EXERCISE OF POWERS BY INSPECTORS (Hansard, 7 April 1970)

§ Mr. E. Rowlands
I beg to move Amendment No. 44, in page 68, line 28, leave out from 'section' to 'shall' in line 33 and insert 'if any person discloses to any other person—

(a) any information with respect to any manufacturing process or trade secret obtained by him in premises which he has entered by virtue of this Part of this Act; or

(b) any information obtained by him in pursuance of this Part of this Act,

then, unless the disclosure was made in and for the purpose of the performance by him or any other person of functions under this Part of this Act, he'. The Amendment substitutes a new subsection which closely follows Section 28(5) of the Trade Descriptions Act, for subsection(4), the objective being to improve the effectiveness of the provision.
The purpose of the subsection is to prevent disclosure of confidential information obtained in the course of enforcement of the Bill. On reflection we have decided that the present drafting is defective in two respects. First, the information concerned is restricted to that obtained in or in connection with inspectors' powers under this Part of this Act This is too limited, in that whilst it would prevent the disclosure of information obtained by an inspector as a direct result of his enforcement activities—such as the results of an analysis—it would 451 not extend to other confidential information obtained indirectly, such as details of new plant observed while walking through a works en route to the place of sampling.
Sub-paragraph (a) covers this type of case. Secondly the present subsection applies only to inspectors, but there are other officials, for example the assistants, referred to in Clause 73(3) who will also have access to information which it would be undesirable should be disclosed except for the purpose of enforcement. The Amendment overcomes these difficulties.

§ Mr. Jopling
This is a welcome Amendment. Subsection (a) talks about: any information with respect to any manufacturing process or trade secret obtained by him in premises which he has entered by virtue of this Part of this Act: I hope that subsection (b) will cover any information with respect to any manufacturing process or trade secret obtained outside premises. It is somewhat restrictive only to cover information or trade secrets obtained within premises. It may be that a person referred to could have conversations with an analyst or anyone else. We all know how people interested in getting information can collect snippets and build them up, like a jig-saw into a complete picture.

§ Mr. Rowlands
I am sure that the point is covered by the Amendment, because its purpose is to ensure that the private information that the inspector might pick up en route to his task of sampling should not be disclosed.