Cabinet Office minister Pat McFadden has rejected Conservative criticisms that a new public sector information-sharing system will lead to a 'Big Brother' state.

Under a scheme announced by the Cabinet Office on Wednesday, the government has said it will routinely share more data about individuals and business "across the public sector".

The aim is to expand opportunities for the most disadvantaged, fight crime and provide better public services, the government said.

But the Conservatives have expressed concern about plans to build databases about people's private lives and homes and to share sensitive information across departments, town halls and quangos.

The Opposition says this will effectively overturn existing data protection laws that restrict and control private information on individual citizens being passed from one state agency to another without permission.

Shadow constitutional affairs secretary Oliver Heald said: "There is already public concern at government plans for a compulsory identity card database, a nanny state children's database and a property database for the council tax revaluation.

"Step by step, the government is logging details every man, woman and child - and their home - in 'Big Brother' computers."

However McFadden rejected the accusation, saying the scheme was about making sure those in society who needed support got it at the earliest opportunity.

Responding to Heald's comments, the minister told ePolitix.com: "I don't believe that's true. I think this is about making sure support is provided where it is most needed and doing so earlier than simply waiting for problems to emerge and then reacting."

He said local authorities, Sure Start schemes, health visitors and social landlords were working together to provide co-ordinated support for families "in a much more proactive way than would have been possible if they had waited for problems which they thought would emerge to actually emerge".

"So they were able to put together a package of support much earlier precisely because information was being shared across different agencies," he added.

The minister said that different agencies "should be able to sit down and share information so that help can be directed where it is most needed".

"The practitioners that I have spoken to were very clear that such information sharing was not only good for the families they were working with, it also stopped duplication and enabled them to concentrate resources better," McFadden insisted.