§ Mr. GreenwayI beg to move amendment No. 8, in page 17, line 45, after 'prevention', insert 'investigation'.
This is the first of two or three important points that the Opposition wish to raise on Report. The entire Committee stage was characterised by several debates about the importance of safeguarding those organisations, other than the police service and public authorities, whose role is to protect us from the criminal and fraudulent activities of others.
I shall briefly explain the background. The Bill essentially blocks or prevents the processing of sensitive data, including matters relating to criminal convictions and criminal records, other than in the case of certain specific exemptions. The main exemptions with regard to crime are set out in clause 29. Those exemptions are clearly enshrined in article 13 of the directive, which the Bill seeks to implement in our law.
The specific exemption is that personal data may, in certain circumstances, be exempt from the provisions of the Bill if they are processed for the prevention or detection of crime. Article 13 refers not just to the prevention or detection of crime and the prosecution of criminal offences but to the investigation of crime. We believe that the inclusion of the word "investigation" in the Bill will give added comfort to those who undertake risk assessment work in order to combat potential fraud 588 involving credit cards, false insurance claims and so on. Much of that work is of an exploratory nature, when there is no evidence of any crime.
Investigation and detection are two separate activities. For instance, let us suppose that we are talking about a suspicious death. When it is clear that that suspicious death is the result of a murder, the investigation seeks to detect who committed that murder. However, if there is a suspicious death and the investigation seeks to establish the circumstances of that death, it may be discovered that there was no murder at all. However, there is an investigation. Commercial organisations conduct such routine investigations every day in assessing whether certain people are making a succession of fraudulent insurance claims or are involved in credit card or other banking or financial fraud. Many of their investigations conclude that there was no crime committed in a particular case.
As article 13 gives Parliament the opportunity to incorporate the word "investigation" of crime and criminal offences in our legislation, I cannot, for the life of me, understand why the Government are so against including that word. The Minister will argue that that word is superfluous, and that, in the Government's judgment, prevention or detection of crime is adequate. If that is the case, why on earth does the directive allow for the prevention, investigation or detection of crime? Clearly the intention when the directive was drafted was that the word "investigation" would add comfort to the scope of the exemption. Given the seriousness of what we are attempting to provide for, I do not understand why the Government are so against it.
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Although we had a lengthy debate in Committee, and although we acknowledge that Ministers have said that they will give other comforts to those organizations—I should state for the sake of the record that the order-making power at paragraph 9 of schedule 3 provides that the Secretary of State may exempt several specific circumstances from a number of provisions—the Bill would be better if it included the word "investigation". That word adds something, and we thought it important for that reason to draw the House's attention to the matter. I ask hon. Members to accept the amendment.
§ Mr. George HowarthI hope to convince the hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr.Greenway), as he anticipated, that his amendment is unnecessary. Clause 29 sets out specific exemptions that are needed to tackle crime and to collect taxes. They variously affect the fairness and lawfulness principles, subject access, subject information and the non-disclosure provisions. Between them, the purposes set out in subsection (1)(a) and (b) cover the whole process of tackling crime—from measures intended to prevent crime being committed, to the prosecution of an offender if a crime occurs.
The clause does not leave any gaps. The phrases
prevention or detection of crimeandapprehension or prosecution of offendersare familiar from the Data Protection Act 1984. They embrace the whole investigative process, which is covered by a combination of "detection", "apprehension" 589 and "prosecution". The investigation of a crime is an activity rather than a purpose. There are a number of purposes for which someone might want to investigate a crime: they might be benign, such as academic research, or not, such as the furtherance of a crime. The hon. Member for Ryedale went some way to acknowledge that point.The scope of clause 29 is limited to the purposes of law enforcement and public protection. The investigation of a crime in that context is limited in its purposes to the prevention or detection of crime and the apprehension or prosecution of offenders. Those are the only relevant objects of criminal investigation for current purposes, and they are already covered by clause 29.
