For journalists accustomed to being stonewalled by banks about security and other issues, there was a certain pleasure yesterday in watching representatives of the industry being grilled by a House of Lords sub-committee inquiring into personal internet security.

But even their Lordships could not get anything out of the witnesses concerning the security records of individual banks. If you'd like to hear their lengthy refusals, without actually saying the word No, to a series of exquisitely barbed questions from the Great and Good, there is a recording of the hearing here

Yesterday's hearing was only part of a broader inquiry, headed by Lord Broers, set up by the House of Lords Science and Technology committee. It is looking the nature and scale of threat to individual users but it does not cover national threats, such as whether terrorist bombs or cyber attacks could shut down Britain's internet infrastructure.

It is looking at whether software and hardware developers could do more, and whether legislation is needed, and will report some time next year.

Lord Errol, a member of the sub-committee carrying out the inquiry, told me one question would be whether banks could and should do more to counter fraud. He suggested that criminal use of cash cards at ATMs could be avoided by measures such as fingerprint scans.

The committee would also look at whether companies or other organisations that compromised people's personal data, such as the recent case of a stolen laptop containing details of millions of Nationwide customers, should be obliged to inform them as soon as possible.

The issues are not always straightforward, as answers at yesterday's hearing made clear: sometimes publicity might alert thieves to the fact that they have valuable data. But it was also a shock to discover that all banking records are not routinely encrypted.

"I'm a hereditary. I know nothing about technology," Lord Errol said when he introduced himself to me at a reception the evening before the hearing. It turned out he was joking.

It seems that peers who gain their position from birth tend to be dismissed as asses compared with those appointed because of their expertise and achievements. Where those who buy peerages stand in this rarefied hierarchy I did not manage to find out.