HC Deb 19 December 1988 vol 144 cc221-34 6.28 am
Mr. Jeff Rooker (Birmingham, Perry Barr)

I am glad to have the opportunity to raise the subject of the poll tax and local authority social services records. I am doubly grateful for the fact that I am able to use the words "poll tax." The authorities of the House gave permission for the "Poll Tax" to be the subject of the debate. At one time I thought that I might be forced to put a different description on the Order Paper. When I submitted my document I offered an alternative title because I did not want to be ruled out of order. I am glad that a useful precedent has been set in this debate and in the tenth debate on the Order Paper. The words "Poll Tax" can appear in the title of a debate so that people outside know what we are talking about.

I promise the Minister that before I sit down there will be one occasion on which I will be forced to refer to the poll tax as something else. The circumstances are such that I have no alternative. I shall stick to the narrow issue of social services records, but I make no apology for returning to the important issue of the poll tax, which was not fully debated during the passage of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 because it was guillotined in Committee and on the Floor of the House. There has been no discourse by the Government about their intentions or about why they are sticking to their plans for social services records, which is why, before the poll tax comes into operation, I chose the subject for debate.

There is no access for poll tax registration officers to Inland Revenue records or to those of the police, health authorities and employers—even to local authority records. All names and addresses held by a local authority's social services department are accessible to the poll tax registration officer. No doubt those records will include people reporting possible child abuse, the names and addresses of those involved in adoption cases and the names and addresses of families who, for various reasons, want their addresses kept secret, such as a woman who is regularly beaten by a man. The Government make a remarkable distinction between sensitive and non-sensitive information. I want to explore that distinction.

In Committee, the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment said: We have made it clear that the power"— the power for registration officers to have access to information— will be used to ensure that registration officers do not have access, for example, to social work case files and national sources of data".—[Official Report, Standing Committee E, 9 February 1988; c. 484.] When the issue was raised in the other place, the Earl of Caithness said: Sensitive data in social services records will not be available, and rightly so."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 6 June 1988; Vol. 497, c. 1112.] The Minister later said: It is the Government's firmly held belief that certain non-sensitive information, once it is held within a local authority, should be available to the registration officer for the purposes of compiling the register."—[Official Report, House of Lords, 29 June 1988; Vol. 498, c. 1600.]

The Minister was taking part in a debate on excluding information relating to all social services purposes. He said that both proposals were unacceptable to the Government for reasons that he had given. Social work case records will not be available, but all the names and addresses held by social services departments will be. One must contrast that with Inland Revenue records, of names and addresses only. Health authority records and employment records are so sensitive that they are not available, but names and addresses in social services records are non-sensitive and are therefore available.

This issue has nothing to do with promoting evasion or protecting evaders. The poll tax is legal and must be collected. If the issue of evasion and evaders were raised, the immediate argument would be, "Give access to employment records, to names and addresses held by the Inland Revenue and to health authority records." No argument can be made about social services departments trying to protect or promote evasion. That argument can be put out of the way straight away.

On 28 October, the Government issued draft poll tax guidelines in a hefty document which has no number because it is a draft. The consultation period lasts until 23 December—later this week. It is the first set of poll tax administration enforcement regulations—there will be others—amounting to several pages of A4. The list of recipients includes all local authority associations, the Small Landlords Association, the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux, the British Property Federation, and all sorts of bodies, but, of course, not Parliament. As legislators, that is one of our complaints: when the regulations come before Parliament, we shall have no opportunity to amend them. That is one of the problems with delegating legislation. Although a consultation process is going on outside this place, on matters which, because the Government used the guillotine, were not. properly debated in the House or in Committee, we were deprived of an opportunity to consider them. That is another reason I have raised the subject tonight.

The Association of Directors of Social Services and the British Association of Social Workers are not on the list of recipients. Obviously, they and local authority associations have had access to the draft regulations—they are not secret.

