Data Protection (Fundamental Rights and Freedoms) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Debate between Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Swinburne

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Grand Committee

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

I thank noble Lords, who are very well versed in this topic and have obviously spent a lot of time thinking about it. I have had some flashbacks to my time in the European Parliament, where I did the original GDPR. I am glad that people now think it was a perfect piece of work. At the time, people were very critical of what we did.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

I did not realise that this was punishment.

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

It is definitely not punishment, but it has taken me back, and I am on a steep learning curve here. I thank noble Lords for their interventions. I will try to do some justice to them. As was suggested, if I have not covered the topics adequately, given that the questions were incredibly detailed, I will respond in writing so that noble Lords will have the detail.

As I mentioned in my introductory remarks, it is important to note that these regulations themselves do not remove any EU law rights. Parliament has already agreed to do that in passing the European Union (Withdrawal) Act and the retained EU law Act. If we support these regulations today, instead of allowing references to EU law rights in the data protection legislation to lapse without replacement, we will instead ensure that the relevant organisations continue to consider analogous rights under our domestic law where it is appropriate to do so.

The overall effect of the changes made by these regulations will neither undermine protections for individuals nor increase the regulatory burden for organisations. There could even be some benefits for organisations in the sense they will only need to consider how the rights of individuals are protected by rights recognised in domestic law rather than trying to comprehend how retained EU law protected those rights.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, before the Minister sits down, I want to pose a brief question to her. The Explanatory Memorandum states:

“As this instrument is made under the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023, no review clause is required”.


Does that mean that absolutely no review will take place for these provisions and how they work out in future? Or is the implication that it is wrapped inside all the impacts of REULA and therefore that there will be an assessment of how REULA has affected domestic law in general? I would be quite happy if the Minister writes to me on that.

[Baroness Swinburne (Con)]

Given the specificity of that question, we will write to the noble Lord with an answer.