow us to check that it was introducing adequate controls and safeguards for the use and collection in that country of the information that it would hand over to us.

The clause is enabling. However, that does not mean that, from the day after the Bill receives Royal Assent, we shall be able to dash out and exchange information everywhere immediately. We intend matters to develop bilaterally from country to country as we pick up particular problems in our anti-fraud work.

Many of the issues raised relate to identity fraud and to non-EU citizens posing as EU citizens to access benefits under EU rules agreed throughout the EU. Those are the two sorts of fraud that we are trying to discover and tackle, and we shall do so bilaterally, within the terms of the clause. We shall not take a scattergun approach. As matters develop, agreements reached, such as that with Ireland, will specify the parameters under which information will be exchanged and help will be used. As part of that, we shall check, as is the legal duty of the Secretary of State under the clause, that adequate protection of the sort that the hon. Lady referred to is provided for people whose information may be included in such exchanges. I hope that that reassurance answers a few questions, at least.

The best thing for me to do is withdraw the amendment and, perhaps, return to the matter on Report.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move amendment No. 47, in page 9, line 17, leave out 'reasonable' and insert 'necessary'.

With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 48, in page 9, line 19, leave out 'or impliedly'.

No. 49, in page 10, line 6, leave out 'reasonable' and insert 'necessary'.

No. 50, in page 10, line 8, leave out 'or impliedly'.

I was all but determined to table the amendments simply to remove that ghastly word ``impliedly''. I should have thought that we could use ``by implication'' or ``is implied'' or some other term--not ``impliedly'', which jars slightly. However, the amendment carries more weight than merely trying to change a rather nasty word.

When discussing the previous group, we tried to remove conditionality. In this case, we are trying to remove subjective judgment, but the arguments are similar to our previous ones. The amendment would replace ``reasonable'' with ``necessary'' and would delete ``or impliedly'' to try to ensure that specific levels of security were enforced in the exchange.

The argument is similar to those that we used when discussing previous clauses, as it relates to fishing expeditions and officers having a gut feeling about someone, as opposed to being in possession of established information. Some people get into a routine of asking the same six questions without regard to whether they are relevant. The argument is familiar, therefore, and I hope that either Govt Front Bencher will have a word with the drafters and even if they want to retain the idea of implication, they might at least change the word. Will the Under-Secretary also tell us why the word ``reasonable'' is used rather than ``necessary''?

Although the amendment deals with the word ``necessary'', we feel that it is unnecessary. If the Secretary of State failed to take a necessary step, it would be difficult to understand how he might be said to have acted reasonably. As the hon. Lady knows, the Secretary of State is under the compunction to act reasonably at all times in all those matters. Therefore, ``necessary'' and ``reasonable'' amount to the same thing in this context.

Our memorandum of understanding with the Government of the Republic of Ireland states that information given us by that country may be used for social security purposes alone. That means that we could not provide it to the Inland Revenue for tax purposes. Under the clause, the Secretary of State would have to take all reasonable steps to ensure that information provided to him by the Republic of Ireland was used only for social security purposes. For example, he must allow only those staff to control the information who are fully informed of what they may do with it. The hon. Lady's amendment and the wording in the Bill are similar for those purposes.

As I am not a lawyer, I have a great deal of sympathy with the hon. Lady's comments on seemingly cumbersome words such as ``impliedly''. However, lawyers tell me that, over the years, those words acquire a meaning that all lawyers understand in the context of Acts of Parliament and Bills before Parliament. Although she is worried about the cumbersome and alienating nature of the prose, ``impliedly'' achieves something in the text. If we did not keep it, we would have to list every possible purpose in the agreements reached with other countries, which would almost certainly result in their being revisited often. Fraud, international or otherwise, evolves and changes over time. As one loophole closes, others may open and other ways of defrauding the system are created. The language we use in our Acts of Parliament seeks to put a stop to such practices and to keep up with that evolution.

Due to the bilateral nature of the information exchanges, agreements known as memorandums of understanding will be reached between two countries and will list the purposes for which the information will be exchanged. Those will be public documents—they will not be secret in any way. If we did not use ``impliedly'' in the primary legislation, we would need to list in each bilateral arrangement every possible use of the information.

The term ``impliedly'' allows us some flexibility. I give the hon. Lady an example, which will, I hope, enlighten her, although I had to read it a couple of times before it enlightened me. In our memorandum of understanding with Ireland, we state that information may be used for social security purposes, but imply social assistance purposes, too. Social security includes social insurance or contributory benefits, whereas social assistance includes non-contributory or means-tested benefits. In the United Kingdom, we do not differentiate in that way, but use the term ``social security'' to cover both areas. Other countries make the distinction.

Keeping the term ``impliedly'' will allow flexibility to accommodate the different terminologies and different ways that countries have of administering their social security systems. Otherwise, we would require a list of all possible terminologies in the primary legislation. The term will allow the flexibility to fit particular arrangements with different countries' social security systems. That will give our memorandum of understanding with another country a greater chance of catching as much fraud as possible, in the context in which the arrangement is agreed.

I hope that the hon. Member for Beckenham, despite her dislike of the phrase, understands that such flexibility is important in an evolving fight against social security fraud and that she will withdraw her amendment.

The Under-Secretary may or may not believe this, but I now understand the meaning of ``impliedly'', although that does not mean that I like the word. I have some sympathy with it, but I wish that we could simplify the wording in the legislation so that we do not have to go through this process. It is ironic that the lawyers understand the meaning of ``impliedly'', but do not believe that there is a difference between conditionality and the word ``appears''. Never mind.

As I understand that rather horrible word, and now that its precise meaning is on the record, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 5 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 6 ordered to stand part of the Bill.