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e-Government

: My hon. Friend is right: there is a phenomenal opportunity in the untapped resources of voluntary organisations—not just the citizens advice bureaux but organisations such as those that my hon. Friend the Member for Luton, North and others spoke about. I had a meeting yesterday with an organisation called Netmums—a phenomenally dedicated group of mums throughout the country who are providing a service that the Government could probably never provide. However, because Netmums provides a service that crosses government, it does not fit into one box, and therefore obtaining public money—from either local or central Government—has been difficult for it. I am sorry to keep saying this, but we will have to wait and see what is included in the IT strategy. It would be inappropriate for me to make announcements on that today. However, we anticipate using such informal networks much more, and tapping into the goodwill and undoubted talent that such organisations and the individuals associated with them have, so that we can work in partnership across government and within communities. Those organisations often meet more people than we ever will. They are trusted in terms of objectivity much more than we ever will be regardless of which party we belong to, as in many senses they are not seen as part of the establishment. Therefore, we should seek ways to enable them—and IT, at least in part, does that. My hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon made points about business, and I will address them in a moment. She also made a specific point about free school meals and her role as a governor at Churchfields school. Sometimes, for good reasons, the Data Protection Act 1998 is misunderstood. It is a source of frustration for all of us when we find out that we cannot do this or that because of data protection rules. The legislation is often adhered to in a haphazard and inconsistent way across the public and private sectors. In the IT strategy we will set up more work on data protection, and on the most common misinterpretations of it. I do not happen to believe that the reason for the legislation being used in that way is, in the main, a case of, ““We don't want to tell you.”” I think that organisations often believe that they are not allowed to give out information because they misunderstand the Act. More work needs to be done on that so that there is greater accessibility to that information. As for the specific points made by my hon. Friend the Member for South Swindon, most councils already have controlled access to check housing benefit claims. I am not sure whether the local authority in question has already done that. If my hon. Friend wishes me to pursue the matter, and she provides me with more information, I shall be happy to raise her specific point with the Information Commissioner in respect of whether the Act has been appropriately applied. That might provide one specific solution in Swindon. We need a solution for the whole country because these experiences are all too commonplace. Visiting the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire was a novel experience. I say that in a friendly way. I do not know whether anyone here has been to Ochil and South Perthshire, but we had a discussion about whether Tullibody—I am sure everyone knows where it is—should be recognised as a city. I do not want to insult the good 5,000 people of Tullibody by making an observation as to whether it should benefit from city status. We had a discussion about canals, helicopters and all sorts of things, some of which have a tenuous link with IT. I think it was in my hon. Friend's constituency that I met an elderly pensioner—I do not say this as a joke but as an observation of the different levels of appreciation of IT—and asked them why they did not use IT to access the internet. I do not say this to make a fool of the individual, but to show different expectations. The person was worried that they might break it; they thought that they might press the wrong button and delete the programme. My hon. Friend the Member for Luton, South said that she was not technologically focused, despite the fact that she made an excellent speech, but we all know that that will not happen by pressing the wrong button. However, we have not got that message across to that pensioner. One of them said: ““Sonny, I've got into my 80s without using it. I now have a telephone. I don't need a computer.””