I beg to move amendment No. 625, in page 244, line 16, at beginning insert—

'Except as provided for in subsection (3) below,'.

With this we may discuss amendment No. 635, in page 246, line 20, at beginning insert—

'Except as provided for in subsection (8) below,'.

The clause provides for the disclosure of information to the director. Subsection (1) says:

(1) Information which is held by or on behalf of a permitted person

as defined in subsection (5),

(whether it was obtained before or after the coming into force of this section) may be disclosed to the Director for the purpose of the exercise by the Director of his functions.

(2) A disclosure under this section is not to be taken to breach any restriction on the disclosure of information (however imposed).

(3) But nothing in this section authorises the making of a disclosure—

(a) which contravenes the Data Protection Act 1998 (c.29);

or

(b) which is prohibited by Part 1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 (c23).

The amendment is designed to probe what will remain restricted, and what will be allowed to be disclosed. I want the Minister to explain what the two subsections will—and will not—allow to be disclosed.

Subsection (2) states that a disclosure of information to the director, under the gateway that the clause provides,

is not to be taken to breach any restriction on the disclosure of information.

That is an important statement, with regard to the operation of the information gateways that the Bill provides.

Subsection (3) inserts a rider to subsection (2), stating that the clause's provisions do not authorise a disclosure that contravenes the Data Protection Act 1998, or part 1 of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. The provisions are not intended to override those that already exist in data protection legislation and with regard to intercept material. An identical provision is made in clause 423, with regard to disclosures of information by the director.

As the Bill does not allow any disclosure to be made that is incompatible with the provisions of those Acts, the amendment would be superfluous: it would merely draw explicit attention to subsections (2) and (3), and to subsections (7) and (8) of clause 423.

Although I appreciate that hon. Members want the legislation to be clear, there is no scope for confusion on the point that has been raised. The Bill is lengthy, and we should not add to it unnecessarily.

I apologise to the Minister in advance, if my remarks make me sound like the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok.

During the Committee's proceedings, my hon. Friends and I have occasionally proposed restrictions

and limitations, and we have been told that we are being soft, and that we are trying to prevent the director from getting what he wants. However, if I correctly understand the Minister's comments, he is now proposing to impose restrictions on the director's powers. Would that not weaken the Bill? Why is he asking us to make concessions with regard to privacy and protection, when previously he has castigated us for asking for that?

That is not quite the case. We are merely making it clear that the Bill does not override the assurances that are given in, for instance, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, and those that Parliament wanted with regard to how intercept material can—and cannot—be used. It is important to make it clear that we are not seeking to undermine the safeguards that other legislation provides.

I am grateful to the Minister for his remarks. The amendment was merely intended to stimulate discussion. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move amendment No. 602, in page 244, line 22, leave out subsection (4).

My comments on the amendment need only be brief. As my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield (Mr. Grieve) has said, we merely wish to probe the Government on several matters relating to part 10. If I suggest that subsection (4) does not need to be in the Bill, I may provoke further responses from Government Back Benchers. However, I was puzzled about whether it was necessary for the Bill to contain a subsection that states:

This section does not affect a power to disclose which exists apart from this section.

If the subsection were not present, why would the powers to disclose that exist apart from those in the clause be affected? The subsection is otiose, and could be deleted to shorten the Bill.

I am always a tiny bit suspicious when I see a provision of this kind in a Bill, because my first reaction is to wonder what we are considering. What are the powers to disclose that exist, apart from those in the clause, that will not be affected? Until one knows what those are, one gets the slight impression—perhaps the wrong impression—that something that the Committee should take into account is being slipped in through the back door.

Will the Minister identify what was in the draftsman's mind when subsection (4) was formulated? What are the current circumstances in which the Minister can cite powers to disclose that would not be affected by the clause, or does he envisage that such powers might be created? In that case, I do not see the need for it, because if such powers were created, that would override the provision. It would be helpful for the Committee to know what is going on.

I echo what my hon. Friends have said. I, too, am always suspicious of a provision that

suggests that notwithstanding powers in a clause, anything can be done.

I looked at the explanatory notes, and they contain no reference to what the powers may be. If the Minister does not have a list of the powers that exist at present, I hope that he will send one to us so that we may consider it. If we know what the powers are, we may wish to say on Report that several of them should not be used in these circumstances. During a previous debate, he defended the right to exclude certain measures, so we have established that some things are excluded from disclosure. We must find out what else he has in mind.

It seems to me that the powers to disclose that may be adumbrated by the clause might be rather wide. All journalists have a power to disclose. Would that be excluded? Exactly what are we talking about?

I assume that my hon. Friend hoped that I might be able to give him an answer, because he intervened on me rather than on the Minister. However, I am speaking because I want an answer. I hope that my hon. Friend will forgive me if I do not attempt to answer him, although I am sure that the Minister noted what he said and will reply to him.

The Government have listed at least two things that are excluded from the process without any pressure from us. However, they now say that anything else can be used. Somebody must have researched the other powers that could be used, and we ought to know them. We must be satisfied that we are not letting through all sorts of powers to which we would object.

I am worried—I appreciate that this is not immediately to the point, but it may be a matter for the stand part debate—by the impact of the restrictions placed on disclosure by the Human Rights Act 1998. That is not mentioned in the clause, but we must consider those restrictions. I am sure, Mr. Gale, that you will rule on whether that is a matter for a further amendment or for a stand part debate.

The clause allows the director to receive information from any number of permitted persons, who are listed in subsection (5), for the purpose of exercising his functions. However, other information disclosure gateways may exist that allow persons to disclose information to the director. Subsection (4) clarifies that the clause does not affect such gateways. The amendment would remove subsection (4). That might imply that the clause meant that information could be given to the director only for the purposes listed, regardless of any other statutory provision.

We did not have specifics in mind. The subsection is a standard measure, and it is the reverse of what we have just discussed. When we pass legislation, there is a requirement to ensure that it does not cut across safeguards in other legislation. It was necessary to provide that the clause does not cut across any safeguards in the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, or provisions in other legislation that allow other bodies to disclose information. If that is allowed, it will continue to be allowed. If safeguards have been

built into other legislation, such as the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, they are not done away with by the clause.

I understand the Minister's point, but in light of our discussion on clause 420, it is surprising. The hon. Member for Wellingborough said that we are defining carefully the powers that are provided to the director by statute. However, when exercising those powers, he may receive any information that does not contravene the Data Protection Act 1998 or the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. However, subsection (4) says:

This section does not affect a power to disclose which exists apart from this section.

The Minister said that he does not know of such a power that would cause a problem, so I do not know why the subsection is present. If subsequent legislation introduces a power, that should be done explicitly. I do not like introducing a measure that is an opening for future disclosure without giving it proper consideration, especially because the Bill defines the director's powers so closely.

As I told the hon. Gentleman, the provision is standard. It could apply to subsequent legislation or to abilities that are in past legislation. It is included to ensure that we are not removing the right to disclose information that is granted to other people. I do not understand why the subsection is attracting such controversy.

