My Lords, as Leader of your Lordships' House, it is one of my sadder duties, although perhaps a privileged one, to lead tributes in your Lordships' House. Today I rise to pay tribute to the late Lord Listowel, who sadly died yesterday afternoon.

Lord Listowel—or Billy as he was affectionately known to his many friends in your Lordships' House—had recently joined the distinguished band of your Lordships active into their nineties. He succeeded his father as long ago as 1931, and took his seat in the following year. This made him the longest serving active Member of our House. He thus had the distinction of having been a Member of your Lordships' House for 65 years. I suggest, if I may, that few can equal his record of service to this House. I should also record that he had the distinction of being the longest serving member of the Privy Council, having been appointed to that body in 1946.

Lord Listowel had an unusual career. Having gained experience in local government both before and after the Second World War, he served in Sir Winston Churchill's Government from 1944 to 1945 as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for India and Deputy Leader of your Lordships' House. He then served as Postmaster General; as Secretary of State for India and for Burma; as Minister of State for the Colonies; and as a Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture. He was also Governor-General of Ghana from 1957 to 1960. As your Lordships will know, Ghana was the first African nation to achieve independence from the United Kingdom. As Governor-General, Lord Listowel saw that fledgling nation through its first heady days of independence. I venture to suggest to your Lordships that there can be few Members even of this august House who can record such a varied and distinguished record as a Minister and servant of the Crown.

Lord Listowel also had a remarkable career in the House. As your Lordships will remember, he was Chairman of Committees from 1965 to 1976. At the start of his term of office, he oversaw a major reorganisation of the administration of this House. For the first time the Administration Committee operated as an executive body; and for the first time an executive rather than merely an honorary Black Rod was appointed. This period also saw valuable additions to your Lordships' facilities. The Dining Room was extended, and infill building work took place in State Officers' Court providing a considerable amount of new accommodation.

As Chairman of Committees, Lord Listowel spent many hours on unopposed Bill committees following the passing of the Local Government Act in 1972. The Act established a framework for a new local government structure, but individual authorities needed to apply to Parliament for their own Private Bills. Consideration of these Bills by the Chairman of Committees ensured the effective scrutiny of this highly complex legislation. Lord Listowel also sat for many years as a Deputy Speaker of your Lordships' House. Indeed, his friendly face was a familiar sight on the Woolsack right up until 17th July last year. Those of your Lordships who were in the House in the early 1970s will remember that he worked particularly long hours during that time when the House sat far later far more often than has perhaps recently been the case. The Chairman of Committees tells me that after Lord Listowel's last sitting on the Woolsack he wrote to say what a joy it had been to sit and feel wanted at his age. He remained on the panel of Deputy Speakers right up until the day of his death.

As a man, Lord Listowel, I think it is fair to say, was held in as high a regard as any Member of your Lordships' House. He was always kind and gentle and an unfailing friend to all of your Lordships no matter where they sat in this House. I can say without fear of contradiction that he will be sorely missed. I am sure that your Lordships would wish to join me in giving our condolences to Lady Listowel and her family and to pay tribute to a much loved figure in your Lordships' House.

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Viscount the Leader of the House in paying tribute to my noble friend Lord Listowel. It is a somewhat sobering reflection to realise that he was a Member of this House longer than I have been on this planet. It is always sobering when that happens. I remember appearing in a case not too long ago when I discovered that another barrister on the case had been called to the Bar five years before I was born. I suppose one has to get used to longevity in this House, but it is a somewhat sad event when one has to do what we are trying to do this afternoon.

Lord Listowel was a well known, prominent and much respected Member of your Lordships' House. As the noble Viscount the Leader of the House has said, his political career was long, distinguished and varied. It was based firmly upon his commitment to the Labour Party and the principles—as he perceived them—on which that party was based. It is said that he went up to Balliol but his father removed him after he had been there a year because he had shown dangerous Left-wing tendencies and had started to make radical speeches in the union. Having been removed from Oxford, he was then sent to Cambridge. I am told that Cambridge proved no less subversive than Oxford had been. His political career followed from that.

I think it is right to say that apart from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hailsham, Lord Listowel was the last survivor of the coalition government. Indeed he was Labour Chief Whip in the House of Lords from 1940 to 1944. In 1944 he became Deputy Leader of the House. I think that the grandfather of the Lord Privy Seal was at that time the Leader of the House. With the change of government in 1945, he moved into ministerial office. I suppose that he will be remembered most for his contribution to colonial and Commonwealth affairs.

The noble Viscount the Leader of the House referred to Lord Listowel's time as Secretary of State for India. He played a crucial role in the run-up to the independence of that country. Later he became Governor-General of Ghana, where he struck up, it seems, a remarkably warm relationship with President Nkrumah. I do not think that was a relationship that followed necessarily from all President Nkrumah's relationships with British politicians, governors-general or Ministers; but with regard to Lord Listowel, deep respect and affection were felt on both sides.

The noble Viscount referred to Lord Listowel's time as Chairman of Committees. He was, I think, the first Labour Chairman of Committees in your Lordships' House. He served his time there with distinction. He sat regularly on the Woolsack until last summer. I have one personal memory of Lord Listowel which I treasure. The first election I ever fought was in 1959 in South Kensington. That is not a part of the country noted for its Socialist affiliations. It was very difficult to get anyone to come down to make a major speech on behalf of the cause, in so far as one did make major speeches in South Kensington. Lord Listowel was approached. He accepted. I well remember a packed meeting in Kensington Town Hall where Lord Listowel, with perhaps uncharacteristic robustness, took on the record of the then Conservative Government. Lest it be thought that it had a great effect upon the result, I can say only that with his efforts and mine I saved my deposit by 40 votes.

Lord Listowel was, as the Lord Privy Seal has said, a man of extraordinary politeness, kindness, patience and natural courtesy. He will be greatly missed by the House as a whole. He was a distinguished and assiduous servant of the House. Those of us on these Benches would wish to remember him as a good and loyal colleague who served his party and his country well. On behalf of my noble friends, may I join with the Lord Privy Seal in expressing our deepest sympathy to Lady Listowel and her family.

My Lords, Lord Listowel was, until almost last week when I think I remember last seeing him, living history, expressed with a quiet dignity and a modest sense of service which had infused his whole long life. He was a Peer, as we have been told, for nearly 66 years; a junior Minister in Churchill's Grand Coalition; Deputy Leader of your Lordships' House over half a century ago; a Secretary of State under Attlee, who later, when he had discharged his task of getting rid of the charge for which that department of state was created, was content to become a Parliamentary Under-Secretary at the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. That shows a true sense of humble duty, although he later reblossomed as a successful governor-general and as Chairman of Committees here for 11 years. It was a great record of un-self-seeking service. He will be much missed in this House and I join with my noble friends in expressing sympathy to his widow.

My Lords, I was not a Member of this House when the very distinguished Lord Listowel was Leader of the House. With all the Cross-Benchers, I should like to join in the tributes which have already been paid by so many of those who knew him many years ago and latterly.

As Convener of the Cross-Bench Peers, I was in the fortunate position of getting to know him better when he was Chairman of Committees, and also, for some time, as has been said today, Deputy Speaker. We on these Benches always admired his impartiality. He was always tremendously patient. He showed courtesy and many kindnesses, about which no one really knew anything. He was more popular because he was modest, and he was loved as a result on all sides of the House. We on the Cross-Benches admired him. I believe, as the noble Viscount the Lord Privy Seal said, that it was 17th July last year that he sat last on the Woolsack. On these Benches we shall always remember him with affection and great respect.

My Lords, from the Bench of Bishops I wish to add a word of gratitude and respect to Lord Listowel. We valued a colleague who, as long ago as 1931, had written a book on the values of life. He was a philosopher who was both wise and good—in the true sense of the words, a philosopher prince. He will be missed, and we are grateful for all he gave to the country and to this House in all those years.

My Lords, as I knew Billy Listowel before most people in this House were born, I wish to record one of what his father regarded as his dangerous and disagreeable Left-wing tendencies. He formed a group of people, of which I am ashamed to say I was not one, to try to live on the dole, and they did for about five years.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, we stay closely in touch with the office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees and my noble friend Lady Chalker announced a further contribution of £5 million on 11th March.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. Are the funds available to UNHCR keeping pace with the number of refugees, especially of course those in the developing world? Is he aware that after a few years there is often a larger number of refugees to be returned than the number of those originally displaced owing to their high fertility rate, which is consequent upon the vulnerability of women in refugee situations and the lack of reproductive health services? Is the UNHCR addressing that problem adequately either itself or through other agencies or NGOs?

My Lords, we do not believe that the UNHCR is badly funded. In 1996 it came close to reaching its target for general programmes. It raised more than its target for nine out of its 15 major special programmes. We can only agree about the increasing number of displaced persons. Projects related to the protection and health of women refugees are now part of many UNHCR programmes. Typical projects relate to family planning and income generation. The UNHCR has guidelines on the protection of women refugees which it applies wherever it is active. Gender issues form a significant part of staff training.

My Lords, could it be pointed out in discussions with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees that the United Kingdom has received more than its fair share of the many refugees in this world and has contributed financially as well as any other country?

My Lords, my noble friend makes a very good point. I do not necessarily think that it is important for us to raise the matter. I believe that around the world what we do is generally appreciated.

My Lords, I appreciate the additional contribution announced by the Minister towards the UNHCR's programme. But does the noble Lord believe that it is satisfactory, and does the UNHCR see it as satisfactory, that money has to be raised specially to meet emergencies as they arise? Is it not dangerous for the commission to have to rely on the generosity of donor nations at a time when refugee problems such as that in eastern Zaire are getting worse? Does the Minister also agree that we need to put the UNHCR's funding on a sound basis before it extends its role too far into dealing with the internally displaced, which is a huge extra burden on the resources available?

My Lords, part of the budget of the UNHCR comes from the UN budget; that is on a regular basis. However, we are never certain what catastrophes will occur and where. It is essential that, rather than saying, "Here is x amount, and that's it", everyone should always be prepared, if a particular problem arises, to be in a position to help.

My Lords, will the Minister tell the House whether the budget of the UNHCR contains any provision for preventive diplomacy aimed at stopping, in particular, the outbreak of internal conflicts and the vast displacements of population that they cause?

My Lords, I am not sure that that comes within the role of the UNHCR. I do not believe that it is part of its brief.

My Lords, we all appreciate the additional support for the UNHCR. In the still deeply disturbing crisis of the Great Lakes region of Africa, how successful has it been in locating and reaching all the refugees? Have the Government seen the reports of large numbers of children having died or being at risk in eastern Zaire and of young Rwandan men being among refugees who, having been taken, have not been seen again and are presumed killed? Does the UNHCR really have the resources and backing to deal with all this? Can safe corridors—for example, back to Rwanda—be established? Wherever the UNHCR operates, can we ensure that it has adequate resources for its mandate for the protection of refugees, not least against enforced repatriation?

My Lords, that question covers quite a large area. I shall try to answer as best I can. In relation to the point about children and young boys missing, we have not received any firm evidence of these sorts of atrocities. However, we treat all such allegations very seriously. We are urging the UNHCR to investigate crimes. We have not seen any reliable reports on the abduction of boys.

So far as children generally are concerned, this month we provided a further £250,000 in support of the Save the Children Fund tracing and family reunification project within Rwanda. That is in addition to an earlier £250,000 for its emergency programme in eastern Zaire. We support those activities as we can.

As to the refugee situation more generally in eastern Zaire, there is a problem regarding the difference between the army and the rebels. We are urging all regional leaders with influence on Kabila to press him to agree to an immediate cease-fire so that corridors can be set up. At present we are not in a position to demand anything very much. We do not have an international armed force in the area. If we had such a force there, we should have to consider such proposals very seriously. We very much regret that the Zairian Government recently expelled 40 international relief workers, including several from the UNHCR. We are protesting as much as we can on that issue.

My Lords, may I ask the Minister a specific question of which I gave him notice? I refer to the Atrush refugee camp in northern Iraq for Kurdish refugees from Turkey. The UNHCR ostensibly closed the camp earlier this year but apparently the refugees have refused to go home. As the Minister may be aware, I intended to go on a human rights visit to the camp. However, we have been unable to get transit permission. Does the Minister have any news about the well-being of this large group of 15,000 to 20,000 people, largely consisting of women and children?

