COMMONS AMENDMENTS (Hansard, 29 June 1984)

§ Lord Elton

My Lords, I beg to move that this House doth agree with the Commons in their Amendments Nos. 31 to 33, which affect Clause 32. I should like to start by drawing your Lordships' attention to our second and, I think, final printer's error. In Amendment No. 32, the reference should be not to line 5 but to line 15. I gather that my noble friend Lord Mottistone had spotted it. These amendments represent a fairly minor qualification to the provisions in Clause 32 which provide exemptions from the operative provisions of the Bill for data held for domestic or other limited purposes. Noble Lords will recall the interesting debates that we had about the cricket loving schoolboy who was also a computer enthusiast and who kept the school team's batting averages on his computer. Much concern was expressed at the prospect of little Johnny having to register his data with the registrar. While I took the view at the time that this was unlikely, since Johnny would be holding the data for his own personal purposes and able therefore to claim exemption under Clause 32, on reflection, we thought it better to put the matter completely beyond doubt. Amendment No. 31 does this by inserting into Clause 32(1) a specific reference to data held for recreational purposes. This will give the noble Lord, Lord Mishcon another of his increasingly frequent opportunities to tell us that he is not saying "I told you so" but he would if he thought he should.

Amendments No. 32 and 33 amend subsection 2(b) of Clause 32, which relates to data consisting only of names and addresses held for the purpose of distributing articles to data subjects. They recognise that the age of electronic mailing is with us and that information as well as articles may be distributed to data subjects and may be sent to the electronic equivalent of an address. They are entirely straightforward and sensible amendments. I hope that your Lordships will agree with them. I beg to move.