All Change!

Well, here we are, just a week or so since the announcement of a coalition between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats. Now the new government is taking shape and we know who has the top jobs.

But is it a Lib-Con or a Con-Dem - only time will tell.

Anyway - now the politicians have had a week or so to wait by the telephone (guess there are quite a few Tories who did not get a call that they might have expected) and to start to get policies announced ahead of the formal State Opening of Parliament. That will see the reading of the Queen’s Speech but it is clear that many of the contents of that speech have already been announced.

It is clear that this new Parliament is going to be different. For a start there are now more newly elected Members (new intake) than at almost any previous time. The Crusher wonders just how many of these will actually have some understanding of the online world - perhaps the fact that there are many younger members may suggest that they may have some idea about how to use email and the various social networking media. Perhaps some may even understand what an IP address is.

But, the interesting bits have come in this second week. Policy announcements have made it clear that many projects favoured by the previous administration have now fall out of favour with the new. Most of this is down to cost (as the former Chief Secretary to the Treasury left a message for the incoming replacement - ‘there is no money’) but there are some areas where it is clear that public concern has manifested in political action.

An announcement today made the point - suspending the widely unpopular Home Information Packs(HIP). Introduced in an attempt to make information available to house purchasers and to streamline the conveyancing process they included an energy efficiency assessment. The reality was that there was now a requirement for sellers to purchase an expensive pack that duplicated the work that would still have to be undertaken by solicitors in the conveyance process (who would still have to conduct searches etc. in order to ensure that liabilities were met). The pack had to be prepared before sale and was only valid for six months. In the current sales environment there was every likelihood that sellers would have to arrange for several packs.

So, with immediate effect, there is no longer a requirement to have a HIP in place. But the requirement for the energy assessment remains in place and sellers will have to have an assessment and a certificate within 28 days. Now this is a European requirement and is set out within a European Directive so the hands of the UK coalition are tied - they cannot scrap all of the HIP and must retain the requirement for the energy certificate - all dressed up in the words of promoting green behaviour etc.

The energy certificate is a pointer to some actions elsewhere. Nick Clegg, Deputy Prime Minister, set out a number of pointers this week:

“This government is going to transform our politics so the state has far less control over you, and you have far more control over the state …..

Big, sweeping change. “

Nick Clegg continued:

“First, sweeping legislation to restore the hard won liberties that have been taken, one by one, from the British people.

So there will be no ID card scheme. No national identity register, a halt to second generation biometric passports. We won’t hold your internet and email records when there is just no reason to do so.”

There has certainly been concern over the use of RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers) by some local authorities to keep tabs on parents, fishermen and dog walkers (and much more). It will be interesting to see how the actions of local authorities is to be curbed.

Cancellation of the ID card programme was always going to be on the cards as there were major cost implications. Quite simply it was a project too far, a project too expensive. Interestingly I recently saw a poster on the wall at an Identity and Passports Office - ‘ID cards are coming.’ Wonder if that has come down already!

‘We won’t hold your internet and email records when there is just no reason to do so.’ So far we have the Data Retention Regulations transposing the European Data Retention Directive - the UK implementation is rather idiosyncratic and is applied where the Home Office feels that there may be a need, somewhat less than the wording of the Directive. It is likely that the Regulations will remain (they are after all prescribed within European Law) but that the discussions for increased data gathering under the Internet Modernisation Plan will now go no further. IMP was causing concern with the suggestion that security services and law enforcement agencies could benefit from data gathered using deep packet inspection techniques implemented by ‘black box’ servers located within ISP networks. Forget concerns that the technology was not yet up to the task, nor really likely to be in the near future - the real problem was the potential cost. That is where the cut has fallen.

Another area that has raised much concern over recent years is that of the DNA database. The decision in the European Courts in S and Marper v United Kingdom made it clear that changes were required, however much the then Government disagreed and tried to back-track. Now it seems that there may well be a tide that will restrain the expansion of the database - restricting the collection of data to those who are actually convicted of a crime will be a start and removing all those records that relate to persons wholly innocent and with no conviction against them. Maybe, at long last, there will be the will to implement S and Marper.

Yes, the pendulum is now swinging towards change. How much will actually change remains to be seen but there is certainly a groundswell of opinion. We could well be heading for an interesting time. Not the least of which will be the realisation of where actions are restrained by Directives applied from Europe.