Draft regulation 6 refers to information obtainable by poll tax registration officers from public bodies. The argument is that the regulations fall far short of what is required. The regulation does not place all social service records off limits. It does not address the fact that names and addresses in social service records can of themselves constitute sensitive information. There are some circumstances in which a name and address can constitute sensitive information. There are safeguards. I would be a fool to say that there are none, having spent hundreds of hours considering the poll tax Bill.

In consultation rather than co-operation with local authority associations, the Government are producing practice notes. In particular I refer to the data protection practice note, which is practice note No. 4. In chapter 3, paragraph 4, there is discussion of the Data Protection Act 1984 and the exemptions for personal data from disclosure provisions. Paragraph 3.6 of the practice note states: In addition to these exemptions there are a series of partial exemptions from the disclosure and access procedures set out in the Data Protection Act. Section 28(1) specifies that information held for three purposes below may be liable for special treatment. The purposes are:

  1. (a) the prevention or detection of crime
  2. (b) the apprehension or prosecution of offenders
  3. (c) the assessment or collection of any tax or duty.
Information held for these purposes is exempt from the 'subject access' and 'non disclosure provisions' of the Act where the application of those provisions would be likely to prejudice any of the purposes. Similarly the Act provides that data is exempt from the First Data Protection Principle in any case where its application would be likely to prejudice any of the purposes.

Paragraph 3.7 consists of one sentence. It is useful to put it on the record. It states: It should, however, be noted that the community charge will not, according to legal advice received by the authors, fall within the definition of a tax or a duty as provided for in section 28(1) of the 1984 Date Protection Act. The preface to the practice note also refers to general data protection guidelines for the registration officers in England and Wales. Paragraph 3(e) makes it clear that individual citizens must be told that the information that they give can be required by the poll tax registration office: If there is a possibility that the information held for another purpose will be disclosed to the CCRO"— the community charge registration officer— then wherever possible the individuals concerned should be informed that this might be the case.

That is crucial, because it means that a local authority social service department can never say to a client or informant that it can offer complete confidentiality. In fact, the reverse is true. The practice note and the data protection principle make it quite clear that local authority social service departments must inform anyone who approaches them—client or informant—that their name and address can be made available to the poll tax registration officer.

That brings me to the Government propaganda leaflet published last week, entitled "You and the Community Charge—Your Step by Step Guide". It is incredible. Page 2 says: You will almost certainly have read about the new community charge in the papers, or heard about it on television. You will probably have seen it called the poll tax, but the community charge is its real name. Before one even reaches the list of contents, one reads: The booklet is quite detailed and you may not want to read all of it. You will find it helpful to read pages 6-14, however, as these apply to almost everyone. For the purpose of this debate, I shall stick to page 11, which deals with the transfer of information. It answers the question, "Will Registration Officers be able to get information from anywhere else?" having mentioned the electoral register and so on. It says: The inquiry form will be the main source of information for Registration Officers. They will not be able to approach the Inland Revenue, for example, or to use any sensitive information (such as confidential records held by police authorities). They will be able to refer to other local authority records, but only for the information that they need for the register. The only information that they need for the register is a person's name and address, his age and the length of time that he has lived at a given address. But they will require more than names and addresses. The booklet refers to sensitive information. This House has a right to complain—perhaps the other place has greater cause for complaint—that no mention is made of sensitive social service information. People are advised to read pages 6 to 14 of the pamphlet as the rest will probably be too boring, but the pamphlet really should have said something about sensitive social service information. Page 11 gives one the strong impression that the Government are allowing open season on social service records. I do not think that that is what they wanted to do, but that will be the effect of their proposals.

Let me give a few examples to show how social service records giving a person's name and address, and his age or the length of time for which he has lived at an address contain information that is sensitive in itself irrespective of the details.

I shall give the House five brief examples. Many social workers are located in hospital social work departments. In the inner-city part of my constituency is the Birchfield medical centre. It is first-class and doctors and health service personnel from other areas queue to visit Dr. Pike and his colleagues. Indeed, the Home Secretary has visited it for a private briefing. They have a research effort, foot doctors, a link with the university and social workers attached who are employed by the local authority. That means that the social workers share information with their medical and nursing colleagues.