My Lords, our latest information is that refugees are now leaving Atrush. Some have chosen to return to Turkey; several thousand have stayed in northern Iraq. The UNHCR and the World Food Programme continue to provide assistance as necessary. However, the UNHCR does not have access to the camp at Atrush and has no estimate of the number of refugees remaining there.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, comments on the draft guidance for health authorities on water fluoridation were invited from the former regional health authorities, the Water Services Association, the Water Companies Association and other government departments.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for that reply. On 20th January she said that guidelines would be available in the spring. I do not suggest a date when spring starts and finishes. However, I hope that she will be able to highlight in the guidelines the deplorable state of affairs between the water authorities and the side concerned with public health. The two are constantly in conflict. That was not the intention of the Water Fluoridation Act when it was put on the statute book. Can the Minister give the House any assurance that that conflict will cease following the publication of the new guidelines?

My Lords, that would be our intention. The water authorities want further clarification on one or two matters of detail. We will try to achieve that.

My Lords, we now understand from Mr. Malone that the advice that the Department of Health is issuing is to health authorities rather than to the water companies. Is that not the wrong target? What action will the Government take to ensure that water companies, following proper consultation by health authorities and a request for fluoridation, act within the intentions of the 1985 Act?

My Lords, it is a matter for the water companies to decide whether or not they wish to fluoridate the water. The guidance will be useful to water companies as well as to health authorities.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, if any noble Lord ever has evidence of impropriety by any charity and passes it on to me, in turn I will pass it on to the Charity Commission.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that reply. It is my understanding that the Pilgrim Trust has given the money to the Constitution Unit, which is not a charity, for general purposes. Does the Minister agree that this is a matter to which the attention of the Charity Commissioners should be drawn?

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Cocks, having raised the matter on the Floor of the House, I will pass on his comments to the Charity Commission.

My Lords, I should declare an interest, although it will become obvious, having had the pleasure of being a trustee of the Pilgrim Trust for some 21 years. Successive chairmen have been: to begin with Lord Harlech, the father of the present noble Lord, Lord Harlech; Lord Richardson of Duntisbourne, a former Governor of the Bank of England; Sir Harry Fisher, an ex-High Court judge; now it is Mrs. Mary Moore. My fellow trustees of the Pilgrim Trust are now the Lord Chief Justice of England and a variety of other distinguished people including, from the noble Lord's own party, Sir Claus Moser.

The noble and learned Lord, the Lord Chief Justice, was present at the launching of the Constitution Unit study, as was the present Secretary of the Cabinet, Sir Robin Butler. The previous Secretary of the Cabinet, the noble Lord, Lord Armstrong of Ilminster, is also a trustee of the Pilgrim Trust. The idea or the implication of the noble Lord's Question that the Pilgrim Trust and the Constitution Unit are politically motivated bodies is an example of the extraordinarily malign fantasies which occasionally seize the mind of the noble Lord, Lord Cocks.

My Lords, standing at the Dispatch Box it is not for me to answer the questions that have been posed. It is a matter for the Charity Commissioner.

My Lords, I am sure that the Charity Commission will give due weight to the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Jenkins, since he recently led a major debate on transparency in political funding. Will the Minister give a sense of urgency to the Charity Commission? I have already waited nine months for the results of its investigation into the Scarman Trust, which was formerly the Charter 88 Education Trust.

My Lords, in the case of the Scarman Trust, formerly the Charter 88 Trust, I gather that the inquiry had to look at a number of complex issues. The inquiry is soon to be finalised. I understand that emerging findings are that the trust will be required to clarify and, where necessary, review and revise its relationship with other organisations. I am sure that the Charity Commissioner will take forward his inquiries as speedily as possible, consistent with carrying out a thorough and proper inquiry.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, the Government have strongly supported the regulations which were adopted by the Council of Ministers in November 1991. The European Commission is negotiating with the main fur-producing countries an agreement by which the principles of the regulations can be implemented. The Council of Ministers has requested the Commission to introduce an import ban if no satisfactory agreement can be reached.

Yes, but is it not a fact that it is five years since the regulation was passed? It is over a year since an agreed date for its implementation was fixed as January 1996. There is no end date for the negotiations yet agreed so that the implementation can begin. Is not the villain of the piece the Commissioner for trade? I am sorry to say he is a British Commissioner in the European Community who is holding up the obvious desire of the Environment Council, the responsible body, on which I am glad to say our British Minister has played a distinguished and firm role, by all sorts of procrastination and dragging of feet?

Does the Minister agree that the fur trade in this country and throughout Europe has become uppish again as a result of that dilatoriness? So today we see restored on the backs of beautiful women from Madonna to the models on the catwalk the furs which may have come from animals caught in that barbaric and cruel trap. Does the Minister therefore agree with me that we should encourage British women to refuse to wear fur, saying that it is not a badge of fashion but a badge of shame?

My Lords, I admire the noble Baroness, Lady Castle, enormously and always have done. I long to agree with her. I always have done. But, unfortunately I have never been able to. I am afraid I do not agree with her today at all. She says that there is no end date to the negotiations. She is perfectly right. There are no end dates to negotiations; you have to find a solution to them. She blames the Commissioner for Trade but she is, if I may say so, quite wrong. She says that there has been procrastination and, if I may say so, she is quite wrong. In 1991 the environment Ministers agreed to ban the import of furs. What we are trying to do now is to agree how that should be done with those countries—in particular Russia, Canada and America—where there are problems. It is better to have an agreement. If we do not get an agreement, there is the problem of contravention of World Trade Organisation agreements and a trade war. That is what we are trying to avoid.

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is often impossible to know the genuine provenance and destination of many goods circulating in Europe, given the fraudulent nature of the single market? In this case, can my noble friend tell the House how the regulation proposes to tell the difference between the skin of an animal that has been caught in a leghold trap and the skin of an animal that met with a less painful end?

My Lords, that is one of the factors in the negotiations.

My Lords, will the Minister accept that when I started in politics quite a long time ago, I was known as "the poor man's Barbara Castle"? I now realise what a compliment that was. Given that this country banned the traps as long ago as 1954, is it not a great shame that we now have to reproach a British Commissioner with apparently delaying the implementation of the new agreement? I wish to add my compliments to the present Secretary of State for the Environment who has worked hard to get the agreement adopted. I think we should give him credit for that. However, perhaps some reproach should be given to the British Commissioner for not implementing the agreement.

My Lords, the compliment paid to the noble Baroness was a good one and she need feel no shame about it. It is a great glory. Having said that, I believe that she also is wrong. We must get away from the business of trying to reproach the Commissioner. What happened was that the environment Ministers agreed that there should be a prohibition. What was not agreed was how the ban should be implemented. It is in order to try to negotiate how to implement the ban and the factors involved that the discussions are continuing. My right honourable friend the Secretary of State wants an unconditional ban on steel-jawed leghold traps and action to phase out padded leghold and aquatic traps. If an agreement cannot be arrived at, then the instructions are that the proposal should be implemented. But there are dangers with it. It is better to get an agreement than to have a trade war.

My Lords, is the Minister aware that the proposal being considered for approval by the International Organisation for Standardisation, which has a role, would allow traps that take up to three minutes to kill the animal? That would allow significant injuries such as the amputation of digits, bone fractures and tissue lacerations. The proposal would allow a trap-to-death time of at least three minutes and probably much longer. Do the Government agree with the Labour Party that such traps are completely unacceptable and, with us, will they oppose any attempt to allow them as a way of getting round the proposed ban on the import of furs?

My Lords, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State went to the Council of Ministers with a steel-jawed leghold trap and a pencil. He put the pencil in the leghold trap in front of his colleagues on the Council of Ministers and the pencil was stripped in two. That shook his colleagues. It is for that reason that my right honourable friend is doing all he can to get the leghold traps banned. But you have to get the agreement of your ministerial colleagues and then try to get agreement with the countries who use them not to import into Europe furs procured by such methods. It is better to try to get an agreement with them rather than to have the possibility of a trade war.

Is the Minister aware that he is no better than the Commissioner for Trade, Sir Leon Brittan? The Commissioner stated that there can never be any international agreement to curb an iniquitous practice because it would interfere with the GATT agreement. Does the Minister know that Article 20 of the GATT agreement allows exceptions to be made when necessary to protect public morals or the life or health of humans, plants and animals? This is a clear case coming under Article 20, as argued very effectively in the Environment Council by, I am glad to say, a British environment Minister. So why do the Government not have the courage to tell the British Commissioner for trade that he is defying both the will of the Council of Environment Ministers which is the responsible body and which has unanimously rejected these spuriously humane methods of trapping and also the will of Parliament? Are we in this House saying that the Commissioner can defy all the democratic controls in Europe?

My Lords, the noble Baroness sometimes becomes very irate and sometimes she is quite rude to people. I think she meant to be rude to me this afternoon. In fact she has paid me the greatest of compliments. She says that I am no worse than the Commissioner. My goodness me, I regard that, rather like the noble Baroness behind her, as a great compliment.

I must try to get over to the noble Baroness a point that she seems to be finding very difficult to accept for some reason. The fact is that it is not the fault of the Commissioner for Trade. From a sedentary position, the noble Baroness says yes, it is. I can assure her, no, it is not. The fact is that the Commissioner for Trade is doing his best to reach an agreement, which is much better than having all-out conflict.

My Lords, I hate to take the personalities out of this discussion. However, will my noble friend the Minister confirm that the problem has arisen because Directorate-General XI on the environment totally failed to consult and work with Directorate-General I on GATT. The whole issue stems from relative incompetence, I am sorry to say, in manoeuvring and managing this business in the Commission. It is not a personal matter; it is a matter of bad organisation.

My Lords, I am not sure whether or not that is supposed to be a compliment. I shall take it whichever way I can. The fact is that the regulations were agreed to be implemented, but there was no decision on how the ban should be carried out. That is the problem that is being overcome. No matter whose fault it is, the main principle is to try to get in place as soon as possible the ban which the noble Baroness wants to have in place.

Has the Minister been to Strasbourg in the past few days, as I have, and talked to the Commissioner for Trade, Sir Leon Brittan? Has he heard him admit that he is the prime mover in trying to thwart the will of Parliament and of the Council and to push through the spurious agreement on humane methods of trapping, which merely consist of putting a bit of plastic round the jaw but still holding the animal in pain and panic?

My Lords, I have not had the privilege of going to Europe as the noble Baroness has. I have been detained in your Lordships' House because her party is being so difficult over some of the business we have to transact. Unlike the noble Baroness, Ministers are not allowed the privilege of escaping. I am surprised that her Chief Whip allowed her to escape whereas mine does not allow me to do so. Nor did I have the privilege of being a fly on the wall and hearing the noble Baroness's conversation with Sir Leon. Although I have the greatest admiration for her integrity, I think that I would like to hear Sir Leon's version of the conversation as well as hers before I come to a conclusion.

My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now again resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.

moved Amendment No. 44A:

Before Clause 4, insert the following new clause—

Before my noble friend the Minister replies, I wonder whether I could ask him to take up with the social security offices throughout the country, and the Customs too for that matter, the need to ensure that at least somebody is trained to be able to delete a mistake in the computer and put it right. I am sure I cannot be the only one who has found that a number has been misplaced or a wrong postcode has been put on letters, and no matter what I do or what letters I send, they still come back wrong.

I understand that it is a matter of training and people need to be specifically taught to go through a special procedure—I do not know what procedure—whereby you can correct or delete something in a computer's memory and put it right. If I may respectfully say so, in a number of government departments the people with that ability seem to be extremely rare.

Perhaps I may respond to my noble friend. It is not so much ability; it is authorisation. One has to ensure that the person who corrects or alters something in a data bank or database is authorised to do so, so that unauthorised persons cannot make changes which are not corrections but which are actually adding wrong data to the computer. It is more a matter of the people who are authorised to do it doing it than it is people trained to do it. The authorised people are well trained to do it.

The question of mistakes is one of the important aspects of the first part of the Bill. Data matching will in any case throw up mistakes of a postcode nature. It will then be up to people who have been employed to do this to decide what is, for example, the right postcode and then to make the alteration. They have to be authorised, otherwise one could have people making unauthorised entries which might be wrong or fraudulent entries. That is one of the things we have to guard against.

The amendment largely retraces some of the ground we covered on Tuesday. I shall therefore be fairly brief. I hope the noble Earl does not mind. I can easily refer him to quite a few column inches of Hansard for Tuesday on this point. The amendment is prompted by Article 15.(1) of the European Union second directive on data protection which is concerned with automated decisions. It is not clear that the article covers decisions about benefit entitlement. With the amendment, the noble Earl is seeking to insert into our domestic law a provision which would specifically prohibit benefit decisions being taken solely by the automatic processing of data.

I have already covered our plans for the use of the powers within the Bill but perhaps I may again offer the noble Earl the reassurance I offered earlier in the Committee stage about the code of practice and also in response to Amendment No. 20 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carter. The discovery of an inconsistency during a data matching exercise will not lead immediately or automatically to a stop on the payment of benefit. I can put it no plainer than that. I thought I had put it plainly on Tuesday.