I rise only because the Minister sat down without offering a list of the powers or telling us what they are. We are asked to sign a blank cheque, and I do not like that. I press him to tell us what the powers are now, or inform us later.

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point. However, if the powers exist, they exist anyway, and the blank cheque will already have been written.

That may be so. However, I am not a lawyer and perhaps I do not pay as much attention to these matters as I should. Perhaps I should have spotted that and tabled a different amendment. [Interruption.] There seems to be a glorious conference going on. We may get further free advice from another quarter.

The hon. Member for Wellingborough has alerted us that we should have asked these questions. The Minister told us that the powers exist, but if he had said nothing, we might not even have seen the blank cheque. He has drawn it to our attention, and as the Opposition we are entitled to ask him to explain it now, or in writing. I make no apologies for raising the point. We have information to show that there are other powers. If I were a lawyer, I might know the answer to my question. I am not a lawyer, but I am a Member of Parliament, and as such I am entitled to ask the question and to receive an answer.

It slightly troubles me that the whole tenor of our discussions is based on the fact that the director will receive information from the permitted persons for the discharge of his functions. We have thoroughly debated where the information will be

coming from and for what purpose. I appreciate that draftsmen want failsafe clauses: it is a belt-and-braces job, so in goes subsection (4). The Minister said that, in view of the novel powers of the director, they will be kept under strict control. However, given the restrictive nature of what the director is supposed to be doing, either there is nothing that requires the application of subsection (4) or I would have expected someone to know what subsection (4) is intended to facilitate.

In fairness to the Minister, if there were something else that the subsection was intended to facilitate, I am sure that he would have told us. That is a good argument for the removal of the subsection: it is otiose and will facilitate nothing. If, in future, something is to be facilitated, I expect it to be spelled out. I am worried that subsection (4) will enable a measure to come into operation that provides a channel of information to disclose to the Minister, without Parliament knowing about it. That is my concern in a nutshell.

The devil may lie in ''exists''. That the word is used in its present tense worries me. When this thing becomes statute, I wonder whether ''exists'' will be taken to mean as matters exist now when we are agreeing to the terms of the Bill or whether it will cover all time and future legislation on the powers of disclosure. I hope that my hon. Friend sees my point.

I see my hon. Friend's point absolutely. It will cover any such power that comes into operation during the existence of the Bill, when enacted. That is why I am concerned about the subsection. I expect to see spelled out in future legislation that it is amending the Proceeds of Crime Act, whereas such action could be taken without any amendment, which would mean that a future Committee may not be aware of how such an amendment would impact on the director's powers.

I am not trying to con the hon. Gentleman or hold back information. It is a standard provision. It is not in the Bill to enhance the director's abilities but to ensure that nothing in the Bill cuts across powers that have already been given to other people. The provision is found in other legislation. It covers future legislation under which Parliament has chosen to give powers to people to disclose information. The power will not be nullified by the Bill when enacted, and we would not have to check that it will have to be amended to give those powers under future legislation.

There is existing legislation under which powers to disclose information have been specifically given to people. It is not our intention under the Bill to nullify such powers. I do not have a list of the powers that have been trawled around. I am sorry if I have offended the hon. Member for Spelthorne (Mr. Wilshire), but I am told that it is a standard provision. We have added in the necessary safeguards in respect of the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000. We have provided a standard provision to ensure that we are not nullifying the powers that we

have given, or might give, not to the director but to other people.

We are not satisfied with what the Minister says. I moved the amendment expecting the Minister to give us a far more thorough answer. We are sceptical, as my hon. Friends have said.

As the hon. Gentleman is not satisfied to leave in the subsection, which powers to disclose does he want the section to cut across?

With great respect to the hon. Gentleman, he has missed the point. We are criticising the Minister's inability to give us any examples of the existing powers that he says the provision would cut across. It is for the Government to say what the powers are, and the Minister has apologised for not being able to list them.

If those powers exist, they were created by Parliament in accordance with its democratic will. The provision, it is thought, might cut across some of those powers. We do not wish to do that. Which powers created by Parliament does the hon. Gentleman wish to cut across?

As I have already said, as the Minister cannot give us a list, I do not understand how the hon. Gentleman can expect a list from the Opposition. Whether or not there are any such powers—

Or may be in the future.

Yes, or may be in the future, the subsection may provide a blank cheque. If the subsection has any effect, we are suspicious about it. If it does not, it should not be included.

I wonder whether my hon. Friend will reflect on the fact that there appears to be a difference of philosophy between the Government and the Opposition. Government Members are saying the exact contrary of what I believe, which is that no power should be granted unless we give it. That view is being challenged by the implication that the authorities should have all the powers that they need unless we take them away. I hope that my hon. Friend agrees that we are arguing that we should give the power, rather than take it away.

I could not agree more. This is another example of the new authoritarian tendency of the Labour Government. We, as good Conservatives, want to be statutory minimalists.

If what the hon. Gentleman for Spelthorne said were correct, that would be true, but we might want to give those powers in future legislation, and the subsection makes us free to do so. We are not giving a blank cheque; we are opening up the potential for Parliament to give those powers in the future and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough says, we are not cutting across those that Parliament has already given.

There is a danger that the debate will go round in circles. As no Parliament can bind its successors, and as any future Act of Parliament, as my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield said, will

create its own powers, we are entitled to be concerned that the Government have introduced the provision. For that reason, I shall press the amendment to a Division.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 6, Noes 13.

Question accordingly negatived.

I beg to move amendment No. 603, in page 244, line 29, leave out paragraph (e).

With this it will be convenient to take amendment No. 614, in clause 425, page 247, line 16, leave out paragraph (e).

An issue that has arisen in our consideration of the Bill is the interrelationship between the director's powers and the functions of the Inland Revenue. We considered the issue in discussing the director's taxation powers, which clearly have a bearing on his use of information from the Inland Revenue and disclosure of information to the Inland Revenue. As the Minister acknowledged when we considered the matter, it is accepted practice that communication between an individual and the Inland Revenue is in confidence. Only in very limited and restricted circumstances has the Inland Revenue breached that confidence or felt that it should disclose information.

The amendment would delete the reference to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue being a permitted person. It is a probing amendment, designed to stimulate debate about exactly how the provision will work in practice. That applies in several places in the clause. It is probably one of the most important issues to arise in our consideration of this part of the Bill. I should be grateful if the Minister would identify the criteria under which the commissioners of Inland Revenue will act in disclosing information to the director that is likely to have been obtained in confidence through a confidential relationship with a taxpayer. That is an important issue that we cannot simply pass without careful consideration. However, I recognise that the operation of the Bill will be impossible unless the Inland Revenue is a permitted person, so I shall not press to the amendment to a Division.

As the hon. Gentleman said, the amendment would prevent the Inland Revenue from disclosing information to the director for the purpose of exercising his functions. That would fundamentally undermine the director's ability to perform his taxation functions under part 6. To perform

effectively, he will need information from the Revenue about the tax history of the subject of his inquiries. He will need to know what tax the person has paid and in which tax periods, and to have access to much of the case information that the Inland Revenue has. That information will help the director establish the subject's true tax liability and will inform his decisions about raising a tax assessment.

