17A.— (1) A public service body may, and shall if requested by the Minister, provide to the Minister such information as may be reasonably necessary for the purposes of any function of the Minister under subsection (6) or (7) of section 17.

F7[(2) Information provided to the Minister under subsection (1) shall not include any personal data (within the meaning of the General Data Protection Regulation), unless that information is provided in accordance with Part 5 of the Data Sharing and Governance Act 2019.]

(3) Where the Minister requests information under subsection (1) the information shall be provided in such form and manner and within such period as the Minister may specify.]

F8[(4) In this section, "Data Protection Regulation" means Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016⁴⁰ on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation).]