Data Protection Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Griffiths of Burry Port and Baroness Hamwee

Monday 13th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hamwee (LD)]

My Lords, these amendments, in my name and those of the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, and the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, may not be the most difficult or most significant that we will come to, but they are important and they deal with an issue brought to us by the Bar Council. I am aware that members of the Bar Council met officials and I believe that some of the matters throughout the Bill that they discussed were left with officials to consider—and, no doubt, with the Bar Council as well. I am not aware that this matter has been settled. The amendment would remove the paragraph from Part 3 of this schedule and put it in Part 2 and would extend the exemption recognising practicalities. Briefly, the issue is the term “legal claims”.

The Bar Council makes the point that this phrase does not adequately describe all the work that lawyers and all parts of the profession undertake on behalf of their clients. There is a risk, therefore, that legal professionals will not be able to process special categories of personal data when undertaking legal advice relating to prosecutions, defences to prosecutions and criminal appeals, family and child protection proceedings and so on, or—noble Lords may think that this should not come within this category—legal advice relating to tax or a proposed transaction. The Bar Council is rightly concerned, of course, to ensure that legal professionals can process such data when undertaking activity which is squarely within the scope of its normal work but beyond what might be described by the narrow term, “legal claims”. The amendment includes wording which is about to be put to the Committee in the form of government amendments which have already been debated and brings the matter of the legal activity listed in the new clause and the government amendments into Part 2 of Schedule 1. I beg to move.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, if the House will indulge me, having heard someone who described herself earlier as a foot soldier in her army of volunteers, I can now identify her as a beaver in the battalion of dam building. It seems that by broadening all that falls under the term, “legal claims”, and, of course, on the advice of the Bar Council, some common sense is being alluded to here and therefore we have no hesitation in joining our forces to those we have heard so ably expressed.