When we considered part 6, I gave assurances about the director collecting only tax that is properly due. He will not raise tax assessments on income or gains already taxed by the Revenue. Without information from the Revenue, that assurance could not be maintained.

Amendment No. 614 would prevent the Inland Revenue from being able to disclose information to the Lord Advocate or Scottish Ministers. Although the Lord Advocate and Scottish Ministers will not carry out taxation functions under part 6, information that the Inland Revenue holds will be of use to the Lord Advocate and Scottish Ministers in performing their functions under parts 3 and 5 respectively. The amendment would prevent them from having access to the information and would hinder their ability to perform accordingly. Because the director has access to taxpayer information when he performs equivalent functions in the rest of the United Kingdom, it would create an inconsistency if the Lord Advocate and Scottish Ministers did not have such access for cases in Scotland.

That is an interesting point. I realise why there is a different system north and south of the border. However, every time I hear the words ''Scottish Ministers' taxation functions'' my hackles rise at the prospect, even though those Ministers may not personally perform the taxation function. It is interesting that Ministers will take ultimate decisions because of the way in which the framework will work, which would not happen south of the border. That raises a political issue that we should consider.

As I said, the Lord Advocate and Scottish Ministers cannot carry out taxation functions under part 6, and will not do so. I do not want to get into an argument with the hon. Gentleman, as I am not qualified to say whether the Scottish system is better than the English one, or whether the Scots are entirely satisfied with our system, or we with theirs. That is beyond the scope of the discussion on the amendment.

The position under the amendment would also be at odds with section 19 of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, which provides, notwithstanding any secrecy provisions in other legislation, that the Revenue can pass on information to anyone to help the intelligence services, and for the purposes of criminal investigations and proceedings.

We discussed why we structured the Bill as we did. With regard to the director's taxation functions, he will, in effect, stand in the shoes of the Revenue, as I said in a previous debate. He will therefore be entitled to information that the Revenue holds. We thought that that was better structurally than giving the Revenue the additional powers and expecting it to

do the job of taxation, which we are giving the director. If we do not want to create two separate taxation systems, and a potential leaking of new and additional powers to areas of ordinary taxation where criminal assets are not being pursued, it is self-evident that it would be dangerous to go down that route.

The hon. Gentleman is right that the director will have access to taxation information from the Revenue, but only in cases where he is justified in doing so. We have discussed the hierarchy, and are talking about people against whom criminal investigations, criminal confiscation, civil recovery or recovery of the proceeds of crime are being considered. Access to taxation information is justified in those cases.

I wanted to raise several matters, but the Minister said two things that concern me and raise additional issues. If I heard him correctly, he referred to raising tax assessments. There may have been occasions during the proceedings when I was not here or not listening carefully, or both, but I was not aware that we were creating another sort of tax inspector. If he said what I thought he said, we now have a system whereby the director is supposed to be raising tax assessments. If that is the concept, I find that extraordinary, as it runs counter to the Bill's real purpose, which is about removing the proceeds of crime. If the director is going to use the information from the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to raise tax assessments, he is taxing the proceeds of crime, not confiscating them.

That is a peculiar departure from what I thought this legislation was about. Taxing something makes it legitimate; it is saying, ''You can keep it but you'll pay 35 per cent tax on it.'' Is the Minister suggesting that this clause is there to provide an alternative tax collector? Is the director going to be a tax inspector in his own right? I would be amazed if many Committee members had seen that point before now.

I understood from the beginning that this legislation was about confiscation, not taxation. If at this late stage we are going to say that this is a tax raising activity rather than a confiscation of the proceeds of crime activity, we should be debating whether the director is the right person to levy taxes. The Minister triggered that thought so he should explain what he has in mind before we proceed further.

The second of the Minister's remarks to trigger my concern was that the director would obtain information on request. Nowhere in the clause is it stated that information is obtained when the director asks for it. I would have assumed that the permitted persons might of their own free will decide that they had useful information. The Minister's justification was that the director would make a request for information. If that is the case, it should be made clear. The clause does not state whether permitted persons should pass on information because they believe it is useful or whether the director should ask any of the people on the list whether they have information.

If the principle to be used is on request, what assurances can the Minister give us that this is not a licence to go on fishing expeditions; whenever people have a vague suspicion, they can fire off requests to all these people in the hope that they will say something that will justify what they want to do. If we are in the business of fishing expeditions against innocent people, what assurances can we be given that we will not suddenly find our tax affairs being disclosed to the director on the off-chance that if he has no other work to do he might, by asking random questions of the permitted persons, come up with information to keep him busy?

This would then be a snooper's charter, and the Minister rather suggests that it will be. I was originally going to say, on the basis that people were going to disclose information, that the other way round is important. How will the information be released, if it is going to be passed on by these people? Will there be a formal procedure whereby a tax inspector looks at an individual's tax returns and says, ''There are grounds for suspicion here that proceeds of crime are involved, and as the district tax inspector, I am looking into it, so I shall formally report it in such a way that it is on file for the future''? If that route is to be taken, the district tax inspector is not covered by many of the restrictions and regulations that apply to the director. The tax inspector would therefore be free to do whatever he likes and to act unfettered as the director's ears and eyes, while we have been trying to ensure that the director works within the law as passed by Parliament.

What will the procedure be? How will the information be released? Will it be recorded if there is any redress to be had from an investigation into someone's activities where the courts found no criminality? Can the acquitted say, ''Under freedom of information and human rights legislation I want to know what information was disclosed''? Will they be assured of the ability to find out what information the tax inspector released, which would otherwise have been confidential? I believe that they should be, and that the Minister should tell us so. If that is not the case, we will be opening the floodgates. Tax inspectors all over the country will be picking up the phone and saying, ''I can't put this in writing, and it isn't necessarily something I can justify, but I have a hunch. Why don't you have a look at it?''

Is that the sort of system there will be? Is that how information will be released? Will we have, on the one hand, a snooper's charter, and on the other hand, a group of people who might not be able to justify slapping a tax assessment on someone, but who believe they might be able to cause difficulty for that person by suggesting that the director carry out an investigation and cause trouble? My experience over the years suggests that if a tax inspector cannot sort something out, he sometimes decides that a good solution is to make an accountant take the money from a taxpayer. Would the clause enable a tax inspector who cannot get his mind round an assessment to generate trouble for a taxpayer by having him investigated by the director, at enormous expense?

The second question that the Minister must address is who will decide what information it is appropriate to release. We have spent hour upon hour talking about what the director can do, and what he can and cannot release, or say, and so on. Now we are given a list of people who are to be allowed to pass on whatever information they like, without restrictions. I see no safeguards in the Bill; if there are some, the Minister will doubtless tell me. A tax inspector, or any of the other people listed, can take it on themselves to release whatever they think suitable or desirable. That is not the sort of society in which I want to live—and I suspect that the Minister would not want to live in that sort of society either. He must tell us what safeguards exist, what the rules are and who will decide what is appropriate.

