Part I Health, Safety and Welfare in connection with Work, and Control of Dangerous Substances and Certain Emissions into the Atmosphere

Obtaining and disclosure of information

27 Obtaining of information by the Commission, the Executive, enforcing authorities etc.

(1)

For the purpose of obtaining—

(a)

any information which the Commission needs for the discharge of its functions; or

(b)

any information which an enforcing authority needs for the discharge of the authority’s functions,

the Commission may, with the consent of the Secretary of State, serve on any person a notice requiring that person to furnish to the Commission or, as the case may be, to the enforcing authority in question such information about such matters as may be specified in the notice, and to do so in such form and manner and within such time as may be so specified.

In this subsection “consent” includes a general consent extending to cases of any stated description.

(2)

Nothing in section 9 of the M1Statistics of Trade Act 1947 (which restricts the disclosure of information obtained under that Act) shall prevent or penalise—

(a)

the disclosure by a Minister of the Crown to the Commission or the Executive of information obtained under that Act about any undertaking within the meaning of that Act, being information consisting of the names and address of the persons carrying on the undertaking, the nature of the undertaking’s activities, the numbers of persons of different descriptions who work in the undertaking, the addresses or places where activities of the undertaking are or were carried on, the nature of the activities carried on there, or the numbers of person of different descriptions who work or worked in the undertaking there; . . . F1

(b)

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . F1

(3)

In the preceding subsection any reference to a Minister of the Crown, the Commission F2or the Executive includes respectively a reference to an officer of his or of that body and also, in the case of a reference to the Commission, includes a reference to—

(a)

a person performing any functions of the Commission or the Executive on its behalf by virtue of section 13(1)(a);

(b)

an officer of a body which is so performing any such functions; and

(c)

an adviser appointed in pursuance of section 13(1)(d).

(4)

A person to whom information is disclosed in pursuance of subsection (2) above shall not use the information for a purpose other than a purpose of the Commission or, as the case may be, of the Executive.