In addition, social workers approved under mental health legislation are required to be involved in certain compulsory admissions to hospital of people suffering from mental illness. In each of those cases social workers are employed by, and their records are the property of, the local authority. Accordingly, the Government's assurances on health information would be subverted in respect of names and addresses where vulnerable people are helped by social workers who happen to be members of a multi-disciplinary team. That cannot be good for the patients, let alone for the social workers' professional effort.

In my second example, names and addresses are the highly sensitive information. We all know that social workers are often the intermediaries between hostile individuals, occasionally within a family. They have to protect the whereabouts of some family members—for example, of a mother whose children are at risk from a violent father. Such mothers would not be reassured to know that after leaving the matrimonial home their names and addresses were on a public register. Moreover, there is the theoretical possibility of the mother having to demonstrate to the registrar the need to exclude that information from the register. Some Scottish social workers have not yet received replies from the Scottish Office to questions about parents against registration and given that the Scots are a year ahead of the English that does not encourage us to believe that this has been thought through properly. We in England and Wales must learn from the experience of our Scottish colleagues.

Thirdly, in some circumstances the expectation of names and addresses being available to the registrar could be detrimental to wider interests of society. In other words, it is incumbent on local authority social services departments to make it clear to anybody who either offers them information or makes a complaint about something in the community, that in so doing their name and address can be made available to the poll tax registration officer. It is inadequate to claim that a member of the public would not know for certain that his name and address was made available from social service records. Many would deduce that, but they need to be told.

For example, it could be important for a neglected child regularly to attend a day nursery where help can be given in parenting skills and supervision of the child maintained. That course of action, which I know from constituency experience many parents are reluctant to take, would juxtapose with a demand for the poll tax. The obvious conclusion would be drawn and the child might be made more vulnerable by being withdrawn from the service. It is no good saying, "Ah well, the parents shouldn't do that because they cannot escape poll tax that way. There is no hiding place." The mere fact that their social service records with their name and address can be handed over could make the child more vulnerable by being withdrawn from essential help. That is the case, and the Minister must not assume otherwise.

It is similarly unrealistic to postulate that social workers should not condone poll tax avoidance. As I said, this is not a charter for evasion or avoidance, but the fact is that social workers have a legal obligation to their clients, certainly to give confidentiality, to give primacy to the interests of vulnerable people and to make it clear to such people that they can be assisted only if there is a full transfer of confidential and private information.

A problem can arise, because some people will be dependent upon adults who are liable for payment. It may be argued that there is a borderline in the case of mental handicap. I do not say that this was not debated, because it was. The Government moved a little way in the right direction, but nowhere near enough. The initial uncertainties about the liability to pay will be compounded by the exemptions of handicapped people, as some social workers have already discovered in Scotland. Where there is doubt in a family, because of the dependence of one adult upon another—there may be a borderline case because of mental handicap—that is a problem for the social services. It will not be a problem for the surveyor or the canvasser who knocks on the door and discovers who lives at a dwelling, but it is a further pressure on social service records.

My final example is a serious one. It concerns the fundamental instance where names and addresses form the sensitive information, which, of course, applies to adoption cases. Parliament has legislated to protect the confidentiality of adoption information, most recently in the Data Protection Act 1984. I believe that, legally and technically, social services departments are adoption agencies. Adoption regulations have been based upon a concept of absolute confidentiality, to protect the identity of the adopted child in his or her adoptive family.

As I have said, local authority social services departments are adoption agencies, but they will no longer be able to offer the unconditional guarantee of confidentiality of information conveyed to them unless the Bill is amended directly—which it will not be—or unless the regulations are amended and, as they are still in draft form, they could be. It is not too late, because the consultation period for the regulations is continuing. The adoption point must be one that concerns the Minister and her colleagues. If it does not, there is something sick at the heart of the Government. There can be no argument—even as a spin-off of pursuing the legislation for the poll tax—for upsetting the sensitive adoption arrangements of this country.

Given the range of legitimate information available for the poll tax registration officers —such as the electoral register, the marriage register, the rating and the rent records, the library cards and the entire gamut of local authority information—and the fact that the Government have excluded local authority employment records, police records and names and addresses held by the Inland Revenue, it would be better if social services information were placed off limits unequivocally.