There must be rules and tests. One cannot have tax inspectors coming into work one morning feeling a bit crotchety and thinking, on a whim, ''I know what I'll do: I'll release some information because it may cause trouble for someone''. [Laughter.] The Minister may laugh; he may think that life is not like that—but from my experience, and that of an awful lot of other people, it does seem like that. If there is genuine evidence that meets criteria that Parliament has approved, implemented in a way that Parliament has also approved, I have no objection in principle to the Commissioners of Inland Revenue providing information about it, but it is our duty to require to know whether they will do so in response to a request or off their own bat, how they will do so, and who will take the decision to release such information. Will it be a junior in the office, or someone at senior level, who decides?

We are coming to a group of amendments that address the question of which people can take the decisions, but we also need to know what rules will exist to determine what is appropriate. My hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield has put down a probing amendment; it is not sensible remove a proposal at random for the sake of it, and I agree that we do not wish to divide on the matter now. However, unless there is a reasonable explanation on Report, I would be sorely tempted to take the whole lot out.

The Minister of State, Scotland Office (Mr. George Foulkes) rose—

I give way to the Minister of State; I am sorry to have disturbed his sleep.

I was going to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he gets into trouble with his Chief Whip if he does not fill all the time available.

I get into trouble with my Chief Whip irrespective of whether I fill the time, so in that sense today is no different from any other day. However, I am grateful to the Minister for listening, and for trying to judge the quality of what I am saying. That is a pleasure that he may also have later in the day.

I believe that I have touched on the key issues, and I hope that the Under-Secretary is willing to spare a little of his precious time to address them.

I endorse my hon. Friend's comments.

The matter is of great concern. One of the most insidious phrases in English, particularly in relation to any investigation by a state authority, is, ''Well, if you had nothing to hide, you would allow things to move ahead.'' If I may digress briefly, one of the advantages—or disadvantages—of representing the Cities of London and Westminster is that many constituency duties can be carried out during the day. Only yesterday I toddled down to the Department for Education and Skills in Tothill street, where the retired civil servants have their monthly meeting. A range of domestic and international political issues was discussed, and an elderly woman asked, in quite a hostile fashion, ''Where do you stand on identity cards?'' I am implacably against making them compulsory. She then said, ''If people have nothing to hide, what is wrong with identity cards?''

May I clarify for the Committee whether the hon. Gentleman is the individual who, on leaving Parliament yesterday, gave me a cheery wave and said, ''I'm off to launder some money''?

I am glad that there is a good sense of humour on both sides of the Committee. Those were indeed my precise words yesterday, when I was wearing rather different attire from what I am wearing today. My hon. Friend the Member for Henley—who is no longer present—and I are wearing the traditional bird's eye pattern Back-Bench attire today, but yesterday I was in my thick pin-stripe suit, which looks very City-oriented. At about a quarter past 11 yesterday morning I encountered the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok, doubtless after a particularly boozy night at the rugby club dinner, staggering through the Members Entrance. He caught my eye and we had a little exchange—

These are disclosures.

Mr. Davidson rose—

Order. We are coming perilously close to the edge of order. I was already having some difficulty in establishing the relevance of the discussion, and I have now lost the drift of the argument. I would like us to return to the amendment.

Thank you, Mr. Gale.

I was focusing on whether people who have nothing to hide should worry about the intrusion of the state through identity cards, and whether they should be happy to allow the state look through their affairs—tax returns, bank accounts and so forth. I made it clear yesterday, and do so again today, that that road leads to totalitarianism. The argument that if one has nothing to hide the state should have full rights over all one's affairs is made at the beginning of all totalitarian states. It was made in the 1930s in Nazi Germany, and has been made under a whole raft of dictatorships. I am deeply concerned about that argument.

I acknowledge that MPs are public servants who have a greater duty to be open about their personal affairs, but equally, private citizens should not be under threat from the Inland Revenue or other public officials to disclose what is in their bank account on the basis that if they have nothing to hide, they should

not be reluctant to do it. That is a fundamental philosophical—as well as constitutional and political—concern, which rings true for many people on the Opposition side of the Committee. That is why we stress the need for specific safeguards. How does the Minister envisage putting safeguards in place to ensure that whatever permission is granted to a range of individuals under subsection (5), the liberty of the individual will be maintained?

I support my hon. Friends, and I strongly share the philosophical concerns expressed by my hon. Friends the Members for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) and for Spelthorne. We all recognise that those who work for the Inland Revenue have a job to do on behalf of the state, but although we want them to do the job properly, Parliament must be careful to ensure, as my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne rightly said, that officials are not allowed to go on fishing expeditions. Those of us who share concern about authoritarianism or the nanny state are bound to be concerned about the open-ended opportunities created by the new legislation. Such concerns are absolutely valid with regard to this part of the Bill, which is why I strongly support the amendment and what my hon. Friends have said about it.

It will always be a matter for great concern if we think that legislation may be misused in the future. We know that these particular Ministers would not want to be part of any misuse, but we must legislate for the future—and who knows how the legislation that we pass now might be misused in the future if we are not careful? I simply want to put on the record my strong support for what my hon. Friends have said.

I shall try to give some reassurance to the hon. Members for Surrey Heath, for Cities of London and Westminster and for Spelthorne—but before I do, I must express my admiration, albeit in his absence, of the hon. Member for Spelthorne. He said that he might have been absent from some debates—but in order not to have noticed the issue that he has now raised, he must have been absent from all the debates on a large portion of part 1 and the whole of part 6. Moreover, he has other duties in Committee as a Whip, which he has carried out admirably—yet we now find that he has managed to conduct all his negotiations with my hon. Friend the Government Whip without having any knowledge of the content of the Bill. That is incredible, especially as his handling of matters has been beyond all criticism. His ability deserves some recognition.

As for fishing expeditions and the inappropriate use of the measures in the Bill, I cannot reopen the debate that we had on part 6, as I do not think that you would allow me to, Mr. Gale, even if I wanted to. There will not be fishing expeditions or people running rampant over taxpayers' rights and constitutional rights. The Revenue has strict legal duties to maintain the confidentiality of information provided by the taxpayer. Subsection (5)(c) allows the Revenue legally to disclose information to the director, but

only if the information is relevant and appropriate to the director's functions and proportionate to the request. That is because of the interaction of the requirements of the Data Protection Act 1998, the Human Rights Act 1998 and the gateways provided in the Bill.

It has been central to our thinking that we do not want the director to be able to stray into the normal affairs of the Revenue. He cannot get involved with the crimes that are investigated by the Revenue, such as tax evasion. Such investigations are not his function, and will continue to be conducted by the Revenue. A memorandum of understanding will be drawn up by the director and the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to dictate exactly how requests will be made and dealt with. They will be specific to the director's functions, and he will have business involving his taxation powers only when he has had a case passed on to him, he has followed the hierarchy of the Bill's provisions, other people have considered criminal investigation, and he has considered criminal confiscation and civil recovery.