Where an inconsistency is discovered which might indicate that an existing benefit award is incorrect, the normal procedure will be for the case to be referred to the benefit office responsible for further investigation. In the vast majority of cases where the rate of benefit is involved, the claimant will be asked to explain the inconsistency before any action is taken. That may be impractical where, for instance, the data suggest that the claimant has moved abroad or in cases where the whole identity is entirely fictitious. If the claimant fails to respond to a letter to his last known address within a reasonable time, powers exist within regulations made under Section 5 of the Social Security Administration Act to suspend the payment of benefit. I do not suppose anyone would argue against of those situations.

Adjudication officers then make decisions about an individual's entitlement to benefit by applying the law to the facts of each case. Local authorities do the same in relation to housing benefit and council tax benefit. If and when a decision is made by an adjudication officer or a local authority, that individual will be informed of that decision in writing and notified at the same time of his review and appeal rights.

Article 15 and the noble Earl's amendment relate to decisions based solely on the automated processing of data. I have explained that data matching does not involve taking decisions. All it does is identify inconsistencies which may then be subject to further human investigation. As I have said before, we believe that prior to October 1998, when we shall have to implement the directive into domestic law, the Government will have to bring forward the necessary legislation encompassing the whole field of data protection and data use and not just specifically this small corner relating to the Benefits Agency.

Although I hear what the noble Earl says about trying to prevent a future government having to take up the time of both Houses in order to bring forward legislation, I have to say to him that they will have to bring forward legislation. That is the proper place to do it and not in a Bill concerned solely with social security. I hope I have this time managed to explain to the noble Earl how the data matching and any errors thrown up by the data matching will be treated, and I trust I have assured him that there will be no automatic stopping of benefit.

Before I consider what to do with the amendment, I wonder whether the Minister can tell me why he is not convinced that Article 15 of Directive 95/46 does not apply to social security matters. I was very surprised to hear him say that.

I do not know what more I can say. We do not think it necessarily does, but we do not think the problem arises for the reasons I have explained. Equally, as I have explained, we shall have to address all these matters as they affect the whole field of data protection when we come to enact in our domestic law the necessary legislation in order to allow us to fulfil by October 1998 the terms of the directive. I really cannot be plainer than that.

If the answer comes to the Minister and comes into his mind, I shall be happy to give way to him at any time when he is willing to ask me to do so. I cannot see any reason why he should have that opinion. He says that he does so for the reasons he gave me. That is a little like the letter I quoted last Thursday about the Jobseekers Act, "We have not granted you jobseeker's allowance for the reasons explained in a previous letter", which had not arrived. The point is of some importance, so if any light could be shed on it I would be happy to give way.

On authorisation, the Minister makes a good and valid point, and I accept it. But in doing that he inadvertently strengthened the case for the amendment. It is right that access to the computer should be restricted to those who have authority and the proper status, but that means that it takes longer to put errors right since the number of those people is limited. That means that the need for restriction on decisions made on potentially erroneous data is rather bigger than it was before.

The Minister says that data matching does not involve decisions. In a very narrow and technical sense, that is true. Yet it is equally true that data matching is presumed to be the cause of decisions. Otherwise there would be no point in all the effort put into the Bill. The risk of erroneous decisions remains. I believe the Minister is receiving some light on this matter. I shall be interested to hear what it is.

I thought I had shed more than enough light on this point on Tuesday when I made it clear what the position would be and I explained what data matching was. I said in my original remarks not so much that it did not apply but that it was doubtful whether Article 15 concerns the evaluation of certain personal aspects relating to a person such as his performance. I am afraid that I am now having some trouble with the writing on the notes.

I come back to my main point. This is a much wider matter than simply data matching in the Department of Social Security. We shall have to address the issue in the next Session of Parliament in order to put into domestic legislation before October 1998 the terms of the directive. It seems to me that that is the sensible way to proceed. I do not believe that it is sensible to do a little bit on social security especially when I hear the noble Earl suggesting that even if a doubt is thrown up by data matching somehow or other the adjudication officer will not be able to change a benefit decision because the doubt has been put into his mind by an automatic process. That is trying to say, "Let us not have the modern world or any computers." One of the things they do very quickly and cleverly is throw up information on which one can act in every field of life. I do not quite understand that particular part of the noble Earl's argument.

Article 15 says,

"Member states shall grant the right to every person not to be subject to a decision which produces a legal effect concerning him or which significantly affects him, and which is based solely on automated processes of data intended to evaluate certain personal aspects relating to him such as his performance at work, credit worthiness, reliability and conduct".

That is based solely on automated processing of data. I believe I explained that the way we envisage this working it will not be based solely on the automated data process. It may be based on the automated data process, but it will then have to be taken on board by the people working in the Benefits Agency and, at the end of the day, by the adjudication officer if it comes to a decision on benefit. I believe that I am just repeating what I said on Tuesday. I cannot be any clearer than that.

If I understood the Minister correctly, he has just granted the whole substance of this amendment. He said that no decision would be based solely on automated data matching: in other words, it would he checked first before any action was taken. If the Minister said that, I thank him warmly. He has granted me what I was asking and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 45:

Page 10, line 25, at end insert—

("() At the end of section 123 of that Act insert—

"(11) For the purposes of this section, a "disclosure without lawful authority" includes the circumstances where information is disclosed to a person who is employed in social security administration or adjudication, but where that information is subsequently used by that person for an unauthorised or an unlawful purpose.".").

Some years ago my wife was visiting the local women's refuge, as she did from time to time, when a call came in from the local police station to one of the women in the refuge. The call was from a policewoman, wishing to check whether the woman in question was actually in the refuge. She was. That sounds a perfectly reputable call, but if you work in a women's refuge you are trained to be extremely wary of disclosure, so somebody asked the woman if she knew anything about the person who was calling her and discovered that the policewoman who was calling happened to be the best friend of the woman's ex-husband from whom she had fled to the refuge. Disclosure to a policewoman is not necessarily unauthorised disclosure; for a policewoman to possess information is not necessarily unauthorised possession of information, but to disclose it to the violent ex-partner is unlawful disclosure.

The whole point of the amendment is that it does not deal with disclosure only; it deals with use. A person may be perfectly authorised to be in possession of information, but not to use it for a particular purpose. After all, every public servant is not only a public servant; he or she is also a person with all the normal human weaknesses, sins, failings and liability to temptation. That point used to be expressed under the doctrine of what lawyers used to call "the king's two bodies"—there is the king's public body, which one might describe as the Crown, and the king's personal body, which is the one that gets the toothache. That is perhaps most clearly expressed in the recent case of President Carter's signature. When he was running for office, Mr. Carter was absolutely horrified to discover that not all letters from the President were signed by the President, so he gave an election pledge that he would personally sign all letters from the President. After he had been elected, his staff slowly and painfully succeeded in explaining to him that that task would take him exactly 24 hours a day. In the end, President Carter was persuaded to understand the doctrine of "the king's two bodies". I hope that persuading the Minister to understand it will not be quite so laborious, but the Minister is extremely quick so I do not think that it will be.

The point is to create an offence of unlawful use because without it, there is no protection. The Minister may invoke the Data Protection Act, but the Data Protection Registrar has stated:

"it is not clear whether access is 'unauthorised' for the purposes of the Computer Misuse Act where the employee has authority to access data for limited purposes and in fact accesses them for other purposes".

That is exactly our case. The Data Protection Registrar is not clear that the law is sufficient, and if she is not clear, others might not be clear either.

The Minister in another place gave a whole series of reassurances against disclosure. He gave the assurance that if a battered wife is concerned that a member of staff might let her husband know where she lives, the record could be deemed to be sensitive. The Minister repeated that assurance the other day. That was very welcome, but it does not cover this case because this case is not about disclosing information to the husband; it is about what happens where the authority concerned might actually be the husband. That cannot be covered by any reassurance about disclosure. We need a separate reassurance about use.

In the case of R v. Brown, which reached the House of Lords, whether such use of the police national computer was an offence appeared doubtful and, in effect, the prosecution failed. That indicates a real gap in the law. If the Minister would like to be generous just once on this Bill, this would be a suitable place. It would protect many innocent people and, as far as I can see, it would cost the Government nothing.

I hope that I can be generous at least in the assurances that I may be able to give both the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and the noble Earl. A fair number of points arose in the speeches that we have just heard and I shall try to deal with them all although I believe that the noble Earl realises that I answered one of his points the other day on the question of the battered wife. A battered wife could indicate that there was a problem, in which case her file would be subject to access only by highly authorised persons. That would give her protection.

I did thank the Minister warmly for that assurance, but what I have said today is that that is not the same case as that which we seek to cover in this amendment, so that assurance, however welcome, is not to our present purpose.

I thought that I should reiterate it. I must have misunderstood the noble Earl's point because I thought that he was raising the question again and I wanted to be sure that the point that I made two days ago was clear.

Section 123 of the Social Security Administration Act makes it an offence for employees of, and contractors to, the Department of Social Security and certain other government departments to disclose personal social security information unlawfully. Clause 4 of this Bill extends that offence to employees of local authorities, and to any contractors or their employees exercising housing benefit or council tax benefit functions. Unauthorised disclosure is an offence which attracts a penalty on conviction on indictment of imprisonment for a maximum term of two years, or a fine, or both.

The department considers unauthorised disclosure of information from departmental records or other information obtained by staff in the course of their official duties to be serious misconduct, and incidents are met with a range of penalties including dismissal. Where work is performed by contractors, strict conditions of confidentiality are included in the relevant contracts; moreover, our contractors, whose business often depends on the confidential processing of personal information for many other clients as well as ourselves, take confidentiality as seriously as we do and their employees are subject to similarly stringent disciplinary procedures.

Local authorities have their own disciplinary procedures, and of course their staff are subject to a general duty of confidentiality. Once this Bill has received Royal Assent, the department will issue a circular to draw local authorities' attention to the new offence.

The amendment seeks to make it an offence to pass on information to a person employed in social security administration or adjudication if that person subsequently uses the information unlawfully or without authority. That seems a little harsh. Indeed, having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Carter, I suspect that that is not what he meant although it is what the amendment would achieve. The amendment would make the supplier his brother's keeper by placing him under a responsibility for the receiver's behaviour. The receiver may, of course, be committing an offence himself under Section 123 of the Social Security Administration Act, for which he could be fined, imprisoned or both; and the offence would occur with retrospective effect. At the time the information was supplied the receiver would have done nothing with it, but the supplier could, by the mere act of supplying information in a way which was lawful at the time he did it, become guilty of an offence by the receiver's actions at some undefined point in the future.

As drafted the amendment would make officials of the department responsible for any later lapses in security by local authorities and their contractors, or others to whom they have passed information including the department's own contractors. The effect could be that no information would be passed between for fear of later culpability. Nor is it clear where the chain of culpability would stop: if the end receiver used the information unlawfully or without authorisation, then the supplier would have committed an offence, but what about the person who supplied him? Is he guilty too?

I believe that the noble Lord's amendment is intended to extend the offence to a person who uses information in an unauthorised way without disclosing it to another person. Such a case might hypothetically be one where an official accessed the records of an ex-partner in order to find out his or her whereabouts and then harassed that person. That was the example used. Officials do not have unrestricted access to information held in the department's systems. It is made very clear to them that they may only access information relevant to the work allocated to them, and access to any other information for which prior authority is not given by a senior officer is therefore unauthorised. This guards against staff entering a database and browsing through it, whether or not they then use the information themselves unlawfully or disclose it to another person. In such cases, whether or not the offence in Section 123 of the Social Security Administration Act, which I described earlier, applies, there are other safeguards elsewhere in legislation to ensure that information obtained in the course of an individual's job is not used unlawfully. Browsing is an offence under Section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990, which creates the offence of accessing information without authorisation. A person is guilty of an offence if the access he intends to secure is unauthorised and he knows at the time he accesses the computer that that is the case. Successful prosecutions have been brought for unauthorised access to computers under this offence.

Section 122C(4) gives the Secretary of State power to impose conditions on the use of information supplied by the department to local authorities. We intend to exercise this power to impose requirements which are aimed at ensuring the security of data supplied. However, responsibility for preventing unauthorised access inevitably must remain with each local authority itself.

The noble Lord referred to R. v. Brown which, as I understand it, related to browsing. Browsing is, I suppose, rather like surfing the Internet. Browsing is the viewing of data without using it, disclosing it or even mentioning it to anyone else. In this particular case, on 9th February 1996 the court held that the employee could not be prosecuted under the Data Protection Act for simply browsing computerised personal data without using or disclosing it. I understand that the Home Office has considered the matter very carefully following the Brown decision but, in the light of the facts of that case, has concluded that it is not necessary to take any immediate action to make any amendment to the Data Protection Act.

