Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Lord Stevenson of Balmacara Excerpts

3rd reading
Wednesday 5th February 2025 Lords Chamber

This law addresses a clear and urgent need. I record our collective gratitude to the specialist police officers who, in addition to their front-line duties, took time to bring this issue to our attention and provided advice and input throughout. I also thank 5Rights, the NSPCC, the IWF, the Telegraph, Sky News and the BBC. Pushing for change, even change that is so clearly needed, is the tireless work of many people. Our thanks are due to them as our hearts go out to those who have been victims.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, the little exchange we have just had, which was most welcome, arose because it became clear in Committee that there were meetings of minds but not meetings of words in what had been presented there. I am pleased to join the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, in congratulating the department, including the Minister and the Bill team, on listening to the House. When the House gets behind a theme or topic and expresses it across all sides, it is worth listening to what is being said and thinking again about what was originally proposed, so that what comes out in the end is for the good of all.

It is always a bit unnerving to be namechecked in somebody else’s speech, and I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for picking up the tech group, as she calls it, which has been following this and other Bills for the past five or six years. It has got together on many occasions to improve what we have seen before us, and I hope that the House recognises that. It is also important to recognise that when we speak as a House, we have a power that is worth engaging with, as we have shown on this occasion. I am grateful to the Minister for recognising that in his words at the Dispatch Box.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to congratulate the Minister and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, on the amazing work she has done. Furthermore, I appeal to the Government and all the different departments that may be involved in bringing before Parliament any legislation that in any way, shape or form involves children. We have repeatedly had to deal with Bills that have arrived in this House where it is quite clear that the needs and vulnerabilities of children are not being recognised right from the beginning in the way the legislation is put together. We have to pull it apart in this House and put it back together, because it has not been thought of properly in the first place.

I appeal to the Minister to ensure that the left hand knows what the right hand is doing. We need to learn the lessons of the battles that we have had to fight in recent years with a variety of Bills—largely successfully, mainly thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. We do not want to keep on repeating those battles. We need to learn and do better.

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[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

My Lords, this Bill has had a lively and long previous life, with many of these areas having been debated over the years by noble Lords sitting here today. I would like to give a brief summary of some of the changes that have been made to the Bill, as well as reflecting on some of Bill’s core aims.

I start by giving thanks. I hope I will be forgiven for not naming every noble Lord who has spoken on this Bill to date. I extend my gratitude to my noble friend Lady Jones, who I am sure everyone here is delighted to have back. She laid excellent foundations in getting the Bill through its initial stages in the House. I am sure that noble Lords will want to join me in wishing my noble friend a swift and full recovery.

This has been my first experience leading on legislation in this House. I apologise for when I got things wrong. I have learned a great deal. I am grateful for both the support and the many shades of advice that I have been given.

On the deepfakes point, I join the many noble Lords who have expressed their admiration for the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. It is her first time bringing an issue of such great importance to a debate. She has done so with great skill, determination and passion. The Government have undoubtably heard your Lordships’ clear views on this crucial issue.

The other area of the Bill that has been strengthened today is on children’s data. We have put into law the children’s higher protection matters. I extend thanks to the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Harding.

The noble Lord, Lord Bethell, raised excellent points about online harms research, and we had a robust discussion of automated decision-making thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Freeman of Steventon, the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Markham, and the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose.

More broadly, many noble Lords contributed to the debates on AI and copyright, including the noble Lords, Lord Bassam, Lord Freyberg and Lord Holmes, and the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty. I agree that AI poses some of the most pressing questions of our time, and the strength of feeling on copyright is clear. I emphasise that we have heard this House. We are listening, including with our open consultation, and, as I have said several times, we are committed to making the right decision on this—and right means right for all parties.

We wholeheartedly agree with the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, on the importance of scientific research and that scientific research is in the public interest, even though we still have some concerns on the formulation and unintended consequences of the specific amendment. I thank him for raising the debate and bringing different opinions to the table.

As my noble friend Lady Jones said at Second Reading, data is

“integral to almost every aspect of our society and economy, from NHS treatments and bank transactions to social interactions”.—[Official Report, 19/11/24; col. 146.]

I will use this final part of my speech to highlight some of the areas where there has been agreement across the House and which highlight some of the huge potential that data and the contents of the Bill can have on our lives.

We have new provisions for smart data schemes and new digital verification services to provide new ways for people to prove and verify identities. The maps provided by the creation of the national underground asset register will improve the efficiency and safety of the way we install, maintain, operate and repair our buried infrastructure. We have a new soft opt-in mechanism for charities, which will help them raise vital funds by allowing them to continue to reach out to supporters.

The contents of the Bill support delivery of every one of the five missions set out by the Prime Minister. I know that in the other place there will be further discussions on the Bill and on the changes that noble Lords have made. I am in no doubt that there will be further disagreements, but I am sure that Members will be grateful for the time and scrutiny afforded to the Bill. That will only make it a better Bill and will ultimately help it achieve its aims to harness the power of data, drive economic growth, support modern digital government and improve people’s lives.

Finally, I thank the officials who worked on the Bill, including the Bill team: Simon Weakley, Lois Clement, Ryan Jones, Robyn Connelly and Joy Aston.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, I was very pleased to hear my noble friend Lord Vallance’s words in relation to what we have been doing today and also taking a broader conspectus of what we have been doing in the longer periods of Committee and Report. I think he has answered the question I was going to leave him with, which was on whether the Government were in listening mode when the House took such determined decisions, as it has done on a number of issues, which I know he was opposed to. I hope that I am right in assuming that he is saying that he understands the motivation behind them, which is in no sense to try to wreck the Bill but, in the best interests of this House, to try to make sure that what comes out of it reflects the wider experience and range of views that can come from those who have knowledge and understanding of this Bill.

As he said, this is not the first data protection Bill we have—I was going to say “endured”, but that is not right—enjoyed, and we have been through a number of the issues that have surfaced again in the past few weeks at other times. As we heard in Committee—a number of people have said this and I think it is still true—this is really not the data protection and data processing Bill that we need. What we have is an attempt to try to bridge some of the infelicities that have occurred in recent years because of the combination of legislative processes that have happened within the GDPR, Brexit and the Data Protection Act 2018. That does not make it the Bill we could have had. I am not forecasting, but I suspect that we will probably have to return to this within a few years to try to bring forward some of the issues that are still buried in this, which do not come out quite as well as they could do, and I look forward to that.

The Minister was right to say that this is his first major piece of legislation. I think he has done extraordinarily well to be able to pick up the mantle and the first steps taken by my noble friend Lady Jones, who we welcome back. I also pay tribute to the Bill team, who have been exemplary in trying to provide the information we need to make the best decisions.

We will see the Bill back in due course. It will have, presumably, changes to some of the issues on creative copyright, scientific research and some other points that the noble Lord mentioned. I hope that, when that happens, we will have an opportunity to reflect on that together, and I make an open invitation to the Minister to engage with some of the people he has named already, whose clear interest in this has been flagged to him. I am sure they would want to try to continue the discussion before we go into the formal processes.