This may come as a shock to the hon. Member for Spelthorne, as we move towards our 38th sitting, but in those circumstances, we are giving the director the ability to raise a tax assessment on the proceeds of crime. I am sorry that that revelation has come so late to him. That power will not allow for fishing expeditions. It is strictly governed by, for instance, the rules of proportionality and data protection—and the rules of confidentiality that apply to the Revenue will also apply to the director.

I am grateful to the Minister for re-emphasising some important points about how the legislation is intended to function.

The Minister should not be surprised that the subject under discussion has frequently been raised, as it causes genuine anxiety. We are breaking down some of the barriers that have existed between Departments in exchanging information. Those barriers were erected to encourage people to be open and honest in their dealings with Departments, and to reassure them that their confidences would be respected.

What we are discussing would be a major change from the situation that prevailed when the Inland Revenue began its relationship with taxpayers in the 19th century. As the Minister will know, people at that time were so concerned about maintaining confidentiality that many funny schedules were created to prevent any one tax inspector from having full knowledge of an individual's finances.

We are moving a long way from that. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok often says that people who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear. That might be true, but it does not mean that confidential information that people who have nothing to hide have provided to a specific Department for a specific purpose should be used for another purpose. If people were to lose confidence in their dealings with Departments, channels of communication would dry up—and that applies to the Inland Revenue in particular. If that happened it would hinder the operation of the legislation.

The hon. Gentleman said, ''used for another purpose''. If information provided for a specific purpose is passed onto someone who studies it for another purpose, and they decide that it contains nothing untoward, it will not be used for any purpose, because no action will be taken. It would be used only if the person who provided the information had cheated on their taxes.

It has been established that the Conservative members of the Committee are the friends of the criminal. If they are also the friends of the tax evader, they will all support the hon. Gentleman's opinion on the matter under discussion—and if that is the case, it should be noted.

The hon. Gentleman is jumping to a conclusion about the way in which the legislation could work. It would not merely make it possible to reveal the tax information that had been passed to the Inland Revenue in respect of an individual against whom proceedings may have been brought under the Bill. Its scope would be wider. In certain circumstances—with regard to civil recovery, for example—it could cover the transfer of information relating to individuals against whom no such imputation had been raised. That could happen, and for understandable reasons. For instance, the director might want to see the complete picture with regard to a case. The hon. Gentleman should bear that in mind. Such circumstances would arise very rarely, but tax information might be revealed pertaining to an individual whom the hon. Gentleman would regard as innocent.

Some of the hon. Gentleman's comments are correct. Let us bear in mind some of the discussions that we have had about the need for standards, and for a certain culture to be developed in the agency. We should also bear in mind the fact that—and here I am contradicting my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Pollok—the director will not deal with matters such as tax evasion. The Revenue will continue to deal with tax evasion.

I do not disagree. I think that the Minister and I agree that information pertaining to an individual's financial relationship with the Inland Revenue, which is usually provided for the purposes of taxation, could be made available to the director in the exercise of his functions, even though it may relate to a person against whom the director is not aware of any imputation of wrongdoing. He may need that information to lay his hands on money in someone else's hands. My interpretation is that the Bill is sufficiently widely drawn to encompass that circumstance, certainly on civil recovery. If I am wrong, the Minister will correct me.

Any action will have to be justified by proportionality.

Of course.

It will also have to be taken in pursuance of the case that the director is working on. There will have to be good reasons for him to seek the information in the first place.

I agree that the proportionality test will have to be passed. On the basis of what the Minister has said, I am also confident that in those circumstances, the commissioners might say, ''Hold on a minute. You are not suggesting that you have a suspicion about Mr. Bloggs, so why do you want his tax information?'' I would have thought that the director would have to provide a compelling justification for that. However, to return to the point made by the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok, that could happen now, whereas in my view it could not have happened previously.

When we consider such issues, it is worth remembering that there are potential and intended consequences that could touch not only the person in the mind of the hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollok, but someone whom an outsider might consider innocent of wrongdoing. Of course the director must maintain confidentiality. That important safeguard is in later clauses, but the director and the Inland Revenue are not one and the same. The information will have been supplied to the Revenue for one purpose, but could be used for another.

The hon. Gentleman has mentioned consequences, but as I understand it, there would be consequences only if, as a result of wrongdoing being discovered, action was taken. As far as I am concerned, that is fair enough. If the hon. Gentleman wants to defend people who commit crimes or cheat on their taxes, that is his position. I ask him to consider the idea that information should be provided even more widely. Indeed, I would be happy for information discovered in this way to be passed to the Child Support Agency, to allow it to raise charges against individuals who can well afford to pay maintenance but who have managed to conceal assets.

The hon. Gentleman has made his position clear as the Bill has passed through the Committee. He believes that to maintain order in society and the authority of the state, it would be desirable to have Big Brother, and information being fed in centrally from every Department and pooled, to root out all the evils, and above all, the sources of criminality, that he perceives as affecting his constituents. I understand that perfectly.

The hon. Gentleman may have appreciated that although philosophically I wish to root out criminality, I am perhaps a little more conscious of the existence of original sin, and the fact that we do not usually succeed. I am also dubious about regulation, because my experience—and, I think, the historical experience—suggests that the more we regulate, the more we have to regulate, and it becomes a tortuous circle that does not deliver the desired outcome. Moreover, the consequence of breaking down walls of confidentiality is that the flow of information dries up.

There are startling contrasts within Europe in people's readiness to deal honestly with the tax authorities in their countries. Although honesty in Britain may be being eroded, historically, the British have widely been viewed as more honest than many others in their dealings with the tax man—I see the

Minister nodding. Part of my background is French, and the long tradition of concealing information from the authorities in France has been difficult to break away from in a democratic age. I am concerned to ensure that that does not happen here, because it will lead to worse rather than better governance.

While we are agreeing, I wish to raise a few points. The proposal is not, as the hon. Gentleman suggests, entirely novel. Tax authorities are already obliged to disclose, or can disclose, information within certain parameters; the provision is just another gateway. Also while we are agreeing, will he not confirm that the allegations that other Conservative Members have made about the provision allowing for fishing expeditions cannot be justified?

If the legislation is properly implemented by those who have been given the powers and discretions that it provides, I expect that the results of any fishing expedition would be thrown in the wastepaper basket.

Absolutely.

On the basis of the reputation of those bodies, I expect that a problem would not develop, but my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster is right: the price of maintaining such standards is eternal vigilance. It is absolutely right to raise these troubling issues.

Unfortunately, there are many countries, including some of our democratic partners within the European Union, in which the required degree of competence would not exist, and there is ample demonstration of abuses by authorities against citizens—and the converse, which is the refusal of citizens to co-operate with authorities. Philosophically, as a Conservative, I wish to avoid that situation. We must maintain our standards to prevent deterioration in such relationships.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for letting me down as gently as possible. However, I do not share his faith in human nature. If there is a loophole, someone will use it sooner or later, and the findings of a fishing expedition may not end up in the wastepaper basket. Once someone knows something, however they discovered it, they cannot ''unknow'' it. We had that debate earlier. Thus it would be sensible to close the loophole and remove temptation, so that human nature can be protected from itself.