In Brown it was also held that the term "use" in the Data Protection Act, while not wide enough to cover the situation where someone merely called up and viewed computerised personal data, should nevertheless be given its natural meaning. The effect of this is to confirm that if that data is subsequently used for any unauthorised purpose that action is caught by the existing legislation. Brown also confirmed that while unauthorised access was not an offence under the Data Protection Act, the Data Protection Registrar can still take action against the data holder for a breach of the data protection principles. In addition, the Computer Misuse Act continues to be effective against employees or contractors who access computer systems beyond the extent of their authorisation, and the Department of Social Security has brought successful prosecutions on this basis. Moreover, in the case of personal data relating to social security, the offence under Section 123 of the Act would also be relevant. As I believe I suggested earlier, it could easily lead not just to prosecution but to disciplinary action: either downgrading of the person involved or dismissal from the service of the department.

A number of other issues have arisen. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked me who was right: the Data Protection Registrar or the Secretary of State.

Make my day—say that you are wrong!

I will not say that at all. What I will say is that it is ultimately for the courts to decide how the law is to be interpreted. It is not for me to decide who is right and who is wrong in this matter. However, if there are difficulties in this area it is for the Home Office to address the point. I underline that my department has relied successfully on the Computer Misuse Act 1990 when dealing with situations of this kind. There have been three successful prosecutions of the department's staff under that Act.

To demonstrate that the department takes this matter very seriously, in 1995/96 it dismissed eight members of staff and 12 others had penalties imposed, including fines, downgrading and written warnings on account of unauthorised access to departmental systems. In addition, two members of staff were dismissed and three others had penalties imposed for the unauthorised disclosure of information. I hope that both the noble Lord and the noble Earl can be assured that we take these matters very seriously indeed. Staff within the department do not have unrestricted access to the information held in its systems. It is made very clear to them that they may only access information that is relevant to the work that is allocated to them. Access to any other information for which prior authority is not given by a senior officer is therefore unauthorised. All staff receive an on-screen warning that accessing departmental data without authority is an offence; in other words, when they enter the system to do whatever they need to do legitimately they receive a warning. We provide a wide range of guidance to staff. Indeed, the issue of hacking has recently been drawn to the attention of all staff in a security campaign run by the department.

We take these matters very seriously. If one looks at the three levels of the problem—access, use and disclosure—it is clear that, as to access, the Computer Misuse Act 1990 can be and has been used. We also have the internal disciplinary system within the department. As to the question of use, the Data Protection Act can be applied. We also have the disciplinary procedures within the department. As far as concerns disclosure, use can be made of the Social Security Administration Act and the Data Protection Act. We believe that we have sufficient safeguards.

I said earlier that I believed the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, did not do exactly what he intended. But I hope that I have dealt with what he is after, explained that we take these matters very seriously and the different levels of protection in our internal disciplinary systems. Further, we have been and are able to use the three Acts that I have mentioned to deal with those who infringe both those enactments and the principles and guidance given to staff in the context of what the department fully accepts is the need to handle other people's data with care.

The Minister has been very helpful and clear in dealing with the procedures in place within the DSS, partly because it is a very large organisation with very clear lines of responsibility and detailed forms of management, on the assumption that the work is done in-house. But the problem is perhaps less likely to occur within the department than within local authorities. In local authorities it is not a question of browsing or unauthorised or illegitimate access. One may be dealing with a small local authority that has only a few officers who are handling this material. They will have a right of full legitimate access to that information. For example, the individuals may be housing officers checking against income support records. They realise for the first time that the person on income support is having some top-slicing—it is an issue to which the noble Earl will refer on a later amendment—which suggests arrears of debt and so on, which are unknown to the local authority officers. That is information, legitimately obtained, which he might go on to use illegitimately.

Can the Minister assure us over and above the general reference to local authority good management guidelines, and so on, that that offence would be caught within the Bill at present? Surely we need an amendment such as that moved by my noble friend, or a revised version, to pick up that point. We are not talking about browsing or unauthorised access but legitimate authorised access which gives rise to unauthorised use. In the situation I have described, can the Minister assure us that we do not need this additional protection?

I have followed the debate with interest and it appears that the Minister has given assurances about unauthorised access and unauthorised disclosure. I think that there is probably enough protection in terms of the use of information for an unlawful purpose. If it were unlawful, those issues would be caught by some other statute.

However, the concern relates to the unauthorised use of information obtained on an authorised basis. The noble Lord, Lord Russell, mentioned the individual who may have authorised access to the whereabouts of a spouse whom he has mistreated in the past. Perhaps I may suggest another example. A senior official within the housing benefits service runs in his private capacity establishments which have as tenants predominantly people who are in receipt of housing benefit. The information that he would legitimately obtain as a senior housing benefit officer from the computer system would be useful to him in running establishments with predominantly housing benefit tenants. I hope that that officer would not be authorised to use that information that he has legitimately obtained as a senior housing benefit officer in his private capacity. From what the Minister said, there is nothing that renders that use unlawful. That is the crux of this issue.

I accept the intention as described by the noble Lord, Lord Carter. The wording of the amendment may not be quite right. I am not sure that the Minister addressed the kernel of the problem which we addressed with the amendment.

I think that the Minister tried hard to be helpful. When he said we take these matters seriously, he clearly meant what he said. What I am not quite so certain about is whether the matters that he takes seriously are these matters. The Minister referred to the matter resting on three legs: disclosure; access; and use. He is right. But all the reassurance that he gave related to disclosure and access. Clearly the department is aware of those two risks and is doing everything it can to meet them. But we are dealing with disclosure to a person who is actually authorised to have the information, and access by a person who is allowed to have it.

Let me take some cases which have arisen. They concern the police. In my opinion, the Conservative Party has suffered severely and unjustly from a number of cases where some of its Members in another place have been stopped by the police, questioned but not charged, and the information has found its way on to the front page of the Sun. In those cases, police officers were clearly authorised to have access to the information, but they were not authorised to use it, possibly for their own purposes, and possibly even for their own profit. The noble Baroness reminds me that that may constitute disclosure. But if the policeman writes the piece himself—and I would not be surprised if that has been known—that is not covered; and the provisions do not cover the case where the person uses the information purely for his own personal benefit.

Let us suppose that the information is market sensitive, and the individual acts upon it. He may make a considerable sum of money out of it. In my opinion that is an unauthorised use. I cannot help remembering the words once used in this Chamber by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Guildford: it is not that we cannot get them to meet our concern; it is that we cannot get them to see that this is our concern.

If the noble Earl checks in Hansard, he will see that I ended my summary by talking about access, use and disclosure. I discussed in each case the Act which could be used in a breach. I instanced the fact that the Data Protection Act could be used in the case of unlawful use. I added that the Department of Social Security would take disciplinary steps against the individual. That leads me back one step to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell. The unauthorised use of information obtained lawfully is unauthorised and therefore it is in breach of the Computer Misuse Act. That is the point I make about use; it is a breach of the Computer Misuse Act.

As regards the noble Lord's example, it would be doubtful whether a local authority would give a person such as he instanced the right to access the kind of information we are discussing. However, let us leave that to one side. Even if it did, and the individual had authorisation for access, if he used that information in an unauthorised way, he would be in breach of the Data Protection Act and I suspect that he would not long have his job with the local authority.

The noble Baroness asked me a question about local authorities and, quite rightly, said that some local authorities are quite small and will not have big data bases. That will not allow them to escape from the legislation contained in the Computer Misuse Act or the Data Protection Act. They will clearly be caught by that Act regardless of the size of the data base. The Bill before us provides that information can he supplied only by the Department of Social Security to local authorities, and by one local authority to another, to tackle benefit fraud and for specified benefit administration purposes.

Authorities will be responsible for ensuring that their staff comply with the new law, and with the requirements of the Data Protection Act, and in addition to internal authority controls, authorities' external auditors may become aware of and comment upon any unauthorised use of personal data.

Perhaps the Minister will forgive my intervening. It may give time for him to be given the information if he does not have it to hand.

In a small local authority with few officers, a local authority officer has legitimate use of the full file but he proceeds to make use of the information in some private capacity. Can the Minister read out, or tell us, the words of the Data Protection Act which catch the offence of unauthorised use of authorised material?

I do not have the Data Protection Act to hand, but I have made it clear that it covers the unauthorised use of information to which the person had authorised access. As I mentioned earlier, we have successfully prosecuted department staff under the Computer Misuse Act.

I was about to give the noble Baroness the reassurance that Clause 4 makes an offence the unlawful disclosure of personal data by local authority staff, auditors, and local government ombudsmen. Therefore, it makes an offence the unlawful disclosure of personal data by those people, including local authority staff mentioned by the noble Baroness.

To sum up, we believe that in addition to the tight internal controls we have, and what I believe will be the responsible way local authorities will deal with the three issues of access, use and disclosure—we shall be sending out a circular once the Bill receives Royal Assent drawing attention to the new offence in Clause 4—the legislation is in place which will allow the authorities to prosecute anyone who breaches the terms of the Act; that is, through unauthorised access, unauthorised use or unauthorised disclosure. In addition, we will certainly take disciplinary steps against such a person.

I am sure that the Committee is extremely grateful to the Minister. Perhaps while I ask the Minister a question, advice will reach him on the Data Protection Act. We can see only the provisions which deal with disclosure. We can see nothing which deals with use. Perhaps advice about that will be forthcoming and we can be directed to the relevant part of the Data Protection Act.

If the amendment is incorrectly drafted it can be redrafted, or the Minister can bring back his own amendment if he is prepared to take the point. I am still not convinced, not about authorised access as part of a person's work—that is the proper access of information—but about the unauthorised use of such information. The Minister has not dealt with the concerns of the registrar, which I read to him. Perhaps I may again quote from her letter. It refers not to R. v Brown but to R. v. Victoria Parker, now Bignell. It was heard before Southwark Crown Court. In January, the registrar stated:

"This has increased my concern that there is a gap in the protection provided by the Data Protection Act 1984 and the Computer Misuse Act 1990".

Obviously, the CPS takes the matter seriously enough to appeal the point to the Divisional Court in order to have the law clarified.

The Minister must deal with the issue. It is the job of the Data Protection Registrar to consider such issues. She has expressed real concern that there is a gap in protection and the amendment is intended to deal with that. However, the Minister appears to be saying that the department is entirely happy that there is no such gap. The Minister must say in terms on what grounds the registrar's argument is misconceived.

Perhaps I may give an example. It is not wholly appropriate, but it shows what can happen. I am not sure whether the Committee is aware that banks have what are called "related" or "connected" accounts. At a particular bank in the area where I live, I am involved with a number of accounts both personal and business. I introduced a co-director to that bank. When I ask the bank for a printout of the balances on the various accounts I invariably receive one which has his name and his balance in the middle. That is not unauthorised use because the employee of the bank is completely authorised to search the records for that information. I do not know whether he or she is authorised to pass that on to me, but, as the Minister says, he or she cannot be responsible for my behaviour. I might go back to my company and say to the director, "Look, you are heavily overdrawn and I wish that you would do something about that".

I was surprised when I was handed such information, but it is standard procedure in this bank that all accounts which it calls "connected" or "related" are printed out together. Those balances are elicited every day so that the manager can look at them. That is an example of authorised use. I am not sure about disclosure and certainly not the use I might make of the information.

I hope that the Minister has taken on board the point that we are not talking about browsing. We are talking about someone who is authorised as part of his duty to obtain information about taxation, housing benefit, or whatever, who realises that it applies to someone he knows—it could be a former partner, for instance—and who then proceeds to use it.

Is the Minister really happy that that is the case? I know that he has said he is. I do not want to press the amendment to a Division but it relates to an important point. I wish to give the Minister an opportunity to discuss it following this stage of the Bill or to write to me. I hope that if he says he will write he will not merely repeat the argument because I am still not convinced. I do not believe that he has answered the concerns of the registrar.

During our little discussion about right or wrong, I indicated that it is ultimately for the courts to decide how the law is interpreted in this dispute, if I may put it as strongly as that, between the Data Protection Registrar and the Secretary of State. We have relied on the Computer Misuse Act quite successfully. As regards the Data Protection Act, perhaps I may refer to Section 5(1) and (2), which creates the duty, and to subsection (3), which clearly applies the duties to the employee. It states:

"A servant or agent of a person to whom subsection (2) above applies shall, as respects personal data held by that person, be subject to the same restrictions on the use, disclosure or transfer of the data as those to which that person is subject under paragraphs (b), (d) and (e)".

The offence is created in subsection (5), which states:

"Any person who contravenes subsection (1) above or knowingly or recklessly contravenes any of the other provisions of this section shall be guilty of an offence.".