We may argue about local income tax, but we were told during the passing of the Bill that the Inland Revenue has in its records some 31 million names and addresses. We are talking only about names and addresses for the poll tax officer. That has nothing to do with income or privacy. Given that the Government have excluded those and given that many other legitimate sources of information are available, it would be a lot better if all social service records —names and addresses are part of the case work records—were unequivocally placed off limits.

The Government's approach is inconsistent. If evasion were the prime concern, the Government would naturally include all local authority employment records. It follows, however, that a quarter of the salaries of those local authority employees will be paid for by the poll tax. Therefore one would not expect evasion to be practised by those people. Such records are not accessible to the poll tax registration officer. The confidentiality of the records of the clients of social workers and the good neighbours of the community should not be breached.

If the Government persist in stressing that only sensitive information should be excluded, surely professional advice must have been given to the effect that names and addresses alone can, in many circumstances, form the sensitive information held by a local authority.

There is no case for allowing access even to the names and addresses on social work case files. The Minister may say that there is no such access, but we should remember that the names and addresses, the ages of the clients and the length of residence at a particular address are held on such case files. To breach the confidentiality of such files interferes with medical practice, and uses information that may have been kept secret from hostile family members. It uses information given by the public in potential child abuse cases. Those files provide information about people who may not be eligible to pay the poll tax anyway, such as those with a mental handicap.

Social work files also contain information about adoption case work. That that information may be the names and addresses only, but in the circumstance that I have outlined, those names and addresses may be so sensitive that they should not be used.

Given all the other information to which the poll tax registration officer has access, it is proper that social work information and records should be withheld just as police records and Inland Revenue information are to be withheld.

6.57 am
Mr. Clive Soley (Hammersmith)

My hon. Friend the member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker) must be congratulated, not for the first time, on his diligent and detailed work on the poll tax. I must also congratulate my hon. Friend on succeeding in getting the words "poll tax" on the Order Paper. I thought that it appeared on it all the time and I did not know that it was called anything else. What appeared on the Order Paper is largely due to the efforts of my hon. Friend. I had expected to see the phrase "Tory poll tax" on Order Paper. That is the next word to be included so that the phrase can be hung around the Government's neck. Although debates at this time in the morning are sometimes seen as rather esoteric, to put it mildly, there is an opportunity for the Minister to do something useful. She could accept what my hon. Friend has said. There is a strong reason for doing so, not least the commitments given in the House of Lords. Those commitments are important.

If the Minister would care to say that she is disposed to amend the draft regulations as requested, it would cause me to shorten my comments and may cause her to shorten her contribution. This is an opportunity for the Minister to obtain a quiet headline for herself as one of the few Ministers during the night to make some progressive moves to change legislation. My hon. Friend is right to say that there is a weird distinction in keeping social service records as the exception to the list that he read out. The Minister was a psychiatric social worker and she will know the importance of the confidentiality of records.

As the Minister will know, it is one of the jobs of a social worker of any type to tell a person who asks him about confidentiality what the limits of that confidentiality are. A client may come along to an office one day and say that he wants to talk to a social worker about something personal and important, but that he is worried about doing so until he knows the rules of confidentiality. The social worker will usually say that he will respect confidentiality unless it involves some threatened harm to other people. In such cases, social workers knew that they had a duty to override confidentiality if necessary.

As my hon. Friend has pointed out, this will no longer be the only exception. The extension will mean that social workers will have to tell people that they are obliged by law to give information to the poll tax registration officer in certain circumstances. They would have no other option, if ordered to hand over the information. That is an abuse of confidentiality.

My hon. Friend's quotation of Lord Caithness in the House of Lords shows that the other place was anxious about this, to put it mildly. If it is recognised that names and addresses are sensitive information, it must be admitted that the length of stay at an address is sensitive, given the special nature of some social work clients.

