Data Protection in the Areas of Police and Criminal Justice (EU Directive)
Debate between Crispin Blunt and Peter Bottomley(12 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Mr Blunt
Our priority in negotiations will be to resist the application of the directive to all domestic processing—that is, data sent between two United Kingdom agencies. Although article 6a of protocol 21 means that this will not apply to us, we feel that it is important to remove this expansion as such data processing should not be the subject of European Union rules. We will seek to remove that for all European Union countries.
As further examples, the proposal lays down new obligations for data controllers regarding the documentation and records that they must keep and the consultations that they must hold with the Information Commissioner’s Office in order for the processing to be considered compliant with the rules. We also have reservations about the compulsory appointment of data protection officers, a role that will need to be filled ostensibly to ensure that data controllers fulfil the various obligations presented to them, including those that I just outlined.
We already expect robust data protection governance as a matter of course in public authorities. However, we question the necessity of having the European Union telling us how to create, organise and run these arrangements. The more prescriptive and burdensome aspects of the directive are opposed by the Government and we will seek to remove or mitigate them during negotiations in the Council of the European Union. This is the beginning of a lengthy process of negotiating new data protection legislation, not the end. The UK will seek to influence negotiations in order to bring about outcomes that are more in line with our policy objectives, which is to end up with an effective but proportionate framework.
Sir Peter Bottomley
I think that my hon. Friend the Member for Dover (Charlie Elphicke) could put the question on costs better than I could.
Sir Peter Bottomley
You are right to correct me, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I think that I am also right in saying that every word in “Erskine May” may create a new precedent. My question, which I think my hon. Friend the Member for Dover would have put better, is this: will my hon. Friend the Minister start talking about costs at some stage during his very good speech?
Mr Blunt
I will not. I am unable to, because work is still ongoing on the impact assessment to try better to identify the precise costs of each measure. If my hon. Friend has had a chance to read the impact assessment, he will have noted that much of the assessment in this area is based on fairly tentative criteria. What are not included in the impact assessment are the benefits of a successful negotiation or the costs that would be inflicted on us if we chose to opt out and had to live with the consequences.
As I was saying, this is the beginning of a lengthy process of negotiating new data protection legislation, not the end. We will seek to influence negotiations in order to bring about outcomes that are more in line with our policy objective, which is to end up with an effective but proportionate framework. I note that every other member of the European Union faces that same challenge of finding the right balance between the two principal objectives: the privacy of our citizens and the protection of their data; and the protection of their interests through the operation of our police and criminal justice agencies. However, it is worth noting that the proposed directive is one part of a two-part package of revised data protection instruments that the Commission proposed in January; it also proposed a regulation that would cover general and commercial data processing by public and private bodies. The regulation is neither the trigger, nor the subject of this debate.
To return to the directive, which is the subject of today’s debate, let me summarise our position. We believe that an opt-out decision is a possibility for the Government but that it would be the wrong choice for the United Kingdom. We would need to replace the directive with bilateral agreements with each member state, which would be a time-consuming and tortuous process, and it is likely that in those negotiations we would find ourselves bound by aspects of the directive that we feel confident we can remove in negotiations.
The Government’s position, therefore, is clear: we want to be part of a European data protection framework that enables practical, common-sense sharing of data between member states’ law enforcement agencies engaged in the fight against international crime. We believe that the limiting effect of article 6a on the aspects of the directive that relate to data exchanges within the United Kingdom means that we should be content to be part of it, which will of course substantially reduce the costs identified in the impact assessment. Although there are areas of the proposal that the Government will seek to alter, I can unhesitatingly commend the motion to the House.