We in the department, and that includes the people who run and work the system, are satisfied about the matter. It may be additionally helpful to explain that the report of the Data Protection Registrar on Brown states that your Lordships' House in its judicial capacity,

"also showed concern that the term 'use' should he given its ordinary meaning and not interpreted in a way which would narrow the scope of the Act and make it difficult to fulfil the intention of Parliament. It was for this reason they rejected the argument put forward by Counsel.".

The noble and learned Lord, Lord Goff, in the judgment said:

"It seems to me that the above reading of the statute (the judgement) accords not only with the natural and ordinary meaning of the word 'use' in its statutory context, but also with the statutory purpose of protecting personal data from improper use.".

In the same vein, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, rejected the argument that the term "data" covers only data held in the memory of the machine with the words:

"It would he strange if the Act was concerned only with what happened unseen in the computer and not with what happened when the information became accessible to the human user. This is not making the tail wag the dog; it is all tail and no dog.".

I realise that these are complex issues and I understand the seriousness of them. However, I hope that the reassurances I have given will at least help the noble Lord to check when he has an opportunity following today's Committee stage. If he has any further reservations, I should certainly be happy to try to resolve them either at a meeting or in writing.

Just so that we are clear, the Minister was correct to refer to the case of Regina v. Brown which reached the House of Lords. As I said before, in that case the prosecution was overturned on appeal because it was deemed that a police officer who had accessed the Police National Computer to obtain personal information did not use the data. However, I would ask the Minister to comment on the other case that I mentioned. The Minister referred to that specifically. I do not have the details of that case but I presume that the context was different. This is the one about which the Data Protection Registrar said:

"This has increased my concern that there is a gap in the protection provided by the Data Protection Act 1984 and the Computer Misuse Act 1990".

The Minister does not seem to have been briefed on that case. It may be better to return to this matter when the Minister has had the briefing. We may need to have a meeting or return to this matter at a later stage. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 47:

Page 10, line 30, at end insert ("with relevant experience").

I do not think that there should be any doubt about the Government's commitment in the fight against fraud. I am sure that Members of the Committee noticed that my right honourable friend Peter Lilley, yesterday morning, held a press conference and unveiled a poster on the occasion of the milestone being passed in the various area benefit spotlights of more than £100 million of benefit money being saved by those area spotlights.

Our commitment is there to be seen. Nobody should doubt that we shall be appointing people who possess relevant experience and qualifications in order to carry out the inspections of local authority benefit administration and anti-fraud performance because we wish to enhance that anti-fraud performance. It would not be in the Secretary of State's interest to do otherwise. I echo the reassurances given by my honourable friend Mr. Alistair Burt in another place.

It is intended that the persons authorised under this clause will be the staff of the new Benefit Fraud Inspectorate. The head of that inspectorate is currently in the process of recruiting staff, and advertisements for two of the senior management posts have appeared already in the national press. In addition, those posts have been advertised both in local government publications and throughout the Civil Service. The intention is to attract public and private sector staff but particularly to target audiences who are likely to have the most appropriate skills and experience for those vital roles.

We can all agree—and I am sure that we do—that the recruitment of high calibre staff is an integral part of ensuring that the inspectorate is effective. That the head of the inspectorate is seeking to recruit such staff is demonstrated clearly in the essential skills and qualities set out in the advertisement. Perhaps it may be useful if I outline briefly the skills and experience considered essential for the inspectorate's staff team. Of course, one person will not necessarily have all the skills but the team collectively will have them all. They are: a knowledge of financial systems; a knowledge of local government administration; a knowledge of the benefits payment system; a knowledge of benefit fraud investigation; a knowledge of audit and management systems; and a knowledge of information technology. That is what we shall be looking for in the staff appointed to the inspectorate.

Therefore, I do not believe that it is necessary to place a statutory obligation on the Secretary of State to ensure that staff recruited to the inspectorate have the appropriate skills and experience. The noble Baroness referred in particular to landlord fraud. We accept that there is landlord fraud as well as all the other kinds of fraud. That will be part and parcel of the skill and experience which we shall be looking for, perhaps under the heading of "benefit fraud investigation". But it is also related to the system of payment of benefit because one way in which the fraud takes place is by the misuse or abuse of the benefits payment system by which we pay out housing benefit.

I hope that I have reassured the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, that her amendment is unnecessary. I ask her to withdraw the amendment with my assurance in relation to the skills which we believe will have to be present in the whole team when we have completed the appointments.

It strikes me that in the list of qualifying experience to be part of the team, the Minister has not mentioned one area of experience and expertise—that is, experience of being a residential landlord. I should have thought that that would bring an expertise to the team in terms of what might be described as poacher turned gamekeeper. That might be quite useful to the team in carrying out its functions in relation to rooting out landlord fraud.

If I had suggested that we recruit a landlord to this, Members of the Committee opposite would have thought that I was being less than serious about the pursuit of landlord fraud.

I thank the Minister for his explanation. Certainly, he has given extensive assurances as to the kind of experience people would be expected to have before they could even be considered for this kind of post. It is very reassuring.

I still fail to see why there is any objection to including this in the Bill and in primary legislation because, if we did so include it, it would send out a very clear signal that we were going to insist upon people having a standard of skill in particular areas of operation that are regarded as important within the context of the Bill. However, I do not intend to press the amendment today. I shall look carefully tomorrow in Hansard at what the Minister has said, but he has given quite extensive assurances and we are very grateful for them.

Before my noble friend sits down, I wonder if she is aware that such phrases would actually be extremely valuable. Recently I was shown a report by one of the newly appointed school inspectors under the Government's initiative containing 13 mistakes of spelling, syntax, grammar and comprehension which the head of the English department had corrected before sending it back. This was a school inspector of standard English. I saw the report myself—the comments and corrections. They were entirely correct and valid. It suggests that sometimes people are being appointed by the Government who do not appear to possess the most obvious qualifications required for the exercise of their duties. I wonder if my noble friend agrees.

I wonder whether the Minister would like to respond to that. We are in Committee.

We have strayed considerably from the initial point, and I know nothing of the case in point. It sometimes seems that in relation to appointments to this House there does not appear to be the relevant experience in being able to understand my arguments, but perhaps that is a biased position. It would be unusual if the Secretary of State appointed people who did not have some relevant experience for the job they were doing. He would be exposing himself to a fair amount of ridicule and he would be exposing his policy to the risk of failure.

Surely, the Government can accept that this Government have rather a reputation in that regard. I seem to remember an advertisement in the national press for someone to run British Rail which said that no previous experience in running a railway was required.

Or was desirable.

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 48:

Page 10, line 31, leave out from ("administration") to ("their") in line 33 and insert ("of social security benefits and, in particular,").

I support my noble friend on this amendment. A phrase we hear quite regularly is that one is trying to achieve level playing fields. That is something very pertinent to our culture. Generally speaking, we believe in fairness: it is something very deep in the British psyche.

The amendment tries to ensure that in terms of social security administration and the prevention of fraud we are looking towards a level playing field. We do not want a situation where central government can use, as a stick to beat local government, certain facts and figures. There has been continual criticism of the high levels of voids—unlet domestic property—in council housing stock. However, when one looks at the figures and the information one finds the level of voids in central government housing stock to be far higher than that in the local authority stock.

We should recognise that there will be differences and variations. We should be prepared to learn from the good examples of administration of social security matters under local authority control. That experience, one hopes, can be fed back not only to other local authorities but also to the national scene. The amendment of my noble friend not only accords with the British psyche; it will provide long-term benefits for public administration at national and local level.

I think I have explained to the noble Lord, Lord Monkswell, that the concept of a level playing field is entirely theoretical. If level playing fields existed, teams would not have to change ends at half time.

Has the noble Lord not heard of the sun?

I am not entirely sure what the sun has to do with it unless it is the newspaper. As the sun seldom shines—

The Minister will surely accept that tennis courts are level but nonetheless people change ends because otherwise one player is playing into the sun?

I think that illustrates my point that there is no such thing as a level playing field because players have to change ends. I am not entirely sure why I am being pulled up on my reprimand about the level playing field concept. Everything I say appears to be controversial today.

This group of amendments seeks to broaden the scope of matters which the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate and the Audit Commission would consider, in carrying out their functions under the provisions of this Bill, and to place a requirement upon the inspectorate to report on work undertaken and its effectiveness.

Amendment No. 48 would give the Secretary of State power to authorise persons to consider and report to him on the prevention and detection of fraud in all social security benefits. While I understand the intention behind the amendment, it is absolutely unnecessary because the Secretary of State does not require any additional powers to authorise investigations of social security benefits in general. He already has these powers. Indeed, we have fraud teams that work inside the Benefits Agency. The administration of housing benefit and council tax benefits raises different issues because local authorities are independent of the Secretary of State and have individual approaches to carrying out their obligations to administer benefits. That is why we need the new powers in this clause. That said, generally it will not be sensible to examine the administration of housing benefit in isolation and the inspector's remit will therefore include the interconnection between local authorities and the Benefits Agency. Where any such considerations identify a problem or a solution that has implications throughout the system the Committee may be assured that the appropriate action will be taken.

Amendment No. 60 is similar to the amendment we are discussing in that it would allow the Secretary of State to request the Audit Commission to undertake studies into the administration of all social security benefits, not just housing benefit and council tax benefit. This amendment is both inappropriate in principle and unnecessary in practice as it would give the Audit Commission a role in examining the administration of centrally administered benefits which fall outside its remit. The broader constitutional position is that the Comptroller and Auditor General, together with his staff in the National Audit Office, is responsible for external audit in central government. The Audit Commission and its cousin or brother, the Accounts Commission for Scotland, are responsible for external audit in local government and individual health bodies. Amendment No. 60 would cut across these long-established principles.

As I have already explained, the Secretary of State does not require any new powers to authorise investigations of the administration of social security benefits in general. He is able to invite external auditors to examine any part of departmental benefit procedure under current provisions.

Amendment No. 50 would place a statutory duty on persons authorised to carry out inspections under Clause 5 to prepare reports at least once a year on the inspections carried out, the costs involved, the recommendations made and the steps taken in response to those recommendations. The Benefit Fraud Inspectorate will form part of the department and will be accountable to the Secretary of State. It will be a separate unit operating independently from the agencies within the department which have responsibility for administering benefits.

The head of the inspectorate will produce annual accountability reports for the Secretary of State explaining the work the inspectorate has carried out and the running costs, staffing and resources involved. Reports will also contain information of a more technical nature commenting on overall achievements and on points of general interest arising from that year's inspection programme. We do not, however, consider that it would be appropriate for the inspectorate's annual accountability report to contain all the detailed recommendations which have been made in each of the individual inspection reports compiled during the year. There are two main reasons for this. First, the reports are relevant to the individual authority at the time of the inspection. Secondly, authorities will be under no statutory obligation to adopt the detailed recommendations contained in inspection reports.

While it is intended that the head of the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate will make annual reports to the Secretary of State and that generally these will be published, it would be inappropriate for those reports to cover all the subjects suggested in the amendment. It is also worth noting—although I do not think this was the intention—that it appears that the reporting requirement would fall on each individual who was authorised to report. That would be impractical and unwieldy. However, I know that was not the intention of the amendment. I hope that with those explanations of how we believe the system will work and of the quite different role of the Audit Commission and of the National Audit Office, the noble Lord, Lord Carter, will see that the provisions and the powers that the Secretary of State requires are already to hand.

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for that reply. I think I said that we were not quite sure whether it was a case of the Audit Commission or the National Audit Office. Is it correct that the appropriate parts of the annual accountability report will be published and will be in the public domain but it will be the responsibility of the Secretary of State to decide what is or is not published? That is how I expected the position to be. I shall read with care what the Minister has said but I think he has satisfied our concerns. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 49:

Page 10, line 34, at end insert (", and with compliance with the data protection principles (as set out Schedule I to the Data Protection Act 1984).").

Ministers do not run well in blinkers. For that reason, I am happy to support the amendment. The Minister may recall—I shall not rehearse it in detail—that I said on Second Reading that getting the Bill right was going to be a matter of observing balance. Whenever one sets an administration to pursue a single objective in isolation, that sense of balance goes. One gets a single-minded blinkered concentration upon a single subject. That way injustice happens. There is nothing new about it. It has always been true.

The Minister knows—or at least he has good cause to know—that the need to report on something tends to concentrate one's mind heavily on that one thing. Whoever is carrying out functions under the Bill will have to report on fraud. As the Bill stands, it risks focusing their minds in a single-minded, obsessive way on fraud. Making them think that what results in the apparent—I stress the word "apparent"—detection of fraud is always good, and that that is the only criterion of good. That way injustices are likely to happen and probably will happen. But if the amendment is accepted, then in the course of reporting upon something else as well, having another priority they wish to satisfy, another thing that is marked as good, they will, as the noble Baroness persuasively put it, have something which influences their mindset in a much more constructive direction. That is a good thing indeed. Good is not a single thing, and the better we appreciate that, the better we shall do it.

