The clause provides for a group of powers through regulations that we intend to use to balance the rights of individuals, and to regulate the operation of the new duties for adoption agencies and the Registrar-General. As the Committee has discussed, the Government have changed the original approach that we set out in the Bill in relation to access to birth certificates and any other protected information. The changes are provided for in new clause 7(3) and new clause 8(3) and (4). Clause 61(2)(a) and (b), which provided for regulations to prescribe the circumstances in which a person may object to the disclosure of information about himself, and how he may do so, are therefore no longer needed. They are taken out by amendment No. 212.

Amendment No. 213 is a consequential amendment to clause 61(2)(c) that omits reference to the manner in which objections to disclosure are to be recorded. Amendment No. 214 omits subsections (2)(d) and (e), which provide for regulations to prescribe under paragraph (d) the circumstances in which objections are to be treated as effective and, under paragraph (e), the circumstances in which a person may be treated as having objected to the disclosure of any information.