My hon. Friend gave a number of important examples of this, to which I would add one or two others. He made the important link between the Health Service and the social services. Such links are many and varied. The Minister, with her special knowledge, will know that local authorities place social workers in regional secure units and secure hospitals. She will also know that many patients are released into the community, especially from regional secure units. So, giving out information about an address and the length of stay at it can have important consequences for a person returning to the community—and for the community itself.

Child abuse cases are also vulnerable in this respect. If we tell others about the "good neighbour", as my hon. Friend described him or her, or about a parent who talks about an abused child, that will help neither the social work agency nor the enforcement of the law. That is precisely what might turn away a parent from a social work agency he had approached.

My hon. Friend has made out a strong case. Changes that have resulted from various Acts, such as the Data Protection Act 1984, are important, but there is no good reason for including social service records in information that can be used, and I strongly endorse my hon. Friend's plea that they be put off limits. I hope that the Minister will now rise and say that she will seek to do something about this.

7.3 am

The Parliamentary Under-Sectretary of State for the Environment (Mrs. Virginia Bottomley)

I begin by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Perry Barr (Mr. Rooker), whose contributon to these debates on local government and the community charge has been considerable. He referred to the hundreds of hours spent in Committee. I was not there, but I heard much about it. The debate has shown that, although the hon. Gentleman has chosen to retire from the front line, he still intends to harry us from the Back Benches. I look forward to many more exchanges with him in future.

A number of points were made; it is important to take this opportunity to set the record straight and to explain some of the details of community charge registration. As the hon. Gentleman said, the matter was not debated in Committee in the House, but it was given careful scrutiny in the House of Lords and was the subject of several commitments.

Under the new system, for the first time local services will be paid for by all the adults who benefit from them, with some important exceptions and exemptions. We must regard the community charge register in the context of the establishment of a community charge system generally, ensuring that as many people as possible are on the register. I appreciate the hon. Gentleman's comments that it is a legal tax and must be collected. I accept that he is not seeking a charter for evasion. But this involves the compilation of community charges registers, so that people subject to the charge can be properly billed for it. This universal registration is at the very heart of the new system, and we must provide registration officers with a means of effectively doing this. One of the major disadvantages of the present rating system has been that, of 36 million people, a mere 18 million were paying rates. We must try to reach as many people as we properly can. The success of the new system in part lies in ensuring greater accountability.

The community charge register is, to all intents and purposes, a list of names and addresses—as is the telehone directory or the electoral roll. No system of local finance could manage without a list of those liable to contribute to it. The current system needs a list of ratepayers. By contrast, to keep the matter in proportion, under the system apparently favoured by the Labour party there would have to be a list of owners of property and a list of people subject to local income tax. The information needed for that list would need to contain much more in the way of personal details than anything that we propose for the community charge.

I shall deal in a moment with the hon. Gentleman's specific points about social services. As he rightly says, I spent 10 years working as a social worker, so I am aware of the issues.

Mr. Rooker

That is what this debate is all about.

Mrs. Bottomley

Yes, but it is important to put it in context. I take the opportunity to clarify and expand how the register will work, because it is important not to stir up paranoia about the amount of information that will be passed on. Social workers should be able to inform their clients of the true state of events, and not inflame and exacerbate needless anxiety or uncertainty.

Mr. Soley

The Minister says that she wants to put the matter in context. She has just talked about alternatives, two of which are already well dealt with. Rate collection is a well-established procedure that is well known to everyone. There is no reason why the local income tax should not be collected by the Inland Revenue.

Mrs. Bottomley

There is agreement that the present system of rates is not an adequate way to continue to finance local government, but this would be a way of making available far more information.

The registration officers will be under a duty to supply every person whose name appears on the register with a copy of his entry. Any person who feels that he should not be on the register, or wishes to challenge his entry, will be able to appeal to a valuation and community charge tribunal. Those tribunals will be similar to the current local valuation courts, which have an admirable record of informality in their procedures. We are providing for appeals to be made by written representations for those who prefer that approach.

As well as the register, there will be an extract for public inspection, because it is important that people should have confidence in the new system. They should be able to see for themselves that the registration has been properly carried out. But we are providing safeguards. The public extract will show only the addresses, surnames and initials. Anyone who fears that inclusion in it would lead to the threat of physical violence will be able to ask to be omitted from it.

