Disclosure of Exporter Information Regulations 2015

Lord Tunnicliffe Excerpts

Monday 7th December 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Ashton of Hyde (Con)]

My Lords, these regulations, which were laid before both Houses of Parliament on 17 November this year, seek to allow Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to disclose a limited set of information relating to individual UK exporters and the goods they export. The following information will, I hope, help noble Lords to place this in context.

This legislation promotes the Government’s growth agenda and their efforts to support both UK exporters and small businesses in the UK. It is also in line with the Government’s open data strategy. This seeks to place as much relevant data into the public domain as is reasonable and to reuse collected data for more than one purpose where it is efficient to do so.

By bringing accurate, reliable information about exporters and their products into a single, easily accessible place, the regulations will enable those who provide export services to identify their customers and make it easier for foreign buyers to identify UK suppliers and buy their products. It will also help to increase the export potential of small businesses.

The information to be disclosed will be limited to the following items: business name and address; a code to identify the types of goods exported, known as the “commodity code”; a description of the goods covered by the commodity code in question; and the month and year of export. Similar information in relation to importers has been available to the public for many years, and this measure seeks to bring exporter information into line with that.

The information originates from customs declarations made to HMRC at the time the goods are exported and will be made available via a unique HMRC website called uktradeinfo.com. There will be no charge for accessing it. The same legal disclosure standards relating to importer information will be applied and the same website will be used to disclose the information. Commercial confidentiality will be protected to avoid disclosure when fewer than three exporters export goods under the same commodity code in the same month. Again, this mirrors the arrangement in place for importers. Information relating to the export of sensitive or strategic goods will similarly be protected from disclosure. Again, this mirrors what is already in place for importers. At present, importers may write to HMRC to request removal or opt-out from the disclosure of importers details. HMRC plans to match this opt-out facility for exporters. The opt-out will not be granted automatically. Consideration will be given when the exporter feels disclosure may compromise them or their business interests. This measure was subject to a formal consultation; out of a total of 15 responses, five respondents expressed concerns over disclosure of their information. The measures that I have set out will provide adequate safeguards against such unwanted disclosure. I beg to move.

[Lord Tunnicliffe (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for introducing this order so thoroughly and informatively. The draft Disclosure of Exporter Information Regulations permit the sharing of certain information on exports for use by both the public and private sectors. We will not oppose these regulations today as we want a more productive and effective export system, but the Minister will not be surprised to hear that I have a number of questions and points of clarification, which I hope he will be able to address in his closing remarks.

HMRC has previously not been allowed to share this information publicly. However, the Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 provided it with a power to make these regulations and it authorises the disclosure of specific data in relation to the export of goods. The categories of information are: a business’s name and address; commodity code; description of the commodity code covering the goods; and the month and year of export. Can the Minister explain the criteria for why these areas of information were chosen and what information was ruled out of being made available?

A separate but related point concerns the issue of confidentiality. What measures are in place to ensure that the confidentiality of data is maintained? We have seen in recent months that the UK is susceptible to online breaches, so I am sure that businesses would be grateful for any reassurances that the Government can give. Furthermore, do the Government have any means of putting at ease the concerns raised by one respondent that publishing details would lead to them receiving unwanted marketing mail?

Any measures that could help to improve Britain’s export market are welcome. The latest figures show that these efforts are sorely needed. Last year, the number of UK companies who sell their goods and services abroad fell. Yet in 2011, the Prime Minister said that he intended to increase the number of UK exports by the end of the decade. Are we on course to meet those targets? According to the British Chambers of Commerce, at the present rate of progress it will take until 2034 to double exports. Who does the Minister think is more accurate—the Prime Minister or the British Chambers of Commerce?

A clear area where improvement can be made—extremely apt since this past weekend was Small Business Saturday—is in supporting small businesses access the export market. While more than 40% of larger companies are exporters, only one in 10 small businesses sell their goods and services abroad. How will the regulations we are debating today assist, in particular, SMEs?

Turning to some of the specifics, it will be possible for exporters to opt out of the publication of this information by contacting HMRC. Have the Government an indication of how many businesses will opt out of the disclosure of information? Further, what criteria will the Government or HMRC use to judge whether an opt-out request is valid other than whether an exporter is moving goods of a nature which might give rise to security concerns?

There is no specific time or date at which the Government will review this policy. It seems that the first review should certainly be conducted swiftly to assess and evaluate the take-up. All this, of course, will mean more work for HMRC, at a time when its budget is being cut by 18%. It will make a hard job even harder.

Finally, I will briefly mention the consultation. I would like to put on record how grateful I am to the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee for the additional information that it provided from HMRC about the Government’s consultation and for the more detailed analysis. The consultation ran from June to September last year and during this time the Government received 15 responses. Of those, only five were from businesses. Does the Minister really believe that this small number is enough to gauge public opinion? I look forward to his response.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe, for his support and for his interesting questions. I will answer them as well as I can, perhaps with a little help from my friends, but I may need to write to him about some of them.

On the areas chosen for inclusion on the website, these were selected following discussion with the Cabinet Office and they mirror the information that is currently published in respect of importers. Any more than that would allow confidential details of values, markets and customers to be transparent and would put HMRC at odds with other legal obligations towards data protection.

The noble Lord asked about confidentiality and the measures in place to ensure it, which, of course, is extremely important. Again—this will be a recurring theme—the same safeguards are in place as for the website for importers, which have been in place for 25 years. A lot of these features are merely replicating—

[Lord Tunnicliffe]

The noble Lord will allow that in 25 years the cyberworld has changed a little.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I understand that and am not suggesting that it is as it was 25 years ago. I am merely saying that the importer system has been in place for 25 years and has been operating well, as I will show in a minute.

We will not publish things like national strategically sensitive data, such as data about armaments exporters and their products, or commercially sensitive data. For example, we will not publish data where there are only a small number of exporters of a given product and actual levels of trade could be identified or deduced. There is also the opt-out, which is possible for those exporters not covered by the exceptions I have mentioned. They will be able to ask HMRC to opt out in the same way that importers can. As far as online breaches are concerned, the idea of the website is to let people see this limited amount of information. We want them to see it.

The noble Lord mentioned unwanted marketing mail. We are not disclosing email addresses, although we will include a mail address. It is possible that some marketing mail will be received as a consequence of this development but, of course, part of the reason for introducing this measure is to help exporters market their goods to a wider audience.

The noble Lord talked about exports. The export target set by the Prime Minister for 2020 was ambitious and it remains so. We are one of the most open economies in the world so external weakness, particularly in our biggest export market, Europe, does reduce demand. The slowdown in world trade is expected to continue, resulting in the OBR forecasting a weaker outlook for UK export markets. We still think it is right to set a stretching ambition that will motivate us all to do everything possible. This is one small part of the strategy to help encourage exports.