§ Mr. GreenwayI beg to move amendment No. 10, in page 51, line 7, at end insert—
'4A. The information contained in the personal data has been obtained by the canvassing of data subjects by registered political parties.'.It may come as a surprise to you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, to learn that the Bill would make the processing of personal data obtained from political canvassing illegal. There are some of us who think that if all political canvassing were banned, it would save us an awful lot of toil and sweat at election time, but in reality—the Under-Secretary and I have discussed the matter—we appreciate and recognise that it is important that the problem that the Bill presents is tackled.I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for North-West Cambridgeshire (Sir B. Mawhinney), who first drew attention to the matter when we were considering our response to the Bill. As a former chairman of the Conservative party, he understands and appreciates the importance of electoral law and of ensuring that the data protection legislation does not unnecessarily restrict or prohibit proper canvassing of political opinion by political parties.
When we discussed the matter in Committee, the Minister acknowledged that there was a problem, and agreed to do something about it. We have two choices. Our preferred route is to put something in the Bill, and to do it now. That is what amendment No. 10 would do. It is entirely in keeping with the other provisions in schedule 3. That would leave the matter beyond doubt. The alternative is to do what the Minister said that he would do in Committee—use one of the Secretary of State's order-making powers within the Bill to exempt the processing of data from political canvassing.
The problem that the House must ask the Minister to address tonight—it is a serious point—is whether any order-making power will be introduced after the Bill receives Royal Assent and while the transitional provisions that introduce the various clauses that give rise to the difficulty are in force. In other words, if we take the order-making power route, can we be certain that there will not be a period during which processing of data obtained from political canvassing will be illegal? It is a straight question that we ask the Minister. I think that I know what his preference is, but he understands that this 613 is a serious problem. It would have been wrong of us not to draw the House's attention to the problem. It is all very well discussing a matter such as this in Committee, but, unless it is debated on the Floor of the House, colleagues might not be aware of how serious the problem is.
I ask the Minister, in all fairness, whether he can give us a categorical assurance that the provisions relating to sensitive data, such as political opinions, membership of trade unions, religious beliefs and so on, to the processing of which people must give explicit consent—clearly, we cannot take an answer to the question "How are you going to vote?" as explicit consent—will not come into force until the Government introduce an order to tackle that serious problem.
§ Mr. George HowarthThe hon. Gentleman raises an important subject. It is not a partisan issue, but one of which all of us in the House have an understanding and in which all of us have a vested interest. We have to get the process right if we are to be able to conduct our politics properly in future.
Article 8 of the directive requires member states to establish a special regime for the processing of what the directive defines as sensitive personal data, which includes information about an individual's political opinion. If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I shall not deal in any detail with the amendment, because he has referred to the approach that we undertook in Committee to adopt and it would be as well if I were to give him some idea of how we intend to proceed on that basis.
The Government's preferred option, as the hon. Gentleman rightly acknowledged, is to deal with the matter through subordinate legislation. Paragraph 10 of schedule 3 permits the Secretary of State to make an order specifying further circumstances in which sensitive personal data may be processed. When the matter was debated in Committee, my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department explained that the Government intended to make an order under that provision that would allow the processing of political opinions data collected for canvassing purposes. I repeat that undertaking today.
As I said, the amendment is not a party political issue, but one which affects all Members of the House, and the Government expect to approach the matter on a cross-party basis when bringing forward the necessary order. In response to the hon. Gentleman's specific question, I cannot say when we shall be in a position to introduce the order; however, preliminary work has been started and we hope to make swift progress. I can assure him that the restrictions on the processing of sensitive data set by the Bill will not be brought into force until the order is ready. In view of that undertaking, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will feel comfortable in withdrawing his amendment.
§ Mr. GreenwayWe should have liked a date, but the Minister has given me the assurance that I sought. The whole House will be gratified to learn that we can go trundling up and down the streets, canvassing our constituents. I suppose that I should ask the Minister whether what he promises will happen before the European elections, but I wonder how much canvassing 614 will be done, given that no one will have a clue whom they are voting for—but that is another story. We are grateful to the Minister and, in that spirit, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.