The registration officer will have no power to sell or supply the extract to anyone. It will be available only for inspection. There is a specific prohibition against supplying a copy of the register. Anyone who feels under a threat of violence can ask for his name to be omitted from the register, and I fully recognise that some social service claimants may wish to avail themselves of that opportunity. Therefore, it is important to spell out the right that is available.

Finally, before turning in detail to some of the other points raised, I should like to say that there is no reason why anyone should seek to avoid registration on the grounds of hardship. The community charge system will reflect people's ability to pay. As the hon. Member for Perry Barr knows, rebates of up to 80 per cent. will be available and people receiving income support will have included in their benefit an amount to reflect the fact that they have to pay the charge. The figures announced in October by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Social Security mean that people on income support are fully protected for community charges well above the national average on current spending.

The information that will be available to community charges registration officers is the crucial issue. There have been a number of misleading stories in the press recently and I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be content if I take the opportunity to put the record straight on that matter. I understand that a local authority association recently made available to the press a list of 50 questions that it argued registration officers would be able to ask about people's circumstances. I t said that failure to answer some of them could lead to imprisonment.

That report has no official status whatsoever. It does not form part of any official guidance from the Department to local authorities. I shall deal in a moment with the questions that registration officers need to ask., but I should like to make one point absolutely clear at the: outset. There is no provision in the Local Government Finance Act 1988, or in any regulations that we shall make: under it, that will allow anyone to be imprisoned for refusing to give information. That is an area where social services clients may well feel particularly vulnerable.

The Act provides for financial penalties to be imposed by registration officers if people do not reasonably provide information which is within their possession and which the officer needs for the purposes of doing his job. It also provides that, when a court has granted an authority a liability order against someone who has failed to pay his community charge, that person may be fined if he refuses to provide information to the authority or deliberately gives false information. There is no provision, however, for imprisonment in either case.

The information-gathering powers of the registration officer's job are very simply described. He has to compile the community charges register in each charging authority. To do that, he needs surprisingly little information. Recent descriptions of the registration process as a snooper's charter, or the spurious reports to which I referred earlier of the list of 50 questions are, as those who perpetrated them I hope know, simply fiction. In the vast majority of cases, all the registration officer needs to know about someone is his name and address and the date on which he became resident in the area. In special cases only, the registration officer may need to know more than that.

However, he has to register all adults. If he is compiling a register that will cover a financial year, he will need to know the date of birth of people who will be 18 in that year. If a person is a student, the registration officer will need to know that fact so that he or she is given the special 80 per cent. student relief from that charge. If the person is exempt from the charge, the registration officer will need to know the details. I hope that the hon. Member for Hammersmith will accept that. for someone to benefit from the exemption to which he or she is entitled, it is necessary for the registration officer to be able to ask for information.

That will on occasion mean asking people who have had the misfortune to be severely mentally handicapped about their condition, but it is wrong to frighten and alarm people by exaggerating the numbers of questions involved. It is certainly not, as I shall explain in more detail, part of the information to be available from the social services. In some cases, there may be one or two additional questions to answer, but, for the vast majority of people, the only requirement is to supply their names and addresses.

Registration officers will have access to a variety of sources of information, but, irrespective of the number of sources available to them, they have no right to any information that is not required for the purposes of fulfilling their statutory duties. I make no apology for repeating again that this means only finding out people's names and addresses—not even their ages, as was suggested by the hon. Gentleman. It is essential to emphasise that fundamental point. The basic source of information about anyone who is subject to the community charge is the person himself. Where a person is requested to supply information by a registration officer, there will be no need to seek that information from any other source. In order to prepare, however, for the initial community charge canvass next spring, registration officers may wish to draw on information from sources already available to them in order to provide a starting point for the canvass. That information will include names and addresses of people who are already known to the local authority.

People's names and addresses may be held by a local authority for a variety of purposes. The housing department will have a list of council tenants. The treasurer's department will have a list of the names and addresses of ratepayers. That is the kind of basic raw material which will enable the registration officer to produce a starting point for the canvass.