The amendment seeks to place a statutory requirement upon the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate to monitor local compliance with the Data Protection Act 1984. It merely adds the words of the amendment to the first subsection of Section 139A, which states:

"The Secretary of State may authorise persons to consider and report to him on the administration by authorities of housing benefit and council tax benefit and, in particular, their performance in the prevention and detection of fraud relating to those benefits".

That is why it is called the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate. The amendment would add to its role the duty to look for compliance with the data protection principles as set out in Schedule 1 of the Data Protection Act.

The protection of individual privacy is an important responsibility of those in charge of local authorities. Quite rightly, each local authority holding relevant personal data is under an obligation to comply with the Data Protection Act. It is the proper role of the Data Protection Registrar to enforce that legislation. It would not be appropriate to usurp the registrar's position by giving a completely unrelated organisation a partial responsibility for policing data protection. To do so could only cause confusion.

The amendment would considerably alter the role of the inspectorate. We envisage the inspectorate as a dedicated unit set up specifically to examine, and report on, the administration of social security benefits. Its staff will be experts on social security matters. To give them other responsibilities, unrelated to the social security system, will inevitably dissipate the impact of the inspectorate and its effectiveness.

I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. He said that the inspectorate is being asked to pursue functions unrelated—"unrelated" is the word that he used—to the purposes of whatever system. The point about this is that how that fraud is pursued—that is the data protection issue—is integral to the purposes for which the Bill is being addressed. The Minister has tried to make a separation between means and ends, which we are trying to keep firmly integrated.

I do not think it is integration, I think that it is addition. When it is looking at how the local authority may be running its system, the inspectorate may well have to look into the computer systems; but it will be doing so specifically on the basis of checking on how it is running its anti-fraud systems. Priority must be given to reducing the £1 billion of housing benefit fraud. I am sure that that is agreed between us.

If we were to place this additional burden on the inspectorate, then clearly it would have another function placed upon it, and that would add to the cost of running it. This extension of the inspectorate's role would lead to an increase in its running costs. It is hard to justify an additional role and additional expenditure to duplicate functions which are already, under other Acts, the proper responsibility of others.

I do not believe that it would be appropriate to extend the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate's remit in the way suggested. Neither do I believe that such a change would achieve any additional protection of the individual's right to privacy. Indeed, there is a risk that by confusing the responsibilities for those important issues, the amendment will achieve an effect quite the opposite of that intended.

I should point out that under Section 5 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 every authority is required to appoint a monitoring officer specifically to deal with contravention of any rule of law, or statutory code of practice, by that authority's members, officers, or employees. The monitoring officer has, in turn, duties to report to the members of the authority who are themselves accountable to their electorate.

If any information comes to light during an inspection which casts doubt upon the legality of an authority's data protection procedures, then that will be reported to the monitoring officer concerned in that specific local authority.

I hope that with that explanation of why I do not believe that that additional burden should be placed on the fraud inspectorate and the explanation of what the fraud inspectorate will do if it comes across an abuse of the Data Protection Act or misuse under the Act, the noble Baroness can withdraw the amendment.

When the Minister talked about a dedicated unit and about the first priority, he entirely illustrated the ground of my misgivings. There is not a moment's dispute between us that the elimination or substantial reduction of the cost of fraud must be a high priority, but we are always going around in debate—I am sure that I am as guilty as anyone else—saying that this must be the first priority, this is the highest priority, this is the top priority. Priorities, like boxers, cannot all be the greatest. Priorities have to jostle with one another. Among priorities, just as much as in the market, there is a great deal of health in competition. The Minister is proposing here to set up a priority which is immune to competition. That is indeed dedication. It is the voice of the heresy hunter; it frightens me.

I wonder whether the Minister can help me with a question. When moving the amendment, I asked whether such matters will be covered by the code of practice which was granted, so to speak, by the Minister in reply to amendments we moved at the beginning of Tuesday's debate. Will the inspectors of the fraud squad, so to speak, monitor the compliance of local authorities with that code of practice, and will that code of practice embody the concerns that I have raised?

We are a little confused about the role of inspectors and the code of practice which we discussed at the beginning of Tuesday, which was put in as part of the data protection measures, and is designed to ensure that the people who are doing the data matching and running the systems, comply with the provisions of Acts such as the Data Protection Act. That is what that code of practice is about.

If the inspectorate sees something that infringes the Act or indeed the code it will report that to the monitoring officer of the local authority, whose responsibility and duty it is to deal with these issues. That will be the clear line of reporting of any matter that the fraud inspectorate comes across. To add to its role and make it police the Data Protection Act as well is simply not sensible. The policeman for the Data Protection Act, and indeed other statutes, is the monitoring officer employed by the authority.

I am rather disappointed by that reply. After all, the code of practice is the DSS code of practice, not that of the registrar. It is not unreasonable therefore that when government fraud inspectors investigate the performance of the local authority, they should also assess and review that same local authority's observance of the code.

The Minister persists in thinking that data protection on the one hand and pursuance of fraud on the other are two parallel responsibilities which do not meet, and to layer the one on to the other is to produce an additional role, responsibility and expense. That is profoundly to misunderstand the issue. Data protection is about how it is done. Dealing with fraud is what is being attempted.

The amendment tries to ensure that in the process of pursuing fraud—a matter on which we are entirely at one—nobody cuts corners by failing to comply with the principles of data protection. Therefore an inspectorate that is concerned, which is pressing and possibly harassing and hounding a local authority to meet its fraud targets, should at the same time be required to hold in consideration that in so doing the local authority must conform to the principles which I hope will be laid down in the code of practice and are certainly laid down in the Data Protection Act 1984. If not, there is a danger that corners will be cut and that, in the pursuit of fraud, with the inspectorate at their back, the local authorities will not comply as they should because there will not be an equivalent weight of consideration.

I am very disappointed by the Minister's reply. I wish to test the opinion of the Committee.

moved Amendment No. 51:

Page 11, line 40, at end insert—

("(3) Any report which relates to an obligation to satisfy the requirements of any of the data protection principles (as set out in Schedule 1 to the Data Protection Act 1984) shall be sent to the Data Protection Registrar within three months of its delivery to the Secretary of State.—).

This amendment is similar to the last one, but in this case it places a statutory requirement upon the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate to send to the Data Protection Registrar reports on the local authorities' compliance with the Data Protection Act 1984.

For the reasons I outlined a short time ago, we do not believe that the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate ought to be asked to monitor compliance with the Data Protection Act. The proper place for that role is with the Data Protection Registrar. This amendment would considerably alter the role of the inspectorate, as would the previous one, and I believe that widening its scope would reduce concentration on its main task, which is housing benefit and council tax benefit fraud. It would also increase the running costs.

There is little difference between this amendment and the last one relating to the fraud inspectorate. Any authorised persons conducting an inspection on behalf of the Secretary of State will, of course, need to be aware of the legal context within which local authorities work. That will include the legislation relating to data protection. It will also include responsibilities relating to the employment of the health and safety laws. The noble Baroness is not yet asking that the fraud inspectorate monitor these Acts as well, but the inspectorate would have to be aware of the Acts, particularly the Data Protection Act. The inspectorate will not be able to ask local authorities to ride roughshod over the Data Protection Act, as the noble Baroness seems to think, in order to meet some fraud objectives.

Any concerns about possible breaches of data protection legislation encountered by the inspectorate will, as I have already explained, be reported to the chief officers within the local authority. It is the clear legal responsibility of those officers to comply with the Act. They are accountable for procedures in the local authority and it would be wrong to dilute that by placing a statutory responsibility on the inspectorate. The Data Protection Registrar gives advice to local authorities on issues concerning data protection.

To reiterate, it would not be appropriate to extend the Benefit Fraud Inspectorate's remit in the way suggested by the amendment. Nor do we believe that the amendment would offer any additional safeguard to an individual's personal privacy.

I hope that the noble Baroness will withdraw her amendment, but if she wishes to go to a vote, I am sure that my noble friends will support me in the Lobby.

I do not know why the Minister should be so certain, perhaps he should ask his noble friends. Is that not the appropriate etiquette on these occasions? I am baffled by part of what the Minister said—no doubt it is my fault. He said that the inspectorate was not responsible for ensuring health and safety either. That was the job of the Health and Safety Executive. Can the Minister explain to me what on earth that analogy has to do with the matters under discussion?

The point about this amendment as well as the previous one is that data protection principles ensure the propriety of the path trodden to get to the point of eradicating fraud. We are talking about data matching. That is how, to some degree, the fraud will be determined and made transparent and therefore pursued. Will the Minister tell us where he gets the analogy of the Health and Safety Executive? I do not understand it.

I was pointing out that there are other pieces of legislation which control matters within local government. We would not expect the fraud inspectorate to be on the lookout for those, any more than we would expect those responsible for that legislation to monitor the Data Protection Act. If the noble Baroness does not like the example, then I withdraw it. But my argument stands in relation to the Data Protection Act.

I am clear as to what the fraud inspectorate's task is. If the noble Baroness wishes to dilute it, that is her concern. I do not. I believe that the proper procedures are in place with regard to the Data Protection Act. I do not think that it is necessary to add data protection duties to the activities of the fraud inspectorate.

It is clear that the Minister accepts the ineptitude of the analogy. The fraud inspectors will no more look into health and safety than they will look into equal opportunities, responsibilities on race relations, environmental assessments or anything else. The point about data protection is that in the pursuit of fraud one will handle sensitive material and, therefore, it should be handled in ways that conform to principles of data protection. It is about how you get there. That is why it is integral and the Minister knows that the cross-reference to health and safety was absurd.

I did not wish to go back to the analogy, I was trying not to waste the Committee's time by continuing it. Of course, health and safety are concerned with the way the staff work. The point is that when it comes to the employment of fraud staff, health and safety issues are relevant when they relate to what people do and how they carry out their work.

If one were making the kind of argument put forward by the noble Baroness, one would say: "While they are at it, they had better check that what the staff are doing in their fraud work is consistent with health and safety issues". I said and remain of the opinion that there are proper bodies to do that, just as there are proper bodies to look after data.

That is an absurd analogy but we could argue about it afterwards. I do not understand where the Minister is coming from on this. He refuses to accept that we are talking about the methodology, how one gets from point A to point B so that the means do not subvert the end or the end does not subvert the means. I am very dissatisfied with the Minister's response and would like to seek the opinion of the Committee.

moved Amendment No. 52:

Page 11, line 40, at end insert—

("(3) Any authority sent a report by the Secretary of State under subsection (2) above may, within 28 days of receiving the report, make such representations to the Secretary of State about the content of the report as it considers appropriate.

(4) In considering any further action as a result of a report made under this section the Secretary of State shall have regard to any representations made by an authority under subsection (3) above.").

I am very happy to support the amendment. When one thinks of amendments in one's own mind one tends to use a shorthand. One identifies them by a single word with which one associates them. I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Carter, will understand why I have identified this as the Calderdale amendment. We have here another case of a report on which the local authority wishes to make comments. It is in the Government's interest to allow these comments before any action is taken and to institutionalise the procedure for them.

We have here a procedure which may end up in a deduction of subsidy or in another penalty. We have in effect an exercise of administrative power. All such excises of power, by a provision which is many centuries old in English law, are liable to review by the judges in court. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, who, I am happy to see, is now in his place, will, I am sure, recall a very interesting discussion we had to which I referred the other day about the extent to which the drafting of legislation may tend to increase the number of judicial reviews. If there is no restriction on the powers of authority in the wording of the legislation, then, literally as a kind of court of last resort, the powers of judicial review come into operation. If this amendment is not accepted, the powers of judicial review will be the first port of call for controlling the Secretary of State's exercise of power. If it is accepted, then there will be what I am sure the Government will find more satisfactory—a statutory check on the exercise of power. Power can be checked according to the expressed will of Parliament. There are advantages in that if Parliament will express the requisite will. But it can only do so, so far as I can see, by accepting the amendment.

One of the ways in which the local authority might well wish to express the view that it had been unfairly dealt with is by making reference to its financial position. Local authorities very frequently believe, and very frequently correctly believe, that poor performance is the result of inadequate financial support. There is a certain amount of support from central government but central government subsidies now cover only two-thirds of actual benefit administration. Because of the very complex way the formula for local authority support works, in individual authorities it may be very much lower. In those cases in particular, they may have a very strong case indeed for wanting to make representations. Those are two strong points in favour of the amendment. I am happy to support it.

The amendment would require the Secretary of State to allow local authorities a certain period in which to make representations to him on the content of inspection reports. The amendment largely pre-empts the provisions already made in Clause 8 of the Bill. I do not believe that it is necessary to pre-empt the provisions of Clause 8.