There is no disagreement between the hon. Member for Ryedale and the Government. The amendment is simply not necessary to achieve the effect that he and I want to achieve. In the light of that, I hope that he will withdraw it.
§ Mr. GreenwayAs the Minister said, I had anticipated his answer, and it was very much the answer that we got in Standing Committee.
§ Mr. GreenwayIt certainly is consistent—and we have been consistent in our argument.
The Minister has not answered on why the word "investigation" appears in the directive but not in the Bill. We must agree to differ, although Conservative Members must take every opportunity to ensure not only that the directive is properly implemented but that the Bill is absolutely clear and as comprehensive as it needs to be.
We clearly disagree, and I thought it right to draw the House's attention to this important issue. Over the past few months, many hon. Members have received letters from the organisations to which I referred about their work in combating fraud and criminal activity. We are disappointed that we cannot persuade the Minister on the amendment, but have no wish to divide the House. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Mr. GreenwayI beg to move amendment No. 9, in page 18, line 1, after 'offenders', insert—
'(ba) the safeguarding of public security,'.On 22 June, during the Report stage of the Crime and Disorder Bill, there was an important exchange between the hon. Member for Bassetlaw (Mr. Ashton) and the Home Secretary about the extent to which the data protection legislation inhibits the availability and disclosure of information to deal with the vexed problem of football hooligans. I have come across that question before. It was raised seven or eight years ago during the Home Affairs Committee's in-depth inquiry into the policing of football hooligans following the 1990 world cup.The gist of the problem is that information about certain individuals is available but cannot be disclosed to ferry companies or to organisations and football clubs that are issuing tickets because that would breach the data protection legislation. The Bill gives even more comfort 590 to data subjects in protecting their rights over sensitive information about criminal matters, especially when that information has not been tested in the courts, and even though the football intelligence unit may have been monitoring the behaviour of certain individuals. Those people may not have been prosecuted even though the police are only too well aware that, given half a chance, they would cause mayhem. Sadly, some of our own people, and others, have caused mayhem in France and Belgium over the past two or three weeks. In his response to the hon. Member for Bassetlaw, the Home Secretary acknowledged not only that that is a problem, but that he would like to do something about it, if that was at all possible. The Minister is well aware of that.
I have spent some time considering the extent to which we might improve the position through the Bill. I previously referred to article 13 on the question of the prevention, investigation and detection of crime, which is one of the exemptions permitted in legislation. It also refers to the national security exemption, which the hon. Member for Leyton and Wanstead (Mr. Cohen) mentioned, and to our defence. Furthermore, it allows national legislation implementing the directive to safeguard public security through an exemption. That is all that we seek: the amendment would safeguard public security, as provided for in the directive. We believe that, if the amendement were accepted, the police would be strengthened and given opportunities to deal with the vexed problem of these louts and hooligans, who have caused so much mayhem and trouble to all of us.
The Minister, who comes from Liverpool, knows exactly the extent to which people in his city are heartily sick of the handful who cause such trouble and give the rest a bad name. We debated this extremely important matter not long ago in the context of the Hillsborough tragedy. We are not making the suggestion glibly as an off-the-cuff solution; it is a sincere and genuine effort to help in the fight against hooliganism, which the entire country wants the Government to tackle.
I cannot see why the measure would create difficulties for the implementation of the directive. If allowing the police an exemption to deal more effectively with football hooligans does not safeguard the peace and tranquillity of the country, I do not know what does. I can think of nothing that has caused as much alarm and concern to those affected as the antics of those mindless lads.