Mr. Rooker

Why is the local authority personnel department exempt? Who asked for the amendment that no employment records should be used? That was not requested during the passage of the Bill. Why did the Government put it in?

Mrs. Bottomley

The Government are at pains to ensure that all information is reasonably available from local sources of information. It was decided that information should not come from the Inland Revenue. I cannot at this moment tell the hon. Gentleman where the commitment first arose.

Mr. Rooker

The hon. Lady misunderstands me. I am talking about the local authority as an employer. Local authorities are among the biggest employers in the country. In fact, in Birmingham the biggest employer is the local authority. That means that the poll tax registration officer will not have access to all the information available to the local authority because he does not have access to the names and addresses of the people employed by the authority. Why is that a no-go area for the poll tax registration officer? Who asked for that amendment? it was not asked for during the passage of the Bill.

Mrs. Bottomley

The hon. Gentleman appears to be pursuing an argument that I do not wish to follow. An employee of the local authority might believe that employment information was sensitive. I will let the hon. Gentleman know how that amendment arose, but he should appreciate it for what it is instead of challenging it.

The registration officer will know the addresses of the properties that he is going to canvass, and he will know in a good many cases the names of the people he expects to find resident there. He will then be able to send to those addresses requests for the information that he needs to compile the register.

Although the registration officer will be an officer of the charging authority, he is, legally, quite separate from it, and his position as an officer of the authority does not in itself give him the right simply to examine all the documents in the council offices. His right to obtain information from his own local authority, or from any other public body, is closely circumscribed. He has no right to any information which he does not need for the purposes of carrying out his statutory functions or to any information which an authority obtained by virtue of it being a member of a police authority; he has no right to any information which an authority obtained by virtue of its being an employer; and, finally, he has no right to any information except names and addresses, and dates of residence.

The hon. Member asked whether this meets the Government's commitment, referred to in the Lords, to deny registration officers access to sensitive records kept in local authority social services departments. I argue strongly that it does. If a local authority receives a request from its own, or any other, registration officer for information about names and addresses, it may collect that information from a number of sources, including the social services department. However, all the authority is required to pass on is a list of names, addresses and dates. There is no reason why the registration officer should be able to tell from such a list why the person's name and address happen to be known to the authority. He may be a council tenant. He may be a ratepayer. He may have a library ticket. It will certainly not be possible to deduce that he is the subject of a social services department case file.

Although the registration officer can require information from the social services department, he does not then reveal from where he received his information. It is not identified as coming from the social services department.

Mr. Soley

Two matters are troubling my hon. Friend and me. First, if a person attends an AIDS clinic—which will encompass a limited number of people—and sees a social worker there, it is not known whether his or her name, together with those of the other patients, will be mixed up with the names of all the others dealing with the social services. One cannot be sure that that will not happen, particularly if there is a joint health and social services department.

Secondly, what is the social worker to say to the individual, who may be suffering from AIDS or be the victim of child abuse, about onfidentiality—given that the official is obliged to tell them, "I am bound in certain circumstances to pass your name and address to the poll tax registration officer"?

Mrs. Bottomley

The hon. Gentleman makes again, strongly, a point he has already made. I hear what he says, and I hope that he hears my response.

The registration officer requires names and addresses, but it will not be possible to identify the source of that information. The social worker may make it clear that an individual's name and address will be passed on, but also that sensitive information will not. The commitment that such information will not be made available was specifically given to the House of Lords.

I make it clear that inferences, moral or otherwise, should not be drawn about an individual registered with a social services department. I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not seek to imply that, somehow, a stigma is automatically attached to one's name being held on a social services record. The hon. Gentleman referred to examples where there may be sensitivity, but that reveals a blinkered attitude to the work of social services departments. An individual may be known because he or she is an adopting parent, because they have been to an AIDS clinic, because they are a foster parent, or because they use the meals on wheels service. There are any number of reasons why a person's name may be known. It is ridiculous to jump to the conclusion that it leads to any stigma, and to do so merely exacerbates precisely the problem that the hon. Gentleman and I hope to challenge.