The proposed procedure of inspection, reports and directions was designed to be fair to local authorities. It may be helpful if I outline them briefly. Following receipt of an inspection report, the Secretary of State will first ensure that the report is copied to the local authority concerned. This will happen in all cases, even where the performance of the authority is exemplary. It is unnecessary in such cases to make provision for the authority to respond to the report as this amendment does. Indeed, to do so would create an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy.

In a case where the Secretary of State believes that action may prove necessary, he will be required, before taking any action, to invite the local authority to consider the report and to submit its proposals to improve performance and remedy any failings identified. The Secretary of State must then consider any response, along with the report, before making any directions to the local authority.

So the provisions in Clause 8 already ensure that the authority concerned will have the opportunity to consider and respond to the report before directions are issued. Clearly, where an authority disagrees with the accuracy of the report or wishes to challenge the findings, it will be free to comment accordingly. Where the authority considers that any recommendations are inappropriate it will be able to state the reasons why.

The Secretary of State's power to issue a direction is permissive precisely to allow for circumstances where it would not be appropriate to make or even consider making a direction. Where the authority has raised compelling arguments against doing so, the Secretary of State must take these into account. It may not be the intention, but the amendment as drafted appears to introduce an additional stage in the process. To require an additional period of 28 days for comment prior to inviting the authority's proposals would only prolong the process and make it unduly bureaucratic.

The amount of time allowed for an authority to respond to a report must be flexible. Given the wide differences in local authority performance and the variations in caseloads between different authorities, it would not be appropriate to lay down a mandatory response time. It is precisely in order to maintain fairness that we need to be able to adjust to the particular circumstances of each individual authority when setting deadlines for action. In general we do not anticipate that an authority would be expected to respond in less than 28 days. There may, however, be occasions when swift action is necessary, while in other cases longer periods would be justified.

Clause 8 already makes adequate provision for a local authority to respond. With that explanation of how we believe the procedure of inspection, report and direction will work, I hope the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw the amendment.

That was a very helpful response but perhaps I may put a point to the Minister. He said that the amendment would require the local authority to respond even when there was no reason to criticise its performance. I suppose that it could always write back to say, "Thank you". The intention of the amendment is to give an authority the opportunity to make comments about such issues as the accuracy of the statement in the report and the methodology used. If we go along with the Minister's argument and say that this is not required, will the local authority be allowed to make such comments when it submits its proposals in response to the report? When it submits its proposals for putting right whatever may be wrong, will it be allowed to say, "Yes, we understand what we have to do but we would like to point out that the reason for the problem is the inefficiency of the department"?

Yes. I think I indicated that where the authority disagrees with the accuracy of the report or wishes to challenge the findings it will be free to comment accordingly. It can make some of those comments before it even comes back to the things it might do if it wishes to challenge points of fact, if I may call them that, or the accuracy of the report. It can do that. That is why I think a little flexibility is required.

I was referring not just to accuracy. I was also thinking of more subjective opinions where the authority might feel that the problem had arisen because of wrong action on the part of the DSS. I do not wish to press the amendment to a Division. I shall read with care what the Minister said. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 53:

After Clause 5, insert the following new clause—

This is rather an important amendment. The Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, may remember a number of exchanges that we had on the housing Bill where we were in danger for a while of passing like ships in the night. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, and I and many others, were asserting that many people were made to wait for many months before getting housing benefit. The Minister gave a whole series of statistics showing that very few people had to wait beyond a fortnight. It was only after very lengthy debate that it emerged that we were measuring two different things. Those of us speaking on this side of the House were measuring the length of time from when people put in the initial application for housing benefit or notifying the change of circumstances from which a claim arose. Ministers were measuring the time of a fortnight, on which there is a statutory check, from when the local authority got all the information on board. The clock does not start ticking for a local authority until all the information has been gathered in.

There have been local authorities—I think of the London boroughs of Lambeth and Brent in the bad old days before reforms began—which used to leave things for many months before they even began to ask for the information needed. In fact, I believe that the London Borough of Lambeth—I would not swear to the recollection now—once discovered a number of sacks containing applications for housing benefit, which had been left lying in a corner of an office for as long as six months.

The point that the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, made about people living near to the edge is very applicable indeed in that situation. If people have received overpayment through no fault of their own and they are then asked to repay an enormous sum all at once, even if the money is legally due, repaying it may be very difficult indeed.

Some of us may have received bills from the Inland Revenue for several thousand pounds at a time for back tax which the Revenue has suddenly discovered is due, although in possession of all the information. That sort of thing can cause us, in much more comfortable circumstances, a considerable amount of dismay. If it can cause that to us, then how much more it must cause dismay to people who are really right on the edge and who may be refused the chance to cash a cheque because of an overdraft of £5?

At that sort of level, delay is very serious. So we need some recognition of the fact that the local authority clock ought to start ticking a bit faster. It is like not starting the stopwatch for the Olympic mile—or the 1500 metres, I should say, these days—until the runners are past the first 800 metres. That does not give a very accurate reading. This may not be exactly the right thing to do about it, but something must be done about the problem. People are suffering quite badly because nothing has been done yet.

The effect of this amendment would be to provide a power to make regulations to guarantee that notifications of changes of circumstances relating to the majority of benefits administered by my department and local authorities would automatically trigger a review which would have to be dealt with and a decision made within 14 days.

If regulations such as the amendment suggested were made, they could not provide for any exception to the 14-day time period. The amendment is needlessly restrictive. For practical reasons there is a need for exceptions to a 14-day general rule.

Decisions on benefit entitlement by adjudicating authorities are made on the information available to them and deciding the facts on the balance of probabilities. If the officer does not have sufficient information in order to make an accurate determination, he must properly seek more information, otherwise the claimant may be underpaid or overpaid. Proper determinations may not be possible within 14 days if further information has to be obtained either from the claimant or a third party.

For example, the claimant may notify that he has started part-time self employment but say that the business is not yet making any money. The adjudicating authority must arrange further inquiries on the nature of the business and estimated income and expenses before being able to decide whether benefit should be adjusted. A 14-day rule would place a requirement on the claimant to provide information to a very tight, if not impossible, deadline. Failure to provide the information may result in a decision which is to his disadvantage. Under present arrangements, the claimant is allowed up to a month to provide the information and that period runs from the date he was asked to supply it. The month may be extended for good reasons.

For most benefits, legislation has, since 1948, provided for decisions on claims and reviews to be made wherever practicable within 14 days. Different provisions exist for housing benefit and council tax benefit, but local authorities are nevertheless expected to deal with all determinations promptly. Failure to do so in overpayment cases may result in an authority losing central government subsidy.

It is, of course, a matter of public policy that the service given is prompt. Public services must now publish charters or service statements and report on performance and costs against those service standards. The Benefits Agency has targets for dealing with changes and the vast majority of cases are dealt with within 14 days. So, for the Benefits Agency, the increased costs would therefore be for very little gain.

While one always has to be a little cautious when looking at these measurements, because there may be a difference between the time of first notification and the time the clock starts ticking because the information was totally inadequate, the fact is that, for all changes—not just changes of circumstances—for income support, 95 per cent. of the cases are cleared within six days; for retirement pensions, 86 per cent. are cleared within five days and for child benefit changes, 92 per cent. are cleared within 13 days. Therefore, the Committee can see that we attempt to meet very exact targets because we are aware of the need to make speedy decisions in these cases.

As I have said, to make a 14-day rule would put the department and the various agencies into a straitjacket unnecessarily, which would not always work to the benefit of the claimant. Therefore, it is inappropriate to set on the face of legislation an absolute time limit which would apply in all circumstances regardless of the practical difficulties. I believe that the existing arrangements are satisfactory and that they do, in the great majority of cases, although perhaps not exactly, meet the purpose behind this amendment, as explained by the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden. With that explanation, I hope that she can withdraw her amendment.

I thank the Minister for that response, but I am not entirely convinced that it is not a good idea to have such provisions stated on the face of the Bill. I know from my own experience that one can notify the Benefits Agency of a change of circumstance but that it may be some time before one is informed by the agency that that notification has gone through. I remember notifying the agency of the death of my husband. Some time went by and eventually I received a letter stating, "We are very sorry that your husband has died, but by the way you owe us £200 because there has been an overpayment". That is not a very good way of dealing with overpayments. That is an example from my own experience, but we must remember that those who receive council tax benefit or housing benefit are already living close to the edge, as the noble Earl said, and they really need some time limit to be put on the period within which the authorities should deal with a change of notification.

I shall read in Hansard what the Minister has said to see whether it might be a good idea to come back on Report with a slightly reworded amendment to deal with the exceptional circumstance. However, I believe that we must spell out somewhere in primary legislation the fact that 14 days is the period which would normally be expected to apply. In the circumstances, however, I beg leave—

I simply want to suggest that the noble Baroness might like to look at Section 21 of the Social Security Administration Act 1992, which provides that:

"An adjudication officer to whom a claim or question is submitted under section 20 … shall take it into consideration and, so far as practicable, dispose of it, in accordance with this section, and with the procedure regulations under section 59 below, within 14 days of its submission to him".

Perhaps the noble Baroness would care to consider that when she is reviewing what I have said.

In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment No. 54:

After Clause 5, insert the following new clause—

I shall not make a speech; I say only that the noble Baroness has made out a very strong case and I hope that it is taken seriously.

As we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, the purpose of this amendment is to restrict the end date for the calculation of recoverable overpayments to 14 days following the date on which a claimant reports a change of circumstances. This does not fit well with the subject matter of Section 71(1) which concerns recovery of overpayments where a person has misrepresented or failed to disclose a material fact.

In any event, I can see no reason why the period of recoverable overpayments should be restricted in this way. As I explained on the previous amendment, every effort is made to action new information within 14 days. However, this is not always possible—particularly in complex cases or where the adjudication officer feels that additional information is required before the rate of benefit in payment can be reviewed. The practice of recovering the full overpayment was included in the 1948 National Assistance Act and has been reconfirmed by successive governments, both Labour and Conservative, in subsequent Acts—none of which restricts the period of the recoverable overpayment.

When people claim benefits they receive public money which Parliament has determined should be made available to those in genuine need. There is an obligation on those claiming benefit to ensure that they have reported everything that they should regarding their claim to benefit at the outset. Even where we are dealing with innocent misrepresentation where the claimant knew the facts but failed to report them, being unaware of the need to do so—and these cases are rare—the claimant has benefited from public money to which he or she was not entitled. In these circumstances it would be a dereliction of our duty if we did not seek to recover the overpayment in full.

Even when an adjudication officer decides that an overpayment is recoverable there is a right of appeal against the decision, and the Secretary of State can, and does, exercise his discretion where serious hardship would be caused to waive in whole or in part the recovery of the overpayment. In addition, where income support or jobseeker's allowance is in payment, the weekly rate at which the overpayment can be recovered is limited by regulations.

As far as improvements in the accuracy of payments of income support are concerned, the chief executive of the Benefits Agency has given assurances to the Public Accounts Committee of his commitment to accuracy improvement. He has set in motion both short-term measures—for example, to increase the accountability of managers and to improve the training given to staff—and longer-term measures to improve the processes and systems for awarding and paying benefit. That is one of the motivations behind the Change Programme. We want to see whether we can improve the system and one of our objectives is to improve the accuracy figures. I fully accept that that is important.

The calculation of overpayment is a complex area. The chief adjudication officer and the Benefits Agency are currently working together to improve standards by means of new information technology support, a programme of seminars, the production of new guidance and desk aids, and changes in class monitoring in order to increase the profile of adjudication within districts. I hope that all those factors will help to reduce the number of cases of inaccuracy and therefore the number of cases in which overpayment comes into play.

I am sure that the noble Baroness knows how we exercise our powers with relation to overpayment—and how we exercise discretion with regard to certain categories of people and the recovery of overpayment—and I hope that she will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

The Minister disappoints me. He deals with a case that has not been made. He answers a case against the recovery of overpayment. No one has made any such case. The case is simply that a degree of mercy be shown to people who have received a considerable amount of overpayment through no fault of their own. It is the recovery of those sums at speed, all in one go or over a very short period, which causes hardship. I can only hope that the Minister's tax inspector does not share his principles.

The Minister was also perhaps a little unwise to mention the Change Programme. I understand the case made by the Benefits Agency about the rate of error. I have always been inclined to the merciful approach because I know that to err is human and that the pressure to which it is subject is very severe. But I am surprised to hear the Change Programme invoked as a reason for the likely decline in the rate of error. One understands that wagers are not made in the Chamber. Were we to be outside the Chamber I might well have offered the Minister the wager that after three years of the Change Programme the rate of error would not be less than it is today. I would be rather surprised if the Minister took such a wager.

