A House of Lords committee is to once again consider IT security after branding the government's response to its last report as "vacuous, idle and irrelevant".

In its last set of recommendations the Lords science and technology committee said that businesses should be forced to encrypt personal data and held liable for loses caused by flaws in their software, reports Computer Weekly.

The committee now feels that the situation is even more urgent due to recent high-profile data losses, including HM Revenue and Customs' mislaying of disc containing the personal details of 15 million people.

Speaking to the website, Lord Errol said: "We want to shake things up so we are not in this position in a year's time."

The committee issued its last recommendations on the matter in July of 2007.

It suggested a number of measures that should be introduced to increase the security of personal data and expressed concerns at the sophistication of criminals who sought to obtain such data.

According to a recent survey by Connect, the two biggest IT headaches for businesses were 'everyday hassles with IT' (37 per cent) and 'security concerns' (32 per cent).