My hon. Friend makes a good point—but I was not trying to let him down gently. There have indeed been examples of misuse of authority in this country over the past 40 or 50 years, and there is no point in pretending otherwise. My hon. Friend was right to say that such abuse occurs even within our society.

Government Departments have misused their authority, but I cannot immediately bring to mind an example involving the Inland Revenue. It has a particularly high reputation worldwide in its dealings with taxpayers and citizens. It is precisely because it

has exercised its discretion so well that I do not wish to see its reputation sullied by anything that we decide in Committee. I shall not repeat what has been said, but I see no reason why, if the provisions are properly implemented, that should happen.

The amendment would go well beyond closing loopholes; it would eliminate one of the central planks of the Government's intentions, from which we do not dissociate ourselves. That is why I said that this was a probing amendment. I am grateful to my hon. Friend and to the other hon. Members who have participated in the debate, because it is important that members of the Committee highlight their concerns. I fear that if we did not do that, things would get a bit lax; loopholes would appear and fishing expeditions would start, and that is not what is intended.

I am grateful for the Minister's comments and for other hon. Members' contributions. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move amendment No. 604, in page 244, line 33, leave out subsection (6).

With this we may take the following amendments: No. 605, in page 244, line 35, leave out subsection (7).

No. 615, in clause 425, page 247, line 19, leave out subsection (6).

No. 616, in page 247, line 21, leave out subsection (7).

Again, this is a probing amendment designed to elicit a debate on what the clause is about. Two of the four amendments are mirror images of the other two, except that they relate to Scotland, so—with apologies to Scottish Members—we need concern ourselves only with amendments Nos. 604 and 605.

What is subsection (6) designed to achieve? It states:

The Secretary of State may by order designate as permitted persons other persons who exercise functions which he believes are of a public nature.

He will thereby make those people permitted persons for the purpose of exchanging information with the director. I am a bit troubled by that. We spend a lot of time in Committee emphasising the unusual nature of the director's powers and going into great detail to consider which organisations should be allowed to exchange information with him. Yet here is a little Henry VIII clause saying that when the Bill is enacted the Secretary of State can, by statutory instrument, designate any other body that he thinks necessary as falling within that criterion.

The Minister will probably tell us that we cannot see into the future, and that other bodies may be set up which need to have similar powers. But as those bodies do not exist at present—it is difficult to believe that they will not be set up except on a statutory basis—the matter should be considered during the passage of primary legislation relating to such a body or in the amending clauses of other measures as part of the primary legislative process.

I am not happy about the use of statutory instruments—and I was a member of the Joint

Committee on Statutory Instruments until the general election. In 1966 there were about 36; there has been an exponential rise in their number, and this year, under the new Government, there are more than 4,000, the highest figure ever. There are far too many statutory instruments, to which I have a deep aversion, and we lack the ability to give them adequate scrutiny.

Why is subsection (6) necessary? The amendment to subsection (7) is consequential, and if subsection (6) were to remain, I would not want to get rid of subsection (7), as it provides an extra safeguard.

I agree with my hon. Friend, and I would go further: if subsection (6) were to remain in the Bill, I would have profound reservations about subsection (7), for reasons that I shall explain.

There is one redeeming feature in the debate. If I understand correctly, should the clause stand part of the Bill—and I suspect that we would lose a vote to reject it—any change would be subject to affirmative resolution in both Houses. Although that is a safeguard of a sort, it is not strong enough, because a Government with a large majority in the House can get what they want. There will be no real safeguard until after the next general election, when we will have got rid of this wretched Government. I suspect that we must face the inevitable for a year or two and say that the safeguard is not much use—which leads us to ask whether the clause should be in the Bill at all.

My hon. Friend rightly focused attention on the creation of new bodies. He is absolutely right—if the Government create a new body, the matter can easily be dealt with as he described. However, the clause is not confined in that way. It does not say that the Secretary of State can designate any new body that is set up, but that he may designate anyone or anything else, and that could include existing bodies.

We must examine what the Government are up to by suggesting that they produce a list for us—we have debated other lists in the past. It is crucial that we say to the Government, ''You must tell us. Is subsection (6) necessary in case you have forgotten something? Do you have something in mind that you do not want to tell us about, or are you doing this in case something crops up in the future?'' I do not like this type of thing, and Parliament should not accept it.

Either the list is comprehensive because of research, or it is not. Why list anyone if the Government are saying, ''We will put whoever we want on the list in due course,'' and they intend to use a statutory instrument to do so? That is not good enough. If there are existing bodies that have a contribution to make, let the Government say so now, so that we can debate whether those bodies are appropriate. To say at this stage, ''We might think up some more,'' could mean either that there has been a genuine oversight, or that the Government have something up their sleeves that they do not want us to know about yet. Perhaps the Minister can give us some examples of the type of bodies in question.

We are told that

The Secretary of State may by order designate as permitted persons other persons who exercise functions which he believes are of a public nature.

What in heaven's name does ''of a public nature'' mean? Does it refer to a branch of Government or an executive agency? ''Of a public nature'' could mean anything. Chelsea football club are ''of a public nature'' because lots of people go and watch them perform in public. That is a sloppy use of words.

What does the Minister mean when he asks us to approve such a provision? He should be much clearer, unless there is some legal definition of the phrase ''of a public nature'' that I, as a non-lawyer, do not know about. I would be perfectly willing to receive another free exposition or legal seminar on what the term means should somebody be willing to give one—that would be cheaper than buying one later.

The fact that the Secretary of State may designate a person who is of a public nature is not what concerns me. It is the phrase ''which he believes'' that is worrying. Even if we were to receive a free definition from the lawyers of the meaning of ''of a public nature'' in the current wording, a Secretary of State would only have to say, ''I believe them to be'', not that they actually were. The Secretary of State can, on a whim, decide to say to himself, ''This is of a public nature''. Ergo, it is covered. That is sloppy legislation.

It is not acceptable to say that if one thinks something is of a public nature, it therefore is. That is not how I understand the process of law to work. One should be able to test the law. We should be told who the permitted persons will be, so that we can consider their appropriateness. We need a proper definition of ''public nature'' and we need to remove doubt about how the clause should be interpreted.

Amendment No. 604 concerns the issues with which the Minister must deal. Amendment No. 605 would delete subsection (7), which would narrow the powers. The notes that the Minister kindly provided also show that that is the case. However, those notes raise an issue that is about more than one thing leading from another, which is why I referred to the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Beaconsfield.

The example cited in the notes is that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry could be designated as a proper person of a public nature, although she would not necessarily be designated as a permitted person in a general sense. Under subsection (7), the Secretary of State would be required to designate a relevant function—in this case, the insolvency functions—within the Department of Trade and Industry. That is an existing body, not a new body—that is what my hon. Friend was talking about.

It worries me that a person may be a permitted person, but the designation power is limited to specific functions; none of the others listed are limited at the moment. That brings us back to the fact that when a person knows something, he cannot ''unknow'' it.

