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Crime and Security Bill

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Marlesford, referred to acronyms such as ELMER. I seem to have been haunted by acronyms all my life. Some 44 years ago in my first ship, I recall reading a menu that had on it RBG, which I discovered was "rich brown gravy", and TYC, which was "thick yellow custard". I was thrown by HITS, which was "herrings in tomato sauce". I am afraid that I do not know what ELMER stands for, but I will do my best to find out. The noble Lord has raised an important issue. We recognise the need for appropriate scrutiny of the SARs database. It is already independently scrutinised by the SARs regime committee, which includes private sector and government representatives, and in a sense by Parliament in the form of regular Parliamentary Questions. The noble Lord and I have been in almost continuous dialogue on this issue. We do not think that it would be practical to scrutinise individually every single suspicious activity report before it can be placed on the database, because that would create a huge layer of bureaucracy and a vast administrative burden. As the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, said, over 200,000 SARs a year are processed. The noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, touched on the recommendation of the European Union Committee of this House that the Information Commissioner should review the operation and use of the SARs database. I am not sure when the review will start, but it has to be completed by December of this year. It would be precipitous to amend legislation before the Information Commissioner’s report is published, as I am sure that he will look at all the aspects, including removal and how long material should be kept on the database. On the basis that independent scrutiny of each and every SAR would be impractical and in anticipation of the Information Commissioner’s report, I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.