HC Deb 14 November 1988 vol 140 cc427-8W
Mr. John Marshall

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland whether he intends to introduce legislation to provide that those individuals who consistently refuse to pay the community charge will be ineligible for election to the House of Commons or the European Parliament.

Mr. Rifkind

I have no plans to do so.

Mr. Cohen

To ask the Secretary of State for Scotland (1) whether he will introduce regulations to stop access to an extract of the community charge register by debt-collectors and mail order companies; and how he intends to protect the privacy of an individual when the extract of the register is available for public inspection for purposes not connected to the community charge;

(2) when he now proposes to introduce regulations to restrict the sale of an extract of the community charge register.

Mr. Rifkind

Under section 20(4) and (5) of the Abolition of Domestic Rates Etc. (Scotland) Act 1987, as amended by the Local Government Finance Act 1988, extracts from the community charges register consisting only of addresses and names (and in the case of certain collective community charge premises, the multiplier) will be prepared for public inspection on 1 April and 1 October each year, beginning in 1989. I have no plans to restrict the availability for inspection of these extracts. The 1987 Act as amended, however, no longer provides for the sale of such extracts.

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