I am following the hon. Gentleman's argument with devastating interest. Has he been instructed to make any progress on any other clauses between now and 11.25?

I have not been given any instructions—I am in free fall, which may be apparent to the hon. Gentleman. If we designate people, but in respect of only part of their functions, that is the equivalent of saying that the Commissioners of Customs and Excise can disclose information about VAT, but not about duty. It is a ridiculous distinction to draw. The example used was that the Department of Trade and Industry could disclose information about insolvency, but nothing else. I do not believe that there are people within the Department who are so specialised that they know nothing about anything other than insolvency.

I ought to point out to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Hall Green (Mr. McCabe), that my hon. Friend the Member for Spelthorne gives the instructions, rather than taking them.

The Minister may have satisfied us that under subsection (5), only senior members of each of those bodies would have authority. However, is there not a danger that under subsection (6), any such safeguards would be ignored? The Secretary of State could designate more junior members of listed organisations whose functions were of a public nature. That would provide an opportunity to ignore the safeguards. Does my hon. Friend have any thoughts on that matter?

My hon. Friend will go far. It has not taken him long to learn the real role of the Whip, and I commend him for that. He has also raised some valuable points, on which he might care to expand later.

I am particularly grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way to me, as he said that he was in free flow—

Free fall.

He has also just encouraged one of his colleagues to speak at length on a particular issue. Has he taken into account the number of other clauses that we have to deal with before the Committee rises this afternoon? Does he believe that if the Scottish Parliament, under the Sewel procedure, passes to us the responsibility to debate various motions and elements of legislation, we have an obligation to do so? Does he also agree that the self-indulgent wittering in which he has engaged today, and at our previous sitting, tends to negate the Sewel procedure?

One person's pearls of wisdom are another person's wittering. That is a subjective judgment, and I cannot be accountable for the hon. Gentleman's judgment in such matters. I am convinced that what is being said is important and needs to be said—and as you have not ruled me out of order, Mr. Gale, my comments were obviously relevant. The fact that the hon. Gentleman does not find them acceptable is entirely his fault. I am sorry about that. As for the other clauses to be considered, he will notice that we have to get to clause 427 by 5 o'clock. If he holds his breath and keeps his patience, he may find that he has every opportunity to contribute to the debate on all the other clauses. It was not the Opposition who decided that we had to reach that point by 5 o'clock, it was his Government.

Were not the points at which the guillotine was to fall agreed between the Government and the Opposition? Indeed, it was the hon. Gentleman's party that asked for debate to be curtailed by starting the Committee at 9.15 rather than 8.55 on a Thursday morning.

Mr. Wilshire rose—

Order. I must now bring the Committee back to the amendment under discussion, while at the same time pointing out to the hon. Gentleman that I will not allow comments that are out of order to be made, and that two of the amendments under discussion relate to Scotland.

I am grateful to you, Mr. Gale. I fully appreciate the fact that you will stop anyone who is out of order, and I always do my level best to ensure that I remain in order. Hansard will show that I do not stray too often.

Order. Under this chairmanship, the hon. Gentleman will not stray at all.

I appear to have just done so.

Amendment No. 605 is part of an attempt to restrict the powers of a person to disclose, if he is added to the list. I am concerned that the Government believe that one can take a body such as the Department of Trade and Industry, authorise the Secretary of State to make disclosures, and then somehow restrict those powers. How is it possible to select little bits and allow a customs officer to disclose on VAT but not on duty? The powers work across the board. I should be grateful if the Minister could address that issue and explain why subsection (7) is necessary, how it will operate and what sort of safeguard it offers.

Clause 421(5) lists a number of ''permitted persons'' who will have the power to disclose information to the director for the purpose of the exercise of his functions. Those are listed in the Bill, as we believe that there is a clear need for them to disclose information to the director because of the functions that they perform. The listed persons include all those most likely to have been previously involved in a substantive way with the investigation of a case that the director is now dealing with.

Subsection (6) allows the Secretary of State to designate other permitted persons by order, if they exercise functions that he believes to be of a public nature. The hon. Member for Spelthorne objects to the use of those terms, but the phrase ''of a public nature'' comes from case law and arises from judicial review. Only a public body can be judicially reviewed, so the term has a legal derivation. I mean it as a compliment when I say that I can detect that the hon. Gentleman has been trained by the right hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Mr. Forth), because of the way in which he presents himself in Committee. However, he is still the journeyman, not the master.

I shall move on to the more substantive points and the explanation required by the hon. Member for Beaconsfield. Subsection (7) states that in specifying any additional person as a permitted person, the Secretary of State

must specify the functions in respect of which the designation is made.

Amendments Nos. 604 and 605 would remove subsections (6) and (7), thus preventing those designations that are mirrored under the Scottish legislation, which the hon. Gentleman also seeks to remove.

I sent out a note yesterday that sets out how we intend to use the order-making power under clauses 421 and 425. It makes it clear that the power will be used to designate persons who have specific functions likely to give rise from time to time to information that would be relevant to the director. It cites examples of when the order-making power might be used, but we expect there to be other examples of public bodies that have regulatory or investigatory functions, which might have information relevant to the exercising of the director's functions.

As the hon. Member for Beaconsfield anticipated, the power is also in place to allow bodies that will be set up in the future to be designated as permitted persons, without the need to return to Parliament for primary legislation to be enacted. The hon. Gentleman rightly said that the affirmative procedure would apply, which would ensure that Parliament scrutinised the measure adequately. That is sufficient.

The hon. Gentleman ruined the often exemplary way in which he presents an argument impartially by suggesting that the growth in statutory instruments was a result of the actions of the present Government. I am sure that he will admit that that procedure has grown under both parties since the time that he mentioned, when there were fewer statutory instruments.

I was not suggesting that the present position was the result of the present Government's actions alone. The number of statutory instruments has risen steadily since the 1960s, when there were approximately 35 per annum. The number of such measures took off far more markedly after we joined the European Economic Community in 1974, and it continued to increase steadily. It reached a plateau in the early to mid-1990s, at about 3,000. There may be an interesting explanation for this, but in the past 12 months there has been an explosion, and the number of statutory instruments has increased even more.

The hon. Gentleman has obviously gone into such matters in detail. I am pleased to have provoked him into giving the Committee a more balanced view of the reasons for the increase than he gave originally. I hope that in the light of my explanation, the hon. Gentleman will withdraw the amendment.

I am willing to withdraw the amendment, but—this is almost certainly my fault—I have not seen the note that the Minister circulated. That was no doubt because of my absence from the House yesterday for personal reasons. I apologise for the fact that when presenting the amendments, I did not take into account the contents of the note, which I shall read with interest. I do not know whether my hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath received a copy.

Mr. Hawkins indicated dissent.

My hon. Friend does not seem to have had one either. I did not pick up the note when I came into Committee this morning, but I shall read it with interest now. In any event, with or without it, I did not intend to press the amendment to a Division, but tabled it to highlight my concern about the way in which statutory instruments are being used. The Minister has provided considerable reassurance. In the light of his note, and the trouble that he has taken in providing it, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

I beg to move amendment No. 606, in page 245, line 1, leave out subsection (9).