The question of information from social services records was debated at length during the passage of the Local Government Finance Act 1987, both in this House and in another place. This House decided that the safeguards the Act provided were sufficient to ensure that no community charge registration officer could demand sensitive information from social services departments. The regulations we propose making under the Act carry out the Government's commitment in that respect.

I do not accept that names and addresses are sensitive information. It is in everybody's interest to ensure that community charges registers are as complete and as accurate as possible. We have provided registration officers with the powers that they need to carry out their essential functions, while ensuring that individuals' rights are fully protected.

Mr. Rooker

We shall return to that point when we see the regulations in due course. Meanwhile, will the Minister explain why there is no mention on page 11 of the Government leaflet published last week of sensitive social services records? Why were they not highlighted, to fulfil the specific promise made to the House of Lords?

Mrs. Bottomley

I shall deal with the document to which the hon. Gentleman refers shortly, but first I shall reply to his points about the Data Protection Act 1984.

The Department keeps closely in touch with the data protection registrar, who is content with our proposals. The information provided to community charges registration officers falls within data protection principles. Therefore, they will register with the registrar as data users, and we are giving them advice on the terms of their applications. The sources of information available to community charge registration officers will be fully disclosed to the registrar.

The hon. Gentleman made reference to the excellent document, "You and the Community Charge". I am delighted that he is already busy studying it, and I hope that he will act as an example to others. It is one of many examples of information, literature or guidance notes that we are producing to ensure that people are in no uncertainty. It is extremely important for them to study it too.

The hon. Gentleman referred to page 2 as though it were an enormous triumph constantly to point the contrast between the terms "community charge" and "poll tax". He is full of glee about having secured a debate using the words "poll tax". I should have thought that after 200 hours of debate in Committee even the hon. Gentleman would realise that no one is able to vote simply because his or her name appears on the community charges registration list. I find it extraordinary that someone so talented in other respects should seem so blinkered in this one.

As the hon. Gentleman says, the sort of anxiety felt by most people is largely about such matters as information on criminal records. As an ex-social worker, I bitterly resent the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that being known to a social services department is somehow analogous to having a police record. That is deplorable and intolerable, and I am at great pains to make it clear that there is no stigma attached to one's name and address being known to a local authority. We put considerable care into the publication, and we wanted to allay anxiety on certain fronts. Certainly the subject of the police is generally thought to cause concern, but the idea that the overwhelming majority of the public—unless the hon. Gentleman gets his way—will be deeply distressed seems to me to be scaremongering and to cause particular difficulties.

Mr. Rooker

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I did not interrupt the Minister when she alleged that I had said something that I did not say. I have never made the connection between police records and social service files. I only asked why there was no reference to the sensitivity of social work case records being excluded, as was given to the House of Lords.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Harold Walker)

Order. The hon. Gentleman is making a long intervention in the guise of a point of order.

Mrs. Bottomley

The hon. Gentleman referred to page 11 of the booklet, which refers to sensitive information that is not available, such as comprehensive records held by police authorities. He is making the analogy, and I stand by that. Anyone who is concerned about the subject need only turn back a page to see that, according to page 10, The register will contain only the information needed to enable local authorities to ask the right people for the right community charges at the right time. What is required from local authority records are the names and addresses of the people concerned.

I would much prefer it if the hon. Gentleman, having raised an important subject, now accepted our assurances that sensitive information will not be made available; even ages will not be made available. It will not be possible to identify where the information came from. Having a full and effective register is a key aspect in providing for the community charge. It is the secret to more effective and accountable local government, and a much fairer system of financing it. The Department has taken great steps to explain the principle, and as the hon. Gentleman said, the consultation on the regulations continues until a bit later this month.

It is an indication of the seriousness and commitment with which we all take on the task of compiling these registers to ensure that they are done effectively and competently that there is a proper appeals mechanism and that the public understand that, if there is any likelihood that a person may be vulnerable to threats of violence, that person can ask for his name to be removed.

I hope that the debate will have reassured people and clarified the matter properly.