I am not sure whether we can take wagers in the Chamber. The noble Earl says that we cannot. Given his long knowledge of these procedural matters, indeed we cannot. I say to the noble Earl that we would be extremely disappointed if we did not find ways to improve the accuracy of the information. One of the matters that we have discovered in looking at the process is that the point at which the raw information is checked is way down the system. Very often that is one of the factors that leads to inaccuracy. We hope that if checking takes place much closer to the beginning of the process not only will it speed up the process but it will also lead to greater accuracy. I do not want to go too far into the detail of the Change Programme. However, I would be deeply disappointed if the noble Earl's pessimism turned out to be justified.

As to hardship, the recovery of overpayment by the deduction of benefit is, we believe, the most cost effective way of recouping the loss. To ensure that no claimant suffers hardship, recovery from weekly amounts of benefit is subject to limits set out in the legislation. Where a claimant puts forward a good reason for a lower rate of recovery or argues that recovery should not take place, that case is looked at sympathetically. I hope that out in the field we look at individual cases of hardship sympathetically and at slower ways to recover overpayment or, in some cases, waive it.

Whatever we can do about wagers, I am certain that in this Chamber I cannot tell the story of the Glasgow physiology student. Perhaps I can look forward to telling the Minister that story outside the Chamber.

I thank the Minister for his explanation. I remind him that we are referring here to the recovery of overpayments which are not the fault of the recipient but which arise because of incompetence or oversight on the part of the Benefits Agency or the authority responsible for making the payment. It must come as bit of a shock to many people suddenly to find that they are asked to make good an overpayment when they themselves have not been responsible for providing inaccurate information and the overpayment has arisen because someone else made a mistake in the system.

Although I do not intend to divide the Committee on the amendment, I feel strongly about it. I should like to think about what the Minister said. I am grateful to him for his comments about training. Obviously, it is important that staff should be properly trained and that performance monitoring should take place. I am also glad to learn that the head of the Benefits Agency intends to ensure that proper monitoring is carried out. However, that still does not tackle the situation I seek to deal with by way of the amendment; that is to say, to ensure that people are not suddenly faced, through no fault of their own, with a demand for repayment. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment on the basis that I am likely to come back with a rather similar amendment at Report Stage.

moved Amendment No. 55:

After Clause 5, insert the following new clause—

Having listened to the noble Baroness, I now appreciate that her amendment is directed at the Secretary of State who may be being dilatory in some cases in collecting the necessary evidence. Perhaps I may explain how the claim process works at present and why I do not believe the amendment would help either the organisation or the claimant. The onus for making the claim for benefit lies with the individual who wishes to claim. That claim is submitted to the Secretary of State whose task it is to check whether it contains sufficient information to enable the adjudication officer to make a determination. If it does he submits it straightaway to the adjudication officer under Section 20 of the Administration Act. Section 21 requires the adjudication officer, so far as practicable, to dispose of the claim within 14 days. However, it may be that before he can dispose of it the adjudication officer requires the Secretary of State to request further evidence. In such cases the 14 days may well be impracticable. If the Secretary of State requires more information before submitting it to the adjudication officer, Regulation 7(1) of the claims and payments regulations allows the claimant one month to produce the required information or such longer period as the Secretary of State may consider reasonable.

The amendment would introduce into this procedure deadlines for the request of information. The Secretary of State would have seven days to request information following the receipt of a claim and a further three days would be allowed where further information was requested. I can understand the desire to ensure efficient administration, but I believe that such an amendment would be counter-productive and would not achieve what the noble Baroness desires. I suspect that it would not be beneficial to the claimant. If the request for information was not made within the prescribed seven or 10-day period the Secretary of State would pass the claim as it stood to the adjudication officer. The adjudication officer would then be obliged to decide the claim on the evidence before him. The onus is on the claimant to show that he is entitled to benefit and most requests for further information are made because it appears that the evidence the claimant has provided is not sufficient to do this. So the almost inevitable result is that the claimant, under the noble Baroness's suggested rule, would be disallowed benefit.

I know that that is not what the noble Baroness has in mind when she proposes the amendment, but I believe that that would be its effect. In my view claimants are well served by the current provisions, which provide the flexibility needed to ensure that we can ask questions to make sure that the adjudication officer has all the evidence before he makes the decision. If he is forced to make that evidence on inadequate information because of time limits, the chances are that the information will be inadequate in such a way that the claimant will not receive the benefit, or perhaps as much benefit, as he is entitled to receive. I know that that is in no way the noble Baroness's intention.

With that explanation of how the system works at present—I am sure the noble Baroness knows it—and as regards the problem that will arise from her amendment, I hope that she will feel able to withdraw it.

I thank the Minister for that response. He is quite right. It is not the intention in moving the amendment to make it more difficult for the claimant to have benefit; quite the contrary. The intention is to ensure that the claim is processed as quickly as possible and that the claimant is not subject to unnecessary delays in seeking his benefit.

As I said in regard to the previous amendment, I shall read in Hansard what the Minister said to see whether it might be a good idea to come back with a different form of wording designed to achieve the objective of the amendment. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

moved Amendment No. 56:

After Clause 5, insert the following new clause—

Agency is something which always needs supervision. Some of us have come across a fairly similar problem of agency in the administration of proxy votes. I do not make any party point. All parties have been accused of abusing the system. All parties need monitoring. Original sin does not have any party. But that is beside the present point. I hope that it may be discussed between our party headquarters.

We are dealing with a group of people who are often unable to look after themselves. For example, if someone suffers from Alzheimer's, he is not in a particularly good state to check whether the agent is exercising his power properly. There is some need for external supervision. What form that external supervision should take is a very much more difficult problem. One thinks perhaps of the powers of public trustees because the person concerned is in effect exercising a trusteeship and perhaps that is the appropriate form of supervision.

The Answer to a Written Question to which the noble Baroness, Lady Gould, referred was in answer to my honourable friend Miss Lynne in another place. I accept that the department keeps everything under review, but perhaps the Minister can tell us what kind of review is being conducted. What methodology is being used? What, if any, preliminary impressions has it gained?

I have some sympathy with the concerns expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Gould. It is recognised that the number of people who are incapable of managing their own affairs, and who are therefore in need of an appointee, is increasing. Regrettably, there have been cases where those who have been appointed to so act have misappropriated the money. In the past, some problems have been identified in relation to residential care and nursing homes, which are where those in need of appointeeship are commonly cared for.

However, I am not persuaded that the natural concerns that we all have are addressed by the proposed amendment. First, the vast majority of appointees are family or friends acting in a caring role and performing a valuable, but often unnoticed, task. I believe that it would be highly intrusive and provocative to conduct a survey which had a remit of checking that the appointee was not defrauding the person being cared for. I fear that a large number of existing appointees might respond to such a survey by requesting that the department appoint somebody else. The reality is that in many cases there would be no one else to be the appointee. That rather basic fact takes the edge off the point of conducting a survey.

I appreciate that in the past there have been problems in connection with some proprietors of residential homes. I can tell the noble Baroness that existing guidance to staff in Benefits Agency offices is that they should consider appointing a proprietor of a residential home to act for the claimant only where no other suitable person can be found. The reason for that guidance is not necessarily that proprietors are viewed by the department as potential fraudsters; it is simply that the task of being an appointee goes wider than just cashing the claimant's benefit, taking out the fees to the home and giving the claimant the remainder. There is an onus to report changes in circumstances which may affect entitlement to benefit, and proprietors of homes may not be in a position to fulfil such a role.

The noble Baroness outlined the procedure which currently exists before an appointee arrangement is approved. Perhaps I may go over that, too. The claimant is visited to ascertain whether he is capable of managing his affairs. The prospective appointee is also visited, either with the claimant or separately, to ensure that he understands and is prepared to take on the role of appointee. In addition the Secretary of State has discretion to terminate an existing appointment. He would certainly do that without delay if there were, for instance, any suggestion of the claimant being defrauded.

I can also tell the noble Baroness that the Benefits Agency looked at the whole area of appointee arrangements last year. It found that the procedures were basically sound, although some concerns were raised that procedures had not been properly followed. The noble Baroness suggested that, too. The conclusion of the agency was not so much that the procedures needed changing, but that it was necessary to emphasise the fact that the procedures should be followed.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising these issues. I shall certainly discuss with my officials her point that procedures were not being properly followed. There is little doubt that they ought to be properly followed. I shall certainly take steps to ensure that the Benefits Agency is aware of the fact that the noble Baroness suggests that that may not be the case. As I said, after our investigation concerns were expressed that in some cases the procedures were not being followed. I hope that the emphasis we placed on following the proper procedures has, so to speak, got through to the staff on the ground.

The broader point raised by the noble Earl and alluded to by the noble Baroness related to keeping the matter under review. We are at a particular transition period in the way in which we pay benefits. The whole area of agent collection is being considered as part of the studies we need to undertake leading up to the benefit payment card. Research has shown us that we need to continue with an agent system for the collection of benefits because, as we all agree, there are customers who cannot collect themselves and who need appointees or agents. As my honourable friend said in another place, we are making the system more secure within the changes associated with the card. We must address methods of verification of the agent which are different from the current methods because benefit books are quite different from the systems which will be used for benefit payment cards. That is one of the problems we are having to investigate in addressing the introduction of benefit payment cards.

I hope that those words help to reassure the noble Baroness that we are looking at these matters with regard to the transition from the current system to the benefit payment card system. I should be interested to hear of any particular case she has in mind where the procedures fail to be carried out. Even if the appointee was the right and proper person to be appointed, the procedures ought still to have been carried out in order to ascertain that that was the case. We are all agreed that vulnerable claimants must be protected. I spend some time trying to tease out issues relating to the introduction of benefit payments cards. However, I believe that the amendment would take us too far down a different road and would not help to achieve our goal. I am pleased to have had the opportunity to discuss the matter and to hear the points put to me by the noble Baroness.

Before my noble friend decides what to do with the amendment, perhaps I may make a suggestion. The Minister mentioned a review of the appointment of appointees and referred to the problems which arise when no one is available. We have an Official Solicitor and an Official Trustee. Will the Government consider an Official Appointee? Obviously, that would be a right and proper person and such an office would help to solve some of the problems described by the Minister.

I have a suspicion that that would be a very bureaucratic system to devise as regards the bulk of the cases where the appointee is likely to be a close relative or friend of the person concerned. In the circumstances, it would be wrong to create a system similar to that of official solicitors and official trustees, but perhaps I have misunderstood the noble Lord's suggestion.

I make the suggestion only in respect of those cases where there is a problem in finding someone to undertake the task. I believe that the Official Trustee delegates the task to a retired person. A retired insurance broker can act as an official trustee in certain cases. One could have a register of such people to be drawn upon when there was a problem finding the right person.

When there is a real problem in finding an appointee the situation is different from that we have been discussing. It is not a matter of an appointee being available, but of an appointee being a right and proper person.

I shall look at that small point—small in number—and I shall try to ensure that after the Committee stage the Benefits Agency is aware of the concerns that procedures are not being properly followed.

I am grateful to the Minister who has tried very hard to be constructive. Of course it is possible that this is not the best answer, but perhaps we ought to think about what is. When the Minister talked about the benefit payment card he was getting warmer. We must make some distinctions. It is not enough to control the choice of appointee. No one is immune to temptation, even close relatives. One need only think, "Oh, my prophetic soul, my uncle." One cannot deal with the problem simply by controlling the choice of the appointee; one must have some monitoring of the conduct of the appointee in office.

Here one needs to make another distinction between people who are unable to collect their benefit because of physical incapacity and people who are unable to do so because of mental incapacity. If you are unable to collect your benefit because of mental incapacity, you simply cannot monitor the person who is collecting it for you. That is what made me wonder about automatic credit transfer: I have heard the Minister sing its praises on other occasions.

Where there is a clear mental incapacity, if benefit were paid by automatic credit transfer it could be tapped only by somebody who had authorised access to the claimant's bank account, and access to bank accounts and use of them is carefully monitored independently. Is that a road which we might possibly go down?

When we were having our discussions in relation to the benefit payment card, I discussed that point. The problem is that not everybody has a bank account. We may then start to go down the road of forcing somebody to have a bank account.

The noble Earl is quite right that the problem is greatly helped if the payment is carried out by ACT. But equally the money has to be collected from the bank. I am pleased to hear that the noble Earl thinks that the banks have sound systems in place—apart from American ones. My personal experience does not lead me to quite the same confident position which the noble Earl has adopted. But he has a point about the advantages of ACT with regard to someone who cannot get to the post office to collect his benefit either through the existing system or a future system. The problem is that individual circumstances are so varied it is difficult to make hard and fast rules.