With this it will be convenient to take the following amendments: No. 631, in page 245, line 3, leave out 'an' and insert—

'a District Tax Inspector or higher grade'.

No. 627, in page 245, line 5, after 'a', insert—

'collector or higher grade'.

No. 607, in clause 422, page 245, line 17, leave out paragraph (b).

No. 608. in page 245, line 19, leave out subsection (4).

No. 632, in page 245, line 21, leave out 'an' and insert—

'a District Tax Inspector or higher grade'

No. 628, in page 245, line 23, after 'a', insert—

'collector or higher grade'.

No. 619, in clause 425, page 247, line 27, leave out subsection (9).

No. 633, in page 247, line 29, leave out 'an' and insert—

'a District Tax Inspector or higher grade'.

No. 629, in page 247, line 31, after 'a', insert—

'collector or higher grade'.

No. 620, in clause 426, page 248, line 3, leave out subsection (4).

No. 634, in clause 426, page 248, line 5, leave out 'an' and insert—

'a District Tax Inspector or higher grade'

No. 630, in page 248, line 7, after 'a', insert—

'collector or higher grade'.

I was a little daunted when I saw first how the amendments were grouped, but now that seems completely sensible, although it will require a moment to work my way through them. The group has doubled in size, because it is necessary to amend the Scottish legislation as well as that for England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The amendments relate to a point that we discussed earlier about the Inland Revenue, and which also dovetails with Customs and Excise.

As the Committee will recall, we agree that the Inland Revenue should be a permitted person for the

purposes of disclosure of information. However, a question arises about the level in the Inland Revenue at which a decision about the disclosure of information should be made. Given the comments made by Opposition Members, including me, earlier this morning, the Minister will not be surprised to hear that we are concerned to ensure that the decision is taken at the highest level possible. It should not simply become a rubber-stamp job, so that requests are passed from the director to an inspector and a habit of operation prevails whereby they are not given proper consideration.

I do not know—the Minister may be able to say—exactly how many such applications are likely to be winging their way from the director to the Inland Revenue in any one year. I should have thought that in view of the limits on the director's scope for operation, and of the fact that the provisions are serious and should be exercised sparingly, there are unlikely to be hundreds. I may be wrong, and perhaps such requests will become a matter of routine. If they may, that raises the anxiety that I expressed earlier about the mechanism turning into a rubber stamp.

Subsection (8) states:

Information must not be disclosed under this section on behalf of the . . . Inland Revenue or on behalf of the Commissioners of Customs and Excise unless the Commissioners concerned authorise the disclosure.

However, that is subsequently qualified by subsection (9), which provides that the commissioners may delegate the decision making, in the case of the Inland Revenue to an officer of the board, and in the case of Customs and Excise to a customs officer.

Amendment No. 606 would delete that provision and leave squarely with the Board of Inland Revenue, or the Commissioners of Customs and Excise, the duty to make such decisions. Knowing the workings of bureaucracy, I would assume that that would ensure that any such request came before the Commissioners of Inland Revenue or of Customs and Excise, even if it is likely to come with a note or memorandum prepared by someone else, saying whether they believe that the application should be granted.

Ultimately the buck stops with the Commissioners of Inland Revenue and of Customs and Excise, so that strikes me as a powerful mechanism for ensuring that control of the process is maintained, and that they are constantly aware of the volume of traffic passing between them and the director for such requests, so if they feel that the system is getting out of control, or requests are being made that cause them anxiety, that can be rapidly transmitted, if necessary, to the Government so that something can be done about it. That is my object.

If we leave subsection (9) as it stands, it seems that the decision could be made by someone quite low down the hierarchy—a customs officer or an officer of the Board of Inland Revenue, although there may be a hierarchical distinction between an officer of the Board of Inland Revenue and a customs officer, which is why one of the amendments would delete the reference to one but not the other. That, too, is a probing

amendment designed to offer the Committee the maximum number of possibilities.

Other possibilities in several of the other amendments include defining officers of a higher grade than a straightforward officer of the Board of Inland Revenue—such as a collector or higher grade, or a district tax inspector or higher grade—in order to offer variety to the Committee and the Minister. We could examine whether we should pitch the decision-making process at a higher level, but without taking it as far as the board. That is a multi-track approach to allow the Committee to decide where the decisions should be taken. My preference is still that the Commissioners of Inland Revenue or Commissioners of Customs and Excise should take the decisions. If the Minister puts forward a persuasive argument, however, I may be talked out of that.

A further issue addressed by the amendments is the power to consent to further disclosure, which clause 422 relates to. It states that once information has been exchanged, it

must not be further disclosed except . . . for a purpose connected with the exercise of the Director's functions, and . . . with the consent of the Commissioners concerned.

However, subsection (3) states:

Consent under subsection (2) may be given—

(a) in relation to a particular disclosure;

(b) in relation to disclosures made in circumstances specified or described in the consent.

I want clarification from the Minister on that. If I understand it correctly, it would mean that at the time of granting the original consent it would be possible to add to it, and to agree that it could be used for such purposes as are specified. That is about control. I am anxious about it, and unless the Minister provides me with reassurance, I would be happier if people had to return and get an application to disclose again in relation to a particular disclosure. That would be the effect of amendment No. 607, and its mirror image for Scotland, although the Minister may be able to persuade me that subsection (3)(b) is necessary.

Clause 422(4) says:

The power to consent to further disclosure . . . may be delegated.

That returns us to the question of to whom the power should be delegated, and the level at which the decision should be taken. Again, I am anxious to ensure that we do not have a rubber-stamp procedure.

Clearly, it is desirable that there should be a free flow of information for the purposes that the Bill requires. The Minister may have no difficulty in agreeing that it is undesirable that the free flow should become a matter of habit, so that people do not apply their minds to deciding whether it is necessary or not. When a request comes through, a person may say, ''Ah. Here's another request,'' and simply write ''Yes'' on it. Someone must think about these matters, and the higher up the hierarchy that that occurs, the greater reassurance the Committee will have that it will happen. If the Minister persuades me that it can be done at a lower level, so be it, but the Committee should examine all the possibilities.

Again, I agree with my hon. Friend. However, I shall make the case more firmly for my preferred choice of amendment No. 606. The amendment would delete the power to delegate.

In my hon. Friend's defence, if the Minister tells us that although there should be delegation, the choice of a district tax inspector or collector of Customs of Excise is inappropriate, I would have to plead guilty to leading my hon. Friend astray, because I chose those grades without much research. If the Minister is minded to accept the amendments, I would be delighted to hear him say that such grades are not appropriate, and different grades should be specified.

However, the principle is correct. If the Minister were to insist on the power to delegate I think that if he tried hard enough, I could be persuaded. The rubber-stamp issue concerns me, but if decisions must be taken at too high a level, and if the size of the work load and the importance of the issues mean that there is no time to consider details, there is a danger—

It being twenty-five minutes past Eleven o'clock, The Chairman adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned till this day at half-past Two o'clock.