I hope that I have convinced the House that the amendment is extremely important. The Minister may prefer to change the wording. He has tabled a stack of amendments, some of which we have discussed already. The difficulty is that, once we conclude tonight's Report stage and the Bill returns to the other House, the opportunity to amend the Bill will have gone. If the Government accept the amendment tonight, the other place will at least have an opportunity to put it into a more appropriate form of words with which the Government might feel more comfortable. It is 14 years since the House last legislated on data protection; those of us who served on the Standing Committee, and doubtless all the officials and organisations who have had to deal with this complex Bill, hope to goodness that it is at least another 14 years before we do so again. Clearly, we shall not have an early opportunity to do something about this problem in the future, so I hope that the Minister will look favourably on the argument that we have set out and agree to accept the amendment.
§ Mr. George HowarthI associate myself with the sentiment behind the amendment. The hon. Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway) knows from statements that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made that, like him, we consider those hooligans to be a disgrace not just to the part of the world that I come from—Liverpool—but to every town and city in the country. The Government are determined to do all that we can to reduce football hooliganism.
The hon. Gentleman is aware that we are conducting a review of football-related legislation, which will take account of the lessons to be learned from what happened in France. It is clear that we need to consider implementing measures to deal with the football hooligan element who tarnish our reputation abroad. A number of options will be considered, including the ability to restrict those who cause trouble abroad. I know that, in raising these issues, the hon. Gentleman is sincere about what he seeks to achieve.
Home Office Ministers are sympathetic to proposals to have special checks, for example, on recipients of world cup tickets. We have asked the Association of Chief Police Officers sub-committee on disclosure to explore the legality and feasibility of making those checks. People who apply to join the England members club, which is run by the Football Association, are checked against a National Criminal Intelligence Service database, which holds information about persons who are known to be, or suspected of being, involved in organised criminality associated with football. NCIS is registered with the Data Protection Registrar, and the Football Association is listed as a body to which NCIS intends, or may wish, to disclose data.
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Currently, ACPO has agreed that criminal records should be released only for limited purposes—mainly relating to national security, probity in the administration of the law and protection of vulnerable people, especially children. ACPO concluded that there was very significant legal doubt about its ability to release other information, which could not be resolved within the tight time scale. That was a matter not of data protection, but of its powers under the general law. There was also the practical difficulty of how to be sure that the criminal records released related to the people concerned, rather than to others of the same name.
In any event, there would have been further difficulties about compliance with the Data Protection Act 1984 principles of fair obtaining and processing. The Data Protection Registrar was concerned that nothing had been said to people when they applied for tickets in the first instance, and that the check would have been indiscriminate, without regard to suspicion in individual cases. It appeared that the check would have gone much wider than the particular needs of preventing football hooliganism. The FA's desire to check hooliganism was entirely right and proper: the issue was whether that was the right way in which to do it.
The ACPO sub-committee is looking afresh at the issues involved. It was not possible to resolve the issues in the short time available before the world cup, but there is now an opportunity for ACPO, the FA and, as necessary, the Data Protection Registrar to consult about 592 the right approach to be taken in future. It is important to have had this debate, and I am grateful to the hon. Member for Ryedale for raising the issue.
§ Mr. GreenwayI think that the Minister is about to invite me to withdraw the amendment. I entirely understand why he may not wish to accept it, but can he assure me that if the outcome of the discussions—I am grateful for his offer that we should continue to be part of them—is that an amendment to the legislation is required, there would not be a bar to making such a legislative change?
§ Mr. HowarthThe hon. Gentleman makes a reasonable point, and I am anxious to be as constructive as possible. Once all the consultations with the Data Protection Registrar, ACPO and others are complete, we shall be required to take some action. The Government, particularly the Secretary of State, have made it plain that we are committed to taking whatever action is sensible and necessary to eradicate the problem. If data protection principles are involved, that necessarily implies some action in that direction as well. I do not know exactly what the vehicle would be and I do not want to give assurances on that, but the Government certainly wish to take action and I am sure that the whole House would support us. On that basis, I hope that the hon. Gentleman feels able to withdraw the amendment.
§ Mr. GreenwayI am grateful to the Minister. Clearly, there is consensus across the Chamber that what can be done should be done. Given what the Minister has said, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn