Forensic Science Regulator Bill

Darren Jones Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 12th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Leader of the House for granting time to debate private Members’ Bills today. Following a full debate on Second Reading and a useful and substantive debate in Committee, the Bill is now in a very fine form to hopefully conclude its passage through this House before going to the other place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Jones]

While my name is on this Bill, I should take this opportunity to thank the many people involved in bringing it to this stage: to the right hon. and hon. Members for taking part in the debate, both in this House and in Committee; to the Minister, the shadow Minister and their respective teams for their support; to Finn McMahon in my parliamentary office for his help in guiding the passage of this Bill; to the Whips on both the Government and Opposition Benches, as well as the Clerks of this House, for their wise counsel; to the work of many Select Committees both in this House and in the other place over many years; and lastly, as has already been mentioned by the shadow Minister, to Dr Gillian Tully, the outgoing forensics regulator, who has consistently lobbied for this change over many years.

As has been said, the standards that will be put in force for forensic services in this country will do justice to the victims of crime and will add confidence in the criminal justice system. Now more than ever, with all this on our minds, I look forward to the Bill taking a smooth passage through the House of Lords and becoming law in due course.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Forensic Science Regulator and Biometrics Strategy Bill

Darren Jones Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee Debate: House of Commons
Wednesday 11th November 2020 Public Bill Committees

[The Chair]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

Clauses 2 to 4 stand part.

Amendment 1, in clause 5, page 3, line 10, at end insert—

“(6A) A disclosure of information pursuant to a requirement under subsection (3) does not breach—

(a) any obligation of confidence owed by the person making the disclosure, or

(b) any other restriction on the disclosure of information (however imposed).

(6B) A person may not be required under subsection (3) to disclose information if to do so—

(a) would contravene the data protection legislation (but in determining whether the disclosure would do so, the duty imposed by virtue of that subsection is to be taken into account), or

(b) would be prohibited by any of Parts 1 to 7 or Chapter 1 of Part 9 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.

(6C) In subsection (6B)(a) “the data protection legislation” has the same meaning as in the Data Protection Act 2018 (see section 3(9) of that Act).”

This amendment has the effect that a person who is required to provide information to the Forensic Science Regulator does not breach any restriction on disclosure in doing so, but may not be required to disclose information in breach of the data protection legislation or the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.

Clause 5 stand part.

Clauses 6 and 7 stand part.

Amendment 2, in clause 8, page 4, line 31, leave out paragraph (e).

This amendment removes the express power for the First-tier Tribunal to award costs on an appeal under clause 8(1) as the Tribunal’s power to do so is governed by existing legislation.

Amendment 3, in clause 8, page 4, line 31, at end insert—

“(3A) A person given notice under section 6(8) of the variation of a compliance notice may appeal to the First-tier Tribunal against the decision to vary the compliance notice.

(3B) The grounds for an appeal under subsection (3A) are that—

(a) the decision was based on an error of fact;

(b) the decision was wrong in law;

(c) the decision was unreasonable;

(d) any step or prohibition specified in the compliance notice as a result of the variation is unreasonable.

(3C) On an appeal under subsection (3A) the First-tier Tribunal may—

(a) confirm the decision to vary the compliance notice, in whole or in part;

(b) quash that decision, in whole or in part;

(c) vary the compliance notice in a different way;

(d) remit to the Regulator the decision whether to vary the compliance notice.”

This amendment enables a person on whom a compliance notice is served by the Forensic Science Regulator to bring an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal against a decision by the Regulator to vary the notice.

Amendment 4, in clause 8, page 4, line 41, leave out paragraph (d).

This amendment removes the express power for the First-tier Tribunal to award costs on an appeal under clause 8(4) as the Tribunal’s power to do so is governed by existing legislation.

Amendment 5, in clause 8, page 5, line 1, after “(1)” insert “, (3A)”.

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 3.

Amendment 6, in clause 8, page 5, line 3, at end insert—

“(8) Where an appeal is or may be made to the Upper Tribunal in relation to a decision of the First-tier Tribunal under this section, the Upper Tribunal may suspend any requirement or prohibition specified in the compliance notice until the appeal is determined, withdrawn or abandoned.”

This amendment enables the Upper Tribunal to suspend a requirement or prohibition in a compliance notice where a person appeals against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal under clause 8.

Clause 8 stand part.

Amendment 7, in clause 9, page 5, line 7, after “advice” insert “or assistance”.

This amendment enables the Forensic Science Regulator to provide assistance relating to forensic science activities carried on in England and Wales to any person.

Clause 9 stand part.

Amendment 8, in clause 10, page 5, line 31, leave out from “functions” to end of line 33.

This amendment removes the ability of the Forensic Science Regulator to disclose information to another public authority merely because it is relevant to the other authority’s functions.

Clause 10 stand part.

Government amendment 9, in clause 11, page 6, line 29, at end insert—

“(4) Nothing in this Act affects the exercise by any person other than the Regulator of functions in relation to the regulation of forensic science activities.”

This amendment provides that the Bill does not affect the exercise by any person other than the Forensic Science Regulator of functions in relation to the regulation of forensic science activities.

Clause 11 stand part.

Clause 12 stand part.

Government amendment 10, in clause 13, page 7, line 22, leave out “and Biometrics Strategy”.

This amendment has the effect of modifying the short title of the Bill to reflect the fact that the Bill does not deal with biometrics strategies.

Clause 13 stand part.

That the schedule be the Schedule to the Bill.

Government amendment 11, in the title, line 2, leave out from “science;” to “and” in line 4.

This amendment modifies the long title of the Bill to reflect the fact that the Bill does not deal with biometrics strategies.

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Eagle, and to be back debating this Bill just six weeks on from its Second Reading. Although it has felt like a pretty long month and a half—especially for those of us who have spent far too much time watching the CNN app—this is legislation a decade in the asking, so six weeks is dizzying progress. It is therefore hugely welcome that we are here, and there are a number of people whom I should thank before making substantive remarks.

First of all, I am hugely grateful to the outgoing Forensic Science Regulator, Dr Gillian Tully, who was rightly recognised with a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours last month in appreciation of her work since being appointed in 2014, and over three decades in the Forensic Science Service before that. Dr Tully has been a constant advocate for the changes given force in this Bill, with her annual reports laying out in unanswerable detail the case for a regulator with the statutory powers to do its job. In her report, Dr Tully not only gives her views as the regulator, but brings to life the stories of many in the criminal justice system who have suffered wrongly from poor standards in forensic science in the past.

Although Dr Tully’s tenure will conclude before the office is able to wield those powers, it is in no small part testimony to her doggedness in making the argument that it will at least have statutory powers. Dr Tully has been enormously generous with her time as we have drafted this Bill, and previously during our inquiry on the Science and Technology Committee, and we are indebted to her. Two successive configurations of Science and Technology Committee, both in this House and in the other place, who have built an invaluable case for statutory powers for the regulator over many years.

More immediately, I would like to reiterate my thanks to the Government, in particular the Minister for Crime and Policing, for their support and willingness for this Bill to proceed, and for offering the amendments that we are debating today to fine-tune the Bill so that it is ready to become legislation. I thank also my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield Southgate and the Labour Front-Bench team for their continued support from the very beginning.

Last but by no means least, I thank all colleagues on the Committee today, and certainly those who helped to corral other colleagues to be here, for which I am very grateful. I am sure hon. Members will be agreeable to this being a short sitting, but I thank them for making the effort to be here.

The broad approval reflected across the debate today highlights the common-sense wisdom of the provisions being put forward. The Forensic Science Regulator has done indispensable work since its creation in 2008, but the market for forensic services in Britain is not working as it should, with shortfalls in capacity, skills and funding, a lack of real competition and an inconsistency in the application of required standards.

Victims of crime, as well as those accused of crimes, must be able to rely on a criminal justice system that can call on high-quality forensic science provided by experts able to demonstrate their competence, with agreed standards across providers. This perhaps small and technical change will make a real difference to people’s lives and their experience of the criminal justice system.

One amendment would change the title of the Bill to remove the suggestion of a biometrics strategy. That has of course been agreed with the Minister and the Government. It highlights the complex nature of biometrics regulation and indeed the scope that one can pursue in a private Member’s Bill. I understand that, as the Minister has suggested, there will be primary legislation on this subject before the House in due course.

In Britain and around the world, Governments need to do much more to regulate the ways in which biometric data is collected, stored and used. The technologies that enable these processes are evolving much more quickly than the oversight that is necessary to hold them accountable. Plugging that gap is crucial to serving the public and the national interest. In that context, although I am happy for the amendment to be made, I hope it does not come at the cost of too long a delay in legislation coming before the House.

In the round, the provisions build on broad, expert consensus, with cross-party support in Committees in this place and the other place, on giving the regulator statutory powers to compel compliance and enforce the outcomes of its investigations. It is a necessary first step in bringing about a better functioning market and raising standards for the long haul. It is a service not just to the criminal justice system, but to the victims of crime. I am sure of consensus across the House in bringing the measures forward, and I look forward to getting the Bill through Committee today and to its final stages.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure for me as well to serve under your chairship, Ms Eagle. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West on having progressed the Bill to Committee stage. I thank the Minister for his letter to me yesterday expressing the Government’s commitment to the Bill, taking the time to clarify their position on the issues raised on Second Reading, and explaining the amendments tabled by the Government.

The Opposition broadly support and welcome the Government amendments, which seek to strengthen the Bill by tackling the issue of the appeals process in clause 8, which goes hand in hand with the new regulatory powers granted to the regulator. We also support the tidying-up amendments to ensure that the clauses do not overlap with other measures that also clarify the scope of the new powers.

The Bill is long overdue. I am sure that all Members will agree that there is a need to put the regulator on a statutory footing to be able to ensure that the standards set by the regulator are met. If enforcement action were not available to the regulator, the standards could not be properly implemented, so we need provision for the regulator to enforce the standards. Forensic science has advanced so much in the last 40 years that it must surely be self-evident that where someone’s liberty is at stake and where the criminal standard is proved beyond reasonable doubt, we should expect high standards from those carrying out forensic science work, and those standards must be capable of being enforced. Voluntary compliance with standards will simply not do.

When we think about Rachel Nickell and Stephen Lawrence, for instance, and how we brought their cases to justice, and how the Birmingham Six were successful in their appeal following new forensic evidence, it is clear why what the Bill sets out to achieve is so important. The integrity of our criminal justice system is at stake; we must not get this wrong. Select Committees in the Commons and the other place have highlighted the pressing need to put the regulator on a statutory footing, and the Government have repeatedly said that they will do so, so I am pleased that they are finally taking steps to make sure that that happens.

In my experience of speaking to forensic scientists in the lead-up to this debate, it is clear that for many of them it is a vocation. In the traditional areas of forensic science there is wide compliance with standards, but that is not the case in other areas such as the newly emerging field of digital forensics, where the level of compliance with ISO standards is less than 30%. Because there is more reliance on digital evidence in criminal justice now, the level of non-compliance to a voluntary standard in that field is very worrying indeed. That is why the measures in the Bill are so important. The outgoing Forensic Science Regulator, Dr Gillian Tully, stated that she can get average compliance across all forensics up to 75% under the current system, but that the final 25% can be achieved only with enforcement powers. That is what the Bill sets out to achieve.

Clauses 2 to 4 establish the code of practice and set out a statutory footing for forensic science standards to be followed. Clauses 5 to 7 give the regulator enforcement powers to ensure that the code is complied with. The powers of investigation include the power to require production of documents and the provision of other information, with the sanction of legal measures in the High Court as an ultimate last resort for failure to comply. The Bill is exactly in line with the Government’s own forensic science strategy of 2016, which recommended giving the regulator statutory powers to identify and sanction forensic service providers who failed to maintain standards. It is long overdue. While I wish it was going further, I accept that the Bill is a welcome starting point.

I want to put on the record my thanks to Dr Gillian Tully for her years of service in the post, her dedication and commitment and the respect which she has commanded, and for leaving the post of regulator in good shape. I thank the Minister for indicating support from the Government and I look forward to the Bill passing on to its next stage-.

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

It is a pleasure to be here, Ms Eagle. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bristol North West on getting the Bill to this stage and on his constructive attitude throughout our discussions and discussions with officials about the amendments. I thank other hon. Members for attending today, particularly my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West, who previously made a brave attempt at a similar measure, which was sadly foiled by the parliamentary timetable. Nevertheless, here he is to join in the triumph of the hon. Member for Bristol North West.

I do not intend to rehearse the extensive arguments that were made on Second Reading on the Floor of the House. It was a very long debate with a surprising level of interest from Members across the House on a Friday; it was nevertheless helpful and included many tributes to Dr Tully, which I associate myself with again this morning. She has done a great job and her influence here in the Bill is strong. We wish her well for the future.

The Bill is a key part of our plan to ensure that police, prosecution and defence in criminal proceedings are adequately, sustainably and proportionately served by high-quality scientific analysis of the relevant evidence. The Bill will provide the Forensic Science Regulator with statutory powers, which will enable it to issue compliance notices against forensic providers who are failing to meet the required quality standards, and will protect the criminal justice system. Scientifically robust evidence is one of policing’s most important tools for investigating crime. These powers, to be used as a last resort, are necessary and will support the effective delivery of justice and help restore confidence in the criminal justice system.

By your leave, Ms Eagle, I will take the Committee through our amendments, not least because I am conscious we have an audience at home to whom we have a duty to outline what we are doing as we change the law of the land. I do not propose to go through the various clauses, which have been outlined. It is a relatively simple Bill, establishing a relatively simple principle, but there are some amendments to fine-tune the legislation.

Amendment 1 provides that any person who is required to provide information to the Forensic Science Regulator as part of the regulator’s investigations does not breach any obligation of confidence or any other restriction on the disclosure of data, howsoever imposed. Any person who is required to provide information to the regulator may not be required to disclose information in breach of data protection legislation or the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.

Amendment 2 removes the express power for the first tier tribunal to award costs on an appeal against a refusal to issue a completion certificate, as the tribunal’s power to do so is governed by existing legislation.

Amendment 3 enables the recipients of a compliance notice served by the Forensic Science Regulator to bring an appeal to the first tier tribunal against the decision of the regulator. The amendment also sets out the grounds under which a person may bring such an appeal and the remedies that the first tier tribunal may grant. Grounds for an appeal of a compliance notice are that the decision was based on error of fact, the decision was wrong in law, the decision was unreasonable or that any step or prohibition specified in the notice is unreasonable.

Amendments 4 and 5 remove the express power for the first tier tribunal to award costs on an appeal against the refusal to issue a completion certificate, as the tribunal’s power to do so is already governed by existing legislation. It also makes an amendment consequential to amendment 3. Amendment 6 enables the upper tribunal to suspend a compliance notice pending the conclusion of an appeal for the first tier tribunal to the upper tribunal. Amendment 7 enables the regulator to provide assistance relating to forensic science activities carried on in England and Wales to any person, and not just advice, as currently worded. We hope that amendment will remove ambiguity.

Amendment 8 removes the ability of the forensic science regulator to disclose information to another public authority merely because it is relevant to the other authority’s functions. That means that the regulator is empowered to disclose information only where doing so is necessary to enable or assist the other public authority to carry out its functions. This amendment ensures consistency with data protection legislation.

Amendment 9 amends clause 1 so that the Bill does not affect the exercise by any persons other than the regulator of functions in relation to the regulation of forensic science activities. This is to ensure that the duties and powers of other bodies or regulators who oversee scientific activities, such as in the area of forensic pathology, are not affected by any of the provisions of the Bill.

Amendments 10 and 11 modify the short title and long title of the Bill. to reflect the fact that there are no clauses related to biometrics or a biometric strategy within. This is because the Government could not support the biometrics elements that were initially proposed.

The hon. Member for Bristol North West made a good point about the future of police technology. As I think I outlined on Second Reading, the Government have a manifesto commitment to create a framework within which law enforcement can operate as it adopts new and evolving technology in this area, particularly in relation to technologies that could be deemed to be biometrics, data or forensics, for which we have a variety of regulatory regimes at the moment, and about which we need clarity.

In particular, technology that could be deemed by the public to be intrusive needs to have democratic consent. One of the issues that is raised, for example in clause 3, is that the code of practice that the Forensic Science Regulator will put in place has to come to the House and be laid before the House to get expressed consent by affirmative action, and indeed must be approved by the Secretary of State. We are very keen that people know that, where such technologies are used and are developing fast, we as democratically elected politicians have a say and have influence on an ongoing basis. Some of the legislation is about allowing forensics to have the agility to adopt new technology, but I hope and believe that we will be able to bring those measures forward, certainly before the next election, because it is in our manifesto. I hope that we can do so as soon as possible, because technology is racing away from us.

Scientifically robust evidence is one of policing’s most important tools in investigating crime. These powers to be used as a last resort are necessary, and they will support the effective delivery of justice and help to restore confidence in the criminal justice system.

On that note, I urge the Committee to accept amendments 1 to 11 and to agree that clauses 1 to 13 stand part of the Bill.

[Darren Jones]

I have nothing further to add, Ms Eagle.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 1 accordingly ordered to stand part of the Bill.

[The Chair]

We now come to formal decisions on the remaining clauses and amendments, which have already been debated. I will still need the Minister to move the amendments formally when we get to them. With the leave of the Committee, I intend to put single questions on consecutive clauses and amendments where possible.

Clauses 2 to 4 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 5

Investigations by the Regulator

Amendment made: 1, in clause 5, page 3, line 10, at end insert—

‘(6A) A disclosure of information pursuant to a requirement under subsection (3) does not breach—

(a) any obligation of confidence owed by the person making the disclosure, or

(b) any other restriction on the disclosure of information (however imposed).

(6B) A person may not be required under subsection (3) to disclose information if to do so—

(a) would contravene the data protection legislation (but in determining whether the disclosure would do so, the duty imposed by virtue of that subsection is to be taken into account), or

(b) would be prohibited by any of Parts 1 to 7 or Chapter 1 of Part 9 of the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.

(6C) In subsection (6B)(a) “the data protection legislation” has the same meaning as in the Data Protection Act 2018 (see section 3(9) of that Act).”

This amendment has the effect that a person who is required to provide information to the Forensic Science Regulator does not breach any restriction on disclosure in doing so, but may not be required to disclose information in breach of the data protection legislation or the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.—(Kit Malthouse.)

Clause 5, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clauses 6 and 7 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 8

Appeals

Amendments made: 2, in clause 8, page 4, line 31, leave out paragraph (e)

This amendment removes the express power for the First-tier Tribunal to award costs on an appeal under clause 8(1) as the Tribunal’s power to do so is governed by existing legislation.

Amendment 3, in clause 8, page 4, line 31, at end insert—

‘(3A) A person given notice under section 6(8) of the variation of a compliance notice may appeal to the First-tier Tribunal against the decision to vary the compliance notice.

(3B) The grounds for an appeal under subsection (3A) are that—

(a) the decision was based on an error of fact;

(b) the decision was wrong in law;

(c) the decision was unreasonable;

(d) any step or prohibition specified in the compliance notice as a result of the variation is unreasonable.

(3C) On an appeal under subsection (3A) the First-tier Tribunal may—

(a) confirm the decision to vary the compliance notice, in whole or in part;

(b) quash that decision, in whole or in part;

(c) vary the compliance notice in a different way;

(d) remit to the Regulator the decision whether to vary the compliance notice.”

This amendment enables a person on whom a compliance notice is served by the Forensic Science Regulator to bring an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal against a decision by the Regulator to vary the notice.

Amendment 4, in clause 8, page 4, line 41, leave out paragraph (d)

This amendment removes the express power for the First-tier Tribunal to award costs on an appeal under clause 8(4) as the Tribunal’s power to do so is governed by existing legislation.

Amendment 5, in clause 8, page 5, line 1, after “(1)” insert “, (3A)”

This amendment is consequential on Amendment 3.

Amendment 6, in clause 8, page 5, line 3, at end insert—

‘(8) Where an appeal is or may be made to the Upper Tribunal in relation to a decision of the First-tier Tribunal under this section, the Upper Tribunal may suspend any requirement or prohibition specified in the compliance notice until the appeal is determined, withdrawn or abandoned.”—(Kit Malthouse.)

This amendment enables the Upper Tribunal to suspend a requirement or prohibition in a compliance notice where a person appeals against a decision of the First-tier Tribunal under clause 8.

Clause 8, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 9

Other functions of the Regulator

Amendment made: 7, in clause 9, page 5, line 7, after “advice” insert “or assistance”.—(Kit Malthouse.)

This amendment enables the Forensic Science Regulator to provide assistance relating to forensic science activities carried on in England and Wales to any person.

Clause 9, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10

Disclosure by the Regulator

Amendment made: 8, in clause 10, page 5, line 31, leave out from “functions” to end of line 33.—(Kit Malthouse.)

This amendment removes the ability of the Forensic Science Regulator to disclose information to another public authority merely because it is relevant to the other authority’s functions.

Clause 10, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 11

Meaning of “forensic science activity”

Amendment made: 9, in clause 11, page 6, line 29, at end insert—

“(4) Nothing in this Act affects the exercise by any person other than the Regulator of functions in relation to the regulation of forensic science activities.”—(Kit Malthouse.)

This amendment provides that the Bill does not affect the exercise by any person other than the Forensic Science Regulator of functions in relation to the regulation of forensic science activities.

Clause 11, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 12 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 13

Extent, commencement and short title

Amendment made: 10, in clause 13, page 7, line 22, leave out “and Biometrics Strategy”.—(Kit Malthouse.)

This amendment has the effect of modifying the short title of the Bill to reflect the fact that the Bill does not deal with biometrics strategies.

Clause 13, as amended, ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Schedule agreed to.

Title

Amendment made: 11, in title, line 2, leave out from “science;” to “and” in line 4.—(Kit Malthouse.)

This amendment modifies the long title of the Bill to reflect the fact that the Bill does not deal with biometrics strategies.

Bill, as amended, to be reported.

Forensic Science Regulator and Biometrics Strategy Bill

Darren Jones Excerpts

2nd reading & 2nd reading: House of Commons
Friday 25th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Further to the Minister’s point of order, I am sure I speak for the whole House when I express our condolences following the tragic death of a police officer in Croydon overnight. For most of us, it is impossible to comprehend what the officer’s family, friends and colleagues must be going through this morning, and the thoughts and prayers of everyone in the House are with them.

Like other Members who have had the strange fortune of winning a parliamentary raffle for private Members’ Bills, I spent the first weeks of this strange year being inundated with submissions making the case for the noblest crusades and the worthiest causes, as well as some of the strangest. I realise that, at first blush, the minimal changes proposed in this Bill may seem a little arcane or marginal, but my purpose today—to give the Forensic Science Regulator the statutory powers necessary to do its job—is, in reality, an urgent and necessary one for the functioning of our criminal justice system.

Access to high-quality forensics is vital so that victims and defendants get the justice they deserve, prosecutions are successful and our system commands and justifies the public’s confidence. Poor-quality forensics, as noted by the regulator, has without doubt lead to the failed prosecution of criminals and a failure to secure justice for victims. As it stands, the market for providing forensic services is flawed, with grinding delays, gaps in capacity and skills and a lack of real competitiveness. The first step in fixing it is to enable the regulator to enforce effective standards, which I hope the House will support me in doing today. It will not take a forensic scientist to note that the title of my Bill also anticipates action on the biometrics strategy, which is no less essential but will have to wait for another time, and I will speak more about that later in my speech.

The profusion of acronyms that, of necessity, opens the Forensic Science Regulator’s annual report gives some sense of the range of scientific disciplines and expert processes on which our justice system must rely. It incorporates not only crime scene investigation but digital forensics, drugs and toxicology analysis, firearms and ballistics, the comparison of tool marks and footprints, as well as DNA and fingerprints. For even the most established forensic practices, the maintenance of high standards is vital to the course of justice, but rapid advances in technology continue to reshape the tools with which forensic scientists can collect, store and analyse evidence and data, as well as the nature and complexity of the crimes they are working to combat. We therefore rely on experts to do that work for us and to present it in a way that is intelligible, accurate and reliable. As the regulator’s report observed last year:

“Courts should not have to judge whether this expert or that expert is ‘better’, but rather there should be a clear explanation of the scientific basis and data from which conclusions are drawn, and any relevant limitations. All forensic science must be conducted by competent forensic scientists, according to scientifically valid methods and be transparently reported, making very clear the limits of knowledge and/or methodology.”

Isolated slip-ups in the science threaten to imprison the innocent and exonerate the guilty. The potential for ubiquitous failings—made more likely by shortfalls in skills, expertise and funding—risks not only isolated miscarriages of justice but the integrity of the entire system. The stakes, therefore, are uniquely high. Plainly in such a world we should expect robust, mandatory and enforceable quality standards for the providers of forensic science, matched with an oversight regime with the independence, the teeth and the resources to do its job.

That insight is what inspired the creation of the office of the Forensic Science Regulator in 2007-08. It was tasked with enumerating those standards, ensuring the quality of providers and processes, assessing the soundness of the scientific techniques being used, and monitoring the competence of the individuals carrying them out.

In its inaugural mission, the Forensic Science Regulator was tasked to

“influence the strategic management of UK forensic science to place quality standards at the heart of strategic planning”.

That, among other issues, formed the seeds of the regulator’s present shortcomings. It can encourage police forces and their providers to seek accreditation, but it cannot compel compliance. It can establish assessments but not enforce their results. It can advise the Government of the day, but it does not weald any power on the market.

Virtually since its creation, therefore, the office and the voluntary model of regulation centred on it have been visibly short of the teeth they need. It is operationally independent, but unable to compel the change that is required.

[Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve with the hon. Gentleman on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee, which he chairs. I am interested in his observations about the non-statutory powers since 2007-08. To what extent does he have evidence that the absence of statutory powers has had an impact on particular cases? That may be something he wants to speak about in more detail.

[Darren Jones]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s delight at serving together on the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee. The evidence speaks for itself, to stretch a metaphor when we are talking about evidence. The Science and Technology Committees in the House of Commons and the House of Lords, as well as the Government’s own reviews and the Forensic Science Regulator’s annual reports, have all pretty much concluded the same thing: where standards cannot be enforced by providers and the validity of the forensic process is brought into question in prosecution, miscarriages of justice will have followed. The forensics regulator has been pretty bold in making that case in her annual report to Parliament. That is why, I am pleased to say, there has been broad consensus on the measures brought forward in the Bill to ensure that she can enforce the standards for more providers of forensic services.

That is why successive Governments have been notionally committed to putting the regulator on a statutory footing for nearly eight years. Many right hon. and hon. Members have called for this for a long time. That is what underpinned the conclusions of the reports from the Science and Technology Committees in this House and the other place that I mentioned to the hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Richard Fuller).

Last year the Science and Technology Committee, of which I was a member, concluded in its inquiry on this issue that

“the Regulator—now more than ever—needs statutory powers.”

A couple of months earlier, the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee had said:

“It is hard to understand why…the Forensic Science Regulator still lacks powers they need… The Forensic Science industry is in trouble; such action is now urgent.”

The regulator herself said in the report:

“Legislation is urgently required to give the…statutory enforcement powers”

needed to do the job properly.

I therefore appreciate the Government’s willingness to co-operate in seeking to carry the Bill, and the support of the Minister and his officials in producing the Bill and the explanatory notes, and in helping to secure the Bill’s passage through the House today. It is especially important that the Bill does pass today, because the availability of these services on time and to reliable standards is often patchy.

When the then Government announced the wholesale closure of the loss-making Forensic Science Service in November 2010, the Science and Technology Committee warned that they had failed to give

“enough consideration to the impact on forensic science research and development (R&D), the capacity of private providers to absorb the FSS’s 60% market share and the wider implications for the criminal justice system.”

That warning has proved prescient. Today, many scientific processes are conducted in-house by police forces, but this is piecemeal in its extent.

[Kevin Hollinrake (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing forward the Bill, which I understand has a fair chance of success. Clause 6(4) allows the regulator to prohibit a person from carrying out forensic science activities. Where that person is employed in-house at a police force, as he describes it, what would happen to the employment status of that individual?

[Darren Jones]

I think that is an important enforcement question. Of course, this has been one of the bedrocks of the voluntary model: where services are provided that do not meet the accredited standard, either by a private provider or in-house by a police force, that has just been able to continue. How a police force dealt with an in-house service that did not reach the accredited standard would be an issue for that police force, but I suggest that it might either bring its service up to the accredited standard or have confidence in the private sector market to find a provider that met that standard, which would be enforced by the regulator. I have every confidence that every police force across the country wishes to do this in the right way; there has been a huge amount of pressure on them to do so previously.

[Kevin Hollinrake]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, and I do not object to the clause. I welcome the fact that, unlike under most regulators, individuals will be held to account, not just the organisation. My question is: where an individual who is employed by a police force is held to account, might disciplinary proceedings be taken against that individual, for example?

[Darren Jones]

It is not for me to conclude on that issue in debate on a private Member’s Bill. My personal view, for what it is worth and to entertain the hon. Member’s intervention, is that one would not want an employee to be dismissed as a consequence, but they might receive further training to meet the accredited standard and be able to continue their duties. However, as I say, it is not for me to judge an employment issue in such a setting.

As a consequence of some of the points that the hon. Member raises, individual services are often outsourced by police forces, but a lack of clear incentives for providers to seek accreditation, given the overriding need to compete on price, has created a vacuum of accountability. Last year’s House of Lords Science and Technology Committee report set out the situation. Their lordships concluded:

“Simultaneous budget cuts and reorganisation, together with exponential growth in the need for new services such as digital evidence, have put forensic science providers under extreme pressure. The result is a forensic science market which is becoming dysfunctional and which, unless it is properly regulated, will soon suffer the shocks of major forensic science providers going out of business and putting justice in jeopardy… This is not just a budget issue: structural and regulatory muddle exacerbates the malaise. There is no consistency in the way in which the 43 Police Authorities commission forensic services. Some Police Authorities have taken forensic investigation predominantly in-house whilst outsourcing some services to unregulated providers. These actions call into question equitable access for defendants and raise issues over the quality of the analysis undertaken and the evaluation of the evidence presented.”

Their lordships therefore recommended that

“the Forensic Science Regulator should urgently be given a number of statutory powers to bolster trust in the quality of forensic science provision.” This is a multi-layered challenge that defies simple political or partisan characterisation, but the enduring message is that consistent standards, consistently applied, must be foundational to the effective provision of a forensic service across the whole country. Although forensic evidence is generally of good quality, the consequences of a market that is failing to perform that function to measurable standards are, of course, serious, specific and widespread.

The Home Office commissioned a joint review of the provision of forensic science, which identified a growing perception about the risk of unsafe forensic evidence and demonstrated the twofold impact of an inadequate enforcement regime. Some judges, the report noted,

“were not specifically aware of accreditation requirements or”

the Forensic Science Regulator’s codes of practice, and defence lawyers expressed concern that

“perceived compromises regarding quality standards meant that challenges to the integrity of forensic evidence presented in court could soon become routine.”

I think that it is of value for us to pause and reflect on that submission to the Government’s review. Defence lawyers had a concern that the forensic science process itself was being used as a mechanism to provide arguments in prosecution cases. Of course, the service itself should not be the basis for such submissions.

[Richard Fuller]

Frequently, regulators fall back on a requirement for statutory enforcement powers, citing that they are not in a position to be effective with the powers that have been given to them, whereas the issue could be that the regulators are not effective in using the powers that they already have. I admit that that is more usual in the economic sphere and there may be particular issues in the legal sphere, but in his research in preparing the Bill, has the hon. Gentleman reached any conclusions about how well the existing powers are being used versus the requirement for statutory underpinning?

[Darren Jones]

Yes, and the repeated conclusion, not just from the regulator but the other officials and bodies I have mentioned, is that the powers that the regulator has been given for some time—since 2007-08, when the office was created—are not sufficient to bring providers up to the accredited standard. There has been strong messaging, encouragement and co-ordination to try to bring providers up to the accredited standard voluntarily, but that has still not happened. After many years of trying, the regulator and others have concluded that statutory enforcement powers are required. On the evidence, that seems a reasonable request.

[Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)]

Following up on that point, is it right that the regulator already has problems with codes of practice and conduct? The annual report refers to the fact that there has been a delay in publishing issue 5 of those codes but that it would be published in early 2020. Has it now been published? Why are those non-statutory codes not sufficient?

[Darren Jones]

The regulator has been able to introduce codes of practice, but where they have not been followed, she has not been able to enforce them, which is one of the main issues today. As I understand it, the codes of practice are published in co-ordination with the Home Office, so perhaps the Minister can give an update on the outstanding codes that the hon. Gentleman mentions.

The market’s dependence on large or specialised service providers is not an abstract concern. We know that the resulting fragility, which already existed because of a lack of competition in the market, has had damaging effects on people in the criminal justice system. The collapse of key forensic services in 2018 is a case in point. To manage the fall-out from that collapse, police forces contracted other commercial providers to take on the resulting workload, creating system-wide capacity constraints. The appalling consequences that the Forensic Sciences Regulator laid out show that some cases, where forensic science may have provided valuable information or evidence, could not be processed. In addition, there was evidence of an increased error rate during this period, as well as an unsustainable strain on staff working overtime.

I am sure that all hon. Members agree that that is an unacceptable position for part of the criminal justice system to be in and that we should do our best to try to fix it. At the risk of straying a little beyond the immediate scope of the Bill, I urge Ministers to recognise the systemic issues that such cases highlight. Giving the regulator statutory powers will raise standards but cannot by itself mend a broken market. In the medium-term, the only way to get forensics right is through sustained investment in people, processes and skills.

I am sure that other hon. Members will have examples on which to draw, but the way in which violent sexual crimes are prosecuted makes an especially clear case for why statutory powers are so important. Such crimes, which are subject to unique challenges in obtaining convictions, often rely on DNA evidence as the critical element of a prosecution case. It is therefore vital that the possibility of contamination, for example, at sexual assault referral centres, is minimised as far as possible, yet the regulator’s 2016 annual report highlighted instances of DNA swabs being contaminated through unrelated case handling of different victims on the same day. Clearly, that is unacceptable.

Ensuring adherence to the regulator’s quality standards is a basic precaution, as victims and the general public rightly expect. However, the cost of testing to achieve compliance has meant that the commissioners of affected centres are unlikely to co-operate unless the regulator is empowered to require that. That inadequate incentive structure gets to the heart of why the current soft regulatory model is so weak for existing markets. The regulator’s highest aspiration is to create a competitive climate, in which underperforming or corner-cutting suppliers are unable to acquire contracts.

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman also consider a problem in the digital sphere if there is no effective market for delivering services digitally? If victims of the worst crimes have their smartphone, which is so critical to many people’s lives, taken from them and it takes a long time for it to be returned, that will add to and compound that individual’s distress.

[Darren Jones]

I could not agree more with the hon. Gentleman. I am pleased to see him in the Chamber today, given his previous valiant efforts to try to secure a similar outcome in the previous Parliament. He makes an important point in respect of digital forensics, which, we know from the evidence reported to us in the House, has been in increasing demand, given the nature and complexity of modern crimes. There also seems to be a lack of expertise, skills and capacity to deal with that. There have been incidences reported in the media where victims have, for example, had all their data on their mobile phones downloaded at the point at which they have reported a crime. There are pretty significant questions about whether that is the right balance and approach: what the framework is around that, what happens with all that data going forward and whether that is the right approach to take. That, of course, comes to the questions around accredited standards for digital forensics.

With the market dominated by a few large players, and niche processes or specialised capabilities often, in practice, offered by a single small provider, the cost of achieving and retaining certification is frequently seen as a greater impediment to competitiveness than the ability to demonstrate the quality of their work. With the majority of affected forensic work conducted in-house, the absence of statutory regulation has meant that police forces themselves have come to the view that accreditation is a low priority for time and investment. Statutory regulation would therefore enable a path to competition on the basis of quality and encourage new providers to enter the market. Police authorities would not only be more accountable for the procurement decisions they make but better able to make the case to the Government for investment to enable funding safe, high-quality forensics.

I do not wish to present the Bill today as a panacea, but that kind of regulatory environment should be the baseline for a competitive market in services as publicly important as these. That aspiration is key, because although there is ample cause to regret that manner in which the forensic science service was shut down, the Bill seeks to improve and build on the marketised approach as it exists today, rather than seeking to turn back the clock. That is why making this change commands, in my view, such universal expert and political consensus.

In what form, then, could objections possibly be taken? I am conscious that a small minority of practitioners, for example, have previously expressed concern that a statutory regulator would mean essentially sound practices being invalidated on technicalities and leave robust prosecutions open to unfounded but seemingly credible defence challenges, but that is emphatically not a risk created by this proposed legislation. The enforcement and investigatory powers it seeks to create are not directly rooted in compliance with quality standards but justified by substantial risk that the course of justice will be prejudiced by reliance on the science conducted by these practitioners. As such, the only providers with a meaningful basis for concern are those whose work entails risk of that order. Most providers take the rules and codes of practice that govern their work, and the sense of public duty that comes with it, extremely seriously. Only a minority of bad actors have anything to fear from a system that begins with the aim of rewarding quality work done in good faith.

The same essential need for intelligent, enforceable and responsive regulation underpins the case for action to address the increasingly widespread collection, storage and use of biometric data. As I have already said today, the title of the Bill offers some clue to my initial aspirations on that front, but I take the Minister and the Government at their word that solutions are en route. They need to be, in my view, because this is an area in which it is even clearer that innovations and technology will consistently outpace the capacities of primary legislation and where current law leaves an intolerable vacuum for the abuse of new and developing biometrics.

In that context, and very briefly today, I would like to draw colleagues’ attention to the independent review of the governance of biometric data commissioned by the Ada Lovelace Institute, which I understand is due to report its conclusions next month. The findings, I suggest, would represent one of the most authoritative contributions to the debate on how we govern biometrics, and I hope Ministers will take full account of them.

The general data protection regulation defines biometric data in fairly bloodless terms as the information that results from

“processing relating to the physical, physiological or behavioural characteristics of a natural person, which allow or confirm the unique identification of that natural person, such as facial images”.

Some of the processes we are talking about, such as fingerprinting, are well established and the limits on their use well defined, but the potential for abuse created by the speed with which technologies for processing other kinds of biometric data are advancing should make clear the need for political oversight to keep up.

Clearly, that does not begin and end with, for example, automatic facial recognition, but the worry that the technology simply is not ready for roll-out has been debated on the Floor of the House in the past.

[The Minister for Crime and Policing (Kit Malthouse)]

I wish to acknowledge the hon. Gentleman’s strong point that technology is moving at great speed in crime, as it is in all our lives, and to draw his attention to the fact that we were the only party that stood on a manifesto commitment—it was buried in our manifesto at the general election—to create exactly the robust legal framework to which he refers. I am hopeful that we will get movement on that quite soon.

[Darren Jones]

I am pleased to hear that from the Minister. I confess that I did not notice that in his party’s manifesto, but on the basis of his confirmation to the House, I look forward to the tabling of comprehensive legislation. I can confirm to the House that, although it may not have been in our manifesto under the previous Labour party leadership, I will do my best to ensure that it is in the next one.

I believe the Minister when he says that he wants to get this right, and the Government will have a partner in me when they get around to it, but time is of the essence. I sorely hope that the Bill fires the starting gun today on a period of revitalised thinking in the Government about how to regulate technologies in the public interest. I want to be a participant in that effort.

The Bill is as evidence-driven and task-focused a piece of legislation as it could be. Putting the regulator in statute is a matter of broad political consensus. As I have said today, on a cross-party basis in both this House and the other House, and among experts in the field, the regulator and, indeed, the Minister and the Government, there is consensus that the Bill should be given its Second Reading today. It will make good on a commitment, first made by the Government in 2013, that the regulator says is necessary if it is to do its job effectively. Finally, it will create a basis of quality enforcement, on which we can build a better-functioning market, and is plainly the right thing to do. On that basis, I commend my Bill to the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Green]

I thank my hon. Friend for his message.

Let me finish this point about the future tech. We have not really touched on the internet of things, and that global connectivity of billions and billions of devices. That might have an impact on the way the police and other services investigate a crime.

I read a simple but odd thing about how electronic doorbells can play a part in crime. Apparently—I hope no one is listening to this—burglars can observe the data usage when a doorbell is rung and an internet connection is established with the owner, who may be at work or away. The fact that the data usage rockets up tells the burglar that the person has not come to the door and that they are observing what is going on from afar, and so are not there.

[Darren Jones]

I share the hon. Gentleman’s enthusiasm for debating the opportunities and risks of data and technology in this space, about which he is clearly very learned. I am sure he also welcomes the Minister’s comprehensive legislation on the issue. Does he agree that my Bill is—to coin a phrase—specific and limited in its scope, as it merely seeks to give enforcement rights to the regulator to accredit standards? I congratulate him on leading on the issue, but we will be able to have this debate, in which many hon. Members are clearly interested, in greater detail when the Minister brings forward his legislation.

[Chris Green]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, but it is sometimes tempting to speculate more widely. I appreciate the focus that he wishes the debate to have, which is to some extent represented by the biometrics element having been taken out so that we can focus on the most important elements.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

It is an honour to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Grantham and Stamford (Gareth Davies), who made some very thoughtful remarks, and my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Chris Green)—who is about to leave the Chamber—who earlier gave a detailed analysis of many of the key issues in the Bill. I particularly thank to the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones) for all his work in bringing the Bill forward.

Forensic science has changed criminal investigation across the world. It has led to countless convictions that would otherwise not have been possible. It has also helped to solve cold cases and helped the innocent to be acquitted—not to mention the thousands of hours of crime drama produced across the world that would have been significantly less interesting without forensic science. It is important that we can rely on forensic science to keep us safe and secure. The Science and Technology Committee in the other place said in its report:

“In many criminal cases forensic science evidence is pivotal. The delivery of justice depends on the integrity and accuracy of that evidence, and the trust that society has in it.”

This Bill is therefore not just about ensuring proper regulation of forensic science, but about protecting a fundamental pillar of our democracy: justice.

The dependability of evidence is essential in our criminal justice system. Jurors and indeed the wider public must be able to have confidence in the evidence put before them. Similarly, defendants and prosecutors must continue to be able to conduct fair trials. Consequently, it is very hard to argue against the Bill, as it will make the current Forensic Science Regulator a statutory appointee with statutory powers. Fundamentally, that will enable the regulator to ensure that standards are upheld in the science used in court proceedings across England and Wales. This has the support of the Government, as well as the Science and Technology Committees of both Houses. The Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences also supports these statutory powers. Indeed, the Forensic Science Regulator herself, Dr Gillian Tully, has said how important it is that her office receives the powers it needs to ensure the effective delivery of justice. It is definitely time that these changes were made. To be honest, it is regrettable that they have not been achieved before now. This House now has an opportunity to act, and I welcome the support that the Bill seems to have.

It is important, however, that it should ultimately remain up to a court to make decisions on the admissibility of forensic evidence, as detailed in the explanatory notes to clause 4, and I welcome the fact that that will remain the case. Clause 2 will allow the regulator to prepare and publish the code of practice, which will then need the approval of the Secretary of State and both Houses of Parliament. That is also to be welcomed. However, I would be grateful if the hon. Gentleman let the House know of any discussions that he may have had with the Government or the regulator about possible timeframes for publishing the code of practice, or perhaps he has a timeframe in mind himself. I am mindful that years have passed since the first calls for this Bill were made and that Members will be anxious for the code of practice to be enforced as quickly as possible if the Bill were to be enacted. I understand that the code will be open to consultation, and I appreciate that these things take time, but an indication of the timescales would be helpful.

I also have concerns about clauses 6, 7 and 8 and the issuing of compliance and completion notices. I accept that the power would be used to maintain standards, but how will that influence court cases? For example, if a provider was issued with a compliance notice while analysing evidence or afterwards, how would that be perceived by a court or a jury?

[Darren Jones]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contribution today and for raising these important questions. Of course, the whole reason for accreditation in the first place is to ensure that the validity of the Forensic Science Service is not brought into question as part of prosecutorial or defence-based arguments. Indeed, the hope is that, by bringing in these compliance requirements, we will move away from the current problem and make that process better.

On the hon. Gentleman’s question about the codes of conduct and their publication, of course I support his call for that to be done as quickly and promptly as possible. I know the Forensic Science Regulator also supports that position. Indeed, she has been in detailed conversations with my office and with the Minister’s office about the publication of the Bill. However, it is obviously for the Minister and the Home Office to conclude on that point.

[John Lamont]

I am grateful for that clarification. I suppose my point was more about compliance notices being issued during court proceedings and the impact that that would have. For example, would another provider then have to analyse the evidence, and could it be legitimately argued that the evidence had in some way been contaminated while under the care of the provider issued with the compliance notice? I want to make it clear that I am by no means an expert on forensic science and my concerns may be utterly unsubstantiated, but these are important points to consider during analysis of the Bill. I would be grateful if the Minister or the hon. Gentleman could give further clarification on them, not necessarily today but further down the line.

As I am acutely aware, justice is a devolved matter in Northern Ireland and Scotland, so this Bill of course applies only to England and Wales. However, one of the huge benefits of devolution is being able to look over the border, wherever that may be, to see what can be done better, or perhaps more importantly, what should be avoided. As a representative of the Scottish Borders, I see almost every day differences in policies either side of the Tweed, and their qualities and shortcomings, although I must point out that sometimes all nations collectively get it wrong. I am sure I do not need to remind Members of the exam results debacle over the summer, when all four Education Secretaries felt the heat from disgruntled parents and students simultaneously.

Despite the fact that justice is devolved, I would point out that the current Forensic Science Regulator plays a role across the entire United Kingdom. The Forensic Science Advisory Council, which is chaired by the regulator, has representatives from Forensic Science Northern Ireland and the Scottish Police Authority Forensic Services, which are deemed to be full partners. In written evidence to the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, the regulator said that that allows for the implementation of the resulting standards in jurisdictions across the UK and that that

“will beneficially ensure the existence of UK-wide standards in forensic science.”

That is good news and means that we are all sharing best practice across all parts of this United Kingdom, ensuring that justice can be served in these islands.

I am a very firm protector and supporter of devolution, but to appease those who may not believe in common working between the nations of our United Kingdom I would happily point out that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary in Scotland stated in a report in 2016 that “there is no requirement” for the decisions of the advisory council to be implemented in Scotland. I think all right hon. and hon. Members can agree that this is a great example of the nations of the UK working together for the good of all, despite powers residing in the different capital cities of our country.

Another example of the Forensic Science Regulator having a role other than in England and Wales was when it was asked to review the performance of the Scottish Police Services Authority in the case of HM Advocate v. Ross Monaghan. I do not want to go into the specific details of this report, but it is important once again to flag up how this Bill may end up having an effect, however small, across the whole United Kingdom.

I want to return to the topic of biometrics. The Bill’s full name is the Forensic Science Regulator and Biometrics Strategy Bill. We have already heard from the hon. Member for Bristol North West why there is so little about biometrics in the Bill. I understand that “Erskine May” allows private Members’ Bills to have purposes that do not relate to their titles, but I am not sure whether the hon. Member intends to amend the name of the Bill as it progresses. We will have to wait and see.

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Jones]

To give the hon. Gentleman a little comfort, the case that he makes will in fact be resolved by this Bill. The issue we have today is that when evidence is presented, the defence can say that it came from a provider that is not accredited compared with a provider that is accredited, because there is a lack of standardisation. The Bill, in enforcing standards, will mean that the very question being put to the jury is resolved because all providers will be accredited as opposed to some versus others.

[Kit Malthouse]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Jones]

With the leave of the House, I thank the many hon. Members for their contributions today. We have had a substantive and in-depth debate with appropriate challenge of the Bill. I extend my thanks to Dr Gillian Tully for her support, both on the Science and Technology Committee and in the production of the Bill. I also thank the Government for their support.

All of us know that behind this Bill are individuals with issues of liberty and justice at stake. In a small way, I feel that this Bill will add real value and make a difference to these most important issues. I hope Members will support its Second Reading.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No.63) .

Intelligence and Security Committee: Russia Report

Darren Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Brokenshire]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his question. We have been examining the laws in different countries that govern foreign agent registration. We are drawing that together into something that will be effective from a UK standpoint, learning whether that has been effective and applying that to our law as we prepare for the introduction of legislation countering espionage and hostile state activity. I look forward to continuing that discussion with him.

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

I declare my interest as the chair of the new all-party group on technology and national security and as a member of the Joint Committee on the National Security Strategy. The remarkable insight from this report was the lack of horizon scanning, understanding, mitigation and response to modern threats in the technological frontier from hostile states. On the assumption that the Minister agrees that we need to invest in and enhance our capabilities in this technological frontier, when does he intend to come to the House with the Government’s strategy to secure our national security?

[James Brokenshire]

Members will have heard what I said in my opening statement about the various steps that have been taken, including on countering illicit finance, dealing with the potential abuse of visas and investing through our national cyber-security strategy to counter cyber being exploited against us in so many different ways. That work continues. We also continue to work with those involved in the internet and social media on our online harms legislation, which we remain committed to. That underlines the breadth of our response.

Automated Facial Recognition Surveillance

Darren Jones Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kit Malthouse]

My hon. Friend highlights an extremely important opportunity for us. As he quite rightly points out, many, many people go missing every year. Some people want to disappear for various reasons, but, often, young people do not want to do so. Where it is proportionate, necessary and in line with the code, the identification of missing vulnerable people, particularly young people, would certainly be an incredibly good use of the technology.

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

I welcome you to your place, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have not yet had the chance to congratulate you on your new role.

In the previous Parliament, the Science and Technology Committee looked at this issue as part of the biometrics and forensics strategy review. All of the key stakeholders recognised that a biometrics strategy that was not fit for purpose and not of the quality required to provide a regulatory framework for facial recognition technology was at the root of the issue. Can the Minister confirm whether that strategy has been updated since last April?

[Kit Malthouse]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right to raise concerns about the framework, and I will have to get back to him on whether the strategy has been updated. I do not think that it has, but I will check and make sure. He will be pleased to know that, at the recent general election, the Conservative party manifesto did contain a commitment that, while we wanted the police to use the ever-increasing capabilities that technology was presenting to them, we wanted them to do so within a strict legal framework. We will be giving consideration over the months to come about what form that will take.

Facial Recognition and the Biometrics Strategy

Darren Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Westminster Hall

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered facial recognition and the biometrics strategy.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. First, I must declare my interests, which are not directly in the subject but in the privacy and data protection space in which I practise as a lawyer, as set out in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I chair various technology all-party parliamentary groups and Labour Digital. I am also a member of the Science and Technology Committee, which has an ongoing inquiry into the subject. We have taken evidence from Professor Paul Wiles, the Biometrics Commissioner, and Baroness Williams of Trafford, the Minister in the other place. Some hon. Members have sent their apologies, which I entirely understand, because we are competing with the climate change debate in the main Chamber.

Why did the subject first come to my attention? As a consumer, I have become increasingly used to using facial recognition technology, whether I have proactively agreed to it or not. I often forget my passwords these days, because I use my face to pay for things and open my iPad and phone, although as I was saying to my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), that can prove tricky when I am trying to pay for things at a distance. For many of us, facial recognition technology provides consumer services on Facebook and Google by auto-tagging friends and family members and allowing us to search our images. There is an entire debate to be had about consent, transparency and privacy in the use of such technologies in the private sector, but my focus today is on the role of the state, the police and the security services in the use of facial recognition technology.

Facial recognition technology is beginning to be used more widely. It is well known to those who take an interest in it that the South Wales police has used it at sporting events; that the Metropolitan police has trialled auto-facial recognition technology on many occasions, including at events such as the Notting Hill carnival and Remembrance Sunday, and at transport hubs such as Stratford; and that Leicestershire police has used it at the Download music festival. I am concerned that it is also being used at public protests, although perhaps I understand why; I will come on to that later in relation to our freedom of association.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate on a key subject. He has spoken light-heartedly about the competition with the climate change debate. Does he agree that in some ways, as with climate change, although only a small number of issues are currently associated with this topic, the range of impacts that facial recognition technology will have on our society and economy, on the way we work and do business, and on our trust relationships will be huge and will grow over time?

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Jones]

I agree wholeheartedly with my hon. Friend. She and I often end up in these types of debates in this place. One thing that they have in common is that the technology is changing and the services are becoming more mature at such a pace that the regulation and concerns are often slower. As legislators, we need to understand the technology as well as we can and make sure that the appropriate protections are in place.

In other spaces, we talk about the fact that I have a date of birth, I am male, I have two daughters and I am a vegan, which means that companies profile me and suggest that I might like to buy Quorn sausages that children like. There is a public debate about that, of course, but facial recognition technology is a particularly sensitive area of personal data. Such technology can be used without individuals really knowing it is happening, as I will come on to shortly, which is a big issue. It is not just police forces that are interested in the technology; some councils are using it to enforce certain rules, as is the private sector, as I say.

Facial recognition technology uses two methods: live auto-facial recognition, which is referred to as AFR Locate, and non-live auto-facial recognition, which is referred to as AFR Identify. What does Locate do? When such technologies are being trialled—although some police forces have been trialling such technologies for many years, so the definition of trial is important—cameras will build a biometric map of the face and facial features of members of the public who are walking down the high street, through a shopping centre or at a sporting or music event. That builds a numerical code that identifies them as individuals, which is matched against a database of images to identify them using the technology. That spurs an action by the police force or others, should they feel that that individual is high risk or has broken the law and some enforcement needs to be taken against them.

As I have alluded to, unlike fingerprints, which people have to proactively give, the technology is so pervasive that many people will walk past the cameras not really knowing that they are taking part in the process and, therefore, not consenting to it. As I will come on to shortly, the rules in place for the use of facial recognition technology are non-existent.

On non-live AFR, the so-called Identify scheme, I will focus on the databases that are being used. After we have built the facial image—the map or code of a person’s face—we match it against a database of images. What is that database and where do those images come from? The police have watch lists of people they are concerned about. Obviously, we want terror suspects to be on a watch list so that the police can do their job properly. There has been a question about scraping social media for images that police forces can match against. Can the Minister confirm that today? If we are doing that in an untargeted fashion for those about whom there are legitimate concerns, we ought not to be. There are also custody images on databases such as the police national database, about which there are long-running concerns, as we have heard on my Select Committee. When the police take someone’s picture and put it on to the PND, it stays there. It does not matter whether they are convicted and go on to a list of people with convictions—perhaps we would understand if that were the case—or they are found innocent or no action is taken against them; their images are kept on the database anyway.

We have known for many years that the way the police have been processing the facial images of innocent citizens is unlawful. In the High Court in 2012, in the case of RMC and FJ v. Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, the High Court was clear that it was being managed unlawfully. The Home Office responded, albeit some years later—I am not entirely sure why it took so long to respond to such an important issue—setting out a six-year review period in which the police would have to review the images on the database to decide whether they should weed and take out the images of innocent citizens. It also said that any of us could proactively ask the police force to remove our images because we claim our innocence.

There are several problems with that. Unsurprisingly, the number of requests to remove facial images from the database has been low, because people do not know about it. The fact that people have to proactively prove their innocence to not be on a police database is also fundamentally an issue. It is well known, however: the minutes from the September meeting of the Law Enforcement Facial Images and New Biometrics Oversight and Advisory Board say that

“most forces were struggling to comply”

with the Government’s response to the High Court’s ruling of unlawfulness. In answer to my questions in the Select Committee hearing, the Minister in the other place and her officials confirmed that no additional resource had been given to police forces to respond to or promote the fact that people can request the removal of their images from the database, or to undertake the review in which they are supposed to weed out and delete the images that they are not keeping on the database.

Evidently, the system is not fit for purpose. In my view, we continue to act in a way that the High Court said was unlawful, and I know that the Information Commissioner has also expressed concern. It will be useful if the Minister sets out how the Government will act to improve the situation, not only in terms of resourcing and support for police forces across the country but in terms of honouring the Government’s commitment to build new databases, so that the process can be automatic. Technology is pretty advanced now in some of these areas of facial recognition. If Facebook is able to identify me, tag me and take an action, and if Google is able to identify me and allow me to search for myself online, surely the Government ought to be able to auto-scan images, identify people who are not criminals and automatically delete the images of them. That ought to be deliverable. Indeed, it was our understanding that such a system was being delivered, but only a few weeks ago, when I asked Baroness Williams, the Minister in the House of Lords with responsibility for this issue, when we could expect the new computer system to be delivered, there was stony silence from the Minister and her officials. They were not clear when it was going to be delivered, why it had been indefinitely delayed and whether the delay was due to financing, contractual issues or technology issues. There was no clarity about how the existing system would be fixed.

We found in 2012 that the system was unlawful in relation to civil liberties. That in 2019 going into 2020, we do not know what we are doing to fix it or how it will be fixed, it is wholly unsatisfactory. Will the Minister give us a clearer update today about when the automatic deletion service will be available to police forces?

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way to me again. He has made some very important points about the way in which this technology is already being used by Facebook and others, but is it not the case that, however advanced the technology is, it has also been found that it can be biased because of the training data that has been used, which means that particularly those from minorities or specific groups are not recognised adequately? Does he agree that it is all the more important that there is investment as well as transparency in the police database, so that we can ensure that groups who are already marginalised in many ways, particularly with regard to police services, are not once again being discriminated against?

[Darren Jones]

Unsurprisingly, I agree entirely. This is part of a much broader conversation about designing technology with ethics at the very start, not only in facial recognition but in algorithmic decision making and a host of different areas where we have seen that human biases have been hardwired into automated decision processes that are delivered through technological solutions.

The Government have a really important role to play here, not just in setting the regulatory framework and building on, and really giving strength and resource to, the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation to set the national and international tone, but through their procurement of services. They must say, “We have got to get this technology right. We are going to buy these systems, but we really must see this ethics by design right from the very beginning, dealing with biases in a way that allows us to avoid biased solutions.” That would stimulate the market to ensure that it delivered on that basis.

On the legal basis for biometrics, older forms of biometrics such as DNA and fingerprints have a legal framework around them; they have guidance and rules about how they can be used, stored and processed. There is no specific law relating to facial recognition and no specific policy from the Home Office on it. The police forces that are trialling these systems say that they are using existing legislation to give them the legal basis on which to perform those trials, but the fact of the matter is that we only need to look at the dates of that legislation to see that those laws were put in place way before the technology came into existence or before it reached the maturity that we are seeing today.

There was some debate during the passage of the Data Protection Act 2018, when I, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley and others served on the Committee scrutinising that Bill, but there was no specific discussion during that process or any specific regulation arising from it about facial recognition technology. If police are relying on the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984—perhaps there is an irony in the date of that legislation—the basis and the understanding of the technology did not exist at that time, so it is not in that legislation. Even the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 is too old. The definition of biometrics in that legislation cannot encapsulate a proper understanding of the use, sensitivity and application of automatic facial recognition.

I am not alone in saying this—indeed, it seems to be the view of everybody but the Government. The Information Commissioner has opened investigations; the independent biometrics and forensics ethics group for facial recognition, which advises the Home Office, agrees with me; the London Policing Ethics Panel agrees with me; the independent Biometrics Commissioner agrees with me; and, perhaps unsurprisingly, civil liberties groups such as Liberty and Big Brother Watch not only agree with me but are involved in legal action against various police forces to challenge the legal basis on which these biometrics trials are being conducted. When he responds, will the Minister say that the Government now agree with everybody else, or that they continue to disagree with everybody else and think that this situation is okay?

I will now address the second part of this debate, which is the biometrics strategy. I focused on facial recognition because it is a particularly timely and sensitive component of a broader biometrics strategy. All of us who use technology in our daily lives know that biometric markers and data can be used to identify our location, identity and communications. That means that the Government and, indeed, the private sector can access data and learn things about us, and that area of technology is growing. People are rightly concerned about ensuring that the right checks and balances are in place. It is one thing for an individual to agree to facial recognition technology in order to unlock their tablet or phone, having read, I hope, about what happens to their data. It is another thing, however, for them not to be given the opportunity to give their consent, or not to receive a service and therefore not know about it, when the state is using the same types of technology.

The biometrics strategy needs to get into the detail. It needs to set out not only what is happening now but what is envisaged will happen in the future and what the Government plan to do about it, in order to protect civil liberties and inform citizens about how the data is being used. Clearly, they would not be informed individually—there is no point in telling a terrorist planning an incident that there will be a camera—but the right balance can be achieved.

Again, I do not understand why the Government are so slow in responding to these fundamental issues. It is so long since the 2012 High Court ruling on the retention of custody images, and we had to wait five years for the biometrics strategy. Imagine how much the biometrics sector in this country changed during those five years. Perhaps the Government were trying to keep up with the pace of change in the technology space, but the strategy was long delayed and long awaited.

Given my tone, Sir Roger, you will not be surprised to hear that everyone was very disappointed with the biometrics strategy, because it merely gave a kind of literature review of current uses of biometric data. There was a little bit about the plans for a new platform, which the Home Office is building, regarding how different people access biometric data. It said nothing at all, however, about the future use, collection and storage of biometric data, or about data protection. It said nothing about the Government’s own use and collection of data; the need for enforceable guidelines to enable devolved decision making by, for instance, police forces across the country; how different Departments might be able to use different forms of biometric data across Government, which, evidently, is very easy to deliver with today’s technology; or how the data would be stored securely.

People are concerned about cyber-security and breaches of their personal data, so what steps will the Government take in this developing space? Where will the data be stored? In advance of this debate, I received representations arguing that we should not send it to companies overseas and that it should be stored in the UK. One would think that the biometrics strategy addressed those issues, but it does not. Is the beta version of the biometrics strategy due soon, or does the Minister think that the Government have provided a sufficient response on this important field?

I do not want to keep saying that everybody agrees with me, because that would be a little uncomfortable, but there is no denying that the Biometrics Commissioner, the Surveillance Camera Commissioner and the Information Commissioner’s Office have all said exactly the same thing—this biometrics strategy is not fit for purpose and needs to be done again. The Government need to be clearer and more transparent about their endeavours and make that clear to the public, not least because these areas of technology move at pace. I understand entirely why police forces, civil servants or others want to be able to take the opportunities to deliver their services more efficiently, more effectively and with more impact—we support that—but the right checks and balances must be in place.

I will touch on our fundamental rights and freedoms, because that debate does not get enough air time in the technology space. Our freedoms are increasingly being challenged, whether the issue is cyber-defence or how we regulate the online world, and also in this space. Fundamental freedoms—freedoms that we hold, or purport to hold, dear—are encapsulated in the European convention on human rights and the Human Rights Act 1998. They go to the very nature of this technology, such as the right to a private life that can only be interfered with for a legitimate aim and only if that interference is done proportionately. Scanning a load of people going about their day-to-day life does not feel proportionate to me, and there is no accountability to make sure that it is being done legitimately. As my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) said, if the selections that those technologies pick up are resulting in false matches or are discriminating, primarily against women and people from ethnic minority backgrounds, that also ought to be considered.

Those freedoms also include freedom of expression and of association. In public protests in recent weeks, people who dearly hold certain views have gone too far by moving away from their right to freedom of expression and to peaceful demonstration, towards criminal activity, intimidation or hostility. We should set the tone and say that that is not welcome or acceptable in our country, because having a right also means having a responsibility to use it wisely. Of course we want to protect those who want to demonstrate through peaceful public protests.

I am sure the public will say—this lies at the heart of my contribution—“Fine. Use some of this technology to keep us safe, but what is the right balance? Do we understand how it is being used? What are the accountability measures? What rules and guidance are being put down by the Government, on behalf of Parliament and the people, to make sure this is being done in a way that is not a slippery slope towards something we ought not to be doing?” We need a wider debate in public life about how we protect freedoms in this new digital age, and this issue is an example of that.

The House of Commons digital engagement programme is often a very good process for Westminster Hall debates, as it allows the public to be part of the conversation and to submit their comments. It would be remiss of me to not point out that some members of the public highlighted a certain irony in the fact that this debate was being promoted on Facebook, so I have shared their concerns, but that is still a medium through which the public like to engage in debate. Hundreds of thousands of people engaged across different platforms—way more than I was expecting—which shows the level of public interest in the use of these technologies.

As might be expected, there were two sides to the argument. The minority view on the platforms was, “I have nothing to hide. Please go out and keep us safe. Crack on, use it.” The other side said, “Actually, this is a slippery slope. I don’t know how this is used, and I’m worried about it. Why can’t I go about my day-to-day life without the police or the state surveilling me?”

I will share some of the comments. On the first side of the argument was Roy. I do not know where he is from. I wish his location had been given, because I could have said, “Roy from Sheffield”. He said:

“No objection. I’ve nothing to hide and don’t find it scary or objectionable for ‘the state’ to be able to track my movements. They already can if I’m in a car”—

I did not know that—

“and that doesn’t seem to be a problem. The added security of the police being able to track potential terrorists far outweighs any quibbles about reduced privacy.”

That is a perfectly legitimate view.

Karyn said:

“Having seen the numbers of crimes solved and even prevented by CCTV I have no objections. Today we have to be realistic, with phones listening in on conversations for marketing and plotting where we are, this is small price to pay for public safety and if you have done nothing there is nothing to fear.”

That is an interesting contribution on what is happening in the private and state sectors. We need to be much more advanced in both spheres.

That was a minority view, however. I do not have the percentage, but the bulk of comments came from people who are concerned. Chris Wylie, who many of us will have read about—he was the Cambridge Analytica whistle- blower, so he clearly knows something about these issues —was firm:

“No. Normalising this kind of indiscriminate surveillance undermines the presumption of innocence.”

We should pause on that, because it is really important. Why should we be tracked and surveilled by the police on the assumption that we might be guilty of something? That does not feel right, just as it does not feel right that people have to prove their innocence to get their images taken off a police database. Chris went on to say:

“It should never be up to us as citizens to prove we are not criminals. Police should only interfere with our lives where they have a reasonable suspicion and just cause to do so.”

I share Chris’s views.

Andrea said that this was a slippery slope:

“The idea that some people have about privacy as an exclusive issue for the bad guys is completely wrong. Not only privacy prevents my acts from limiting my rights but also avoids an unjustified use of power by the Gov’t.”

Again, we should pause there. It is our job in Parliament to hold the Government to account, yet we have no strategy, legislation or rules to enable us to do so. That is a fundamental problem. She goes on to say:

“Such a huge involvement of disturbing tech could lead to a 1984-like slippery slope, one which none of us wants to fall in, regardless of their legal background.”

Jenny said:

“I believe that this would suppress people’s ability to engage in public demonstrations and activities that challenge the government, which is hugely dangerous to democracy.”

A lot of people said that if they thought the state was scanning their data and putting it on a database, they might not associate with or take part in public demonstrations. If that were to happen, it would represent a significant diminution of our democratic processes.

Lastly, Bob said:

“It makes it easier for a future, less liberal government to monitor the activity of dissident citizens. During the miners strike in the 1980s miners were stopped from travelling just on the suspicion they would attend rallies based on their home locations and where they were heading. How would this technology be applied in the future for, say, an extinction rebellion march?”

Regardless of our political disagreements across the House, none of us thinks that the state is overreaching in a way that many other countries would. However, given the lack of legislation, guidance and regulation to enable us to hold the Government to account, and with independent commissioners and regulators saying that this is not good enough, I agree with Bob. There is a huge risk in not putting in place a framework with the appropriate checks, balances and protections, not just because that is the right and important thing to do today, but because we need that framework for future Governments.

[Chi Onwurah]

My hon. Friend is being very generous with his time, and I congratulate him again on having raised this important topic. Does he agree, as I think he is suggesting, that the level of interest in this debate—demonstrated by the quotes he has read out—shows that technology such as facial recognition, as well as algorithms and data, needs to be publicly debated? We can make a choice as to how it is used, so that citizens are empowered. Technology should not be something that is done to people; they should have rights and controls as to how it is enacted.

[Darren Jones]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The debate is a broader one about technology. How do we engage the public with these issues? I am an evangelist for technological reform, although I will not go on about that topic for too long, because it is not linked to the title of the debate. In my view, the idea that we can increase our economy’s productivity, increase wages, transform people’s working lives and reform and make more efficient our public services without using technology does not make sense. As my hon. Friend says, however, we have to do that in the right way and bring the public with us.

On a cross-party basis, we share the belief that we need to take crime seriously, and to address the increasingly sophisticated methods that criminals and terrorists may employ when trying to commit crimes or terror in our country. However, we must get the balance right, and there is a lacuna of regulation in this space. There are no legal bases, there is no oversight, and as a consequence there are no protections. That is why the Government should act now.

--- Later in debate ---

[Louise Haigh]

That is completely right, and that is why this debate and the framework are so important. We cannot allow the police, with all the best intentions, to attempt to use this technology and then in some cases to mess it up—as they will—and have to roll it back. We want to ensure that the framework is in place so that the police can go ahead with confidence and the public have confidence. We must ensure that biases are designed out and that people accept the intrusion into their privacy and understand that such technology is being used proportionately and out of necessity. At the moment we cannot have confidence in that, which is why this debate is so important.

[Darren Jones]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way, not least because I spoke at great length today. I did not mention earlier that we took evidence in the Select Committee from the Biometrics Commissioner that trials should be conducted on the basis of rigorous scientific guidelines and processes. The problem is that if we let different police forces do different things in different ways, we do not get clear answers on how and in what circumstances the technology can best be used. We need guidelines not just for the regulatory purposes, but so that the trials can be done in the right way.

[Louise Haigh]

That is absolutely right. I do not get a strong impression that individual police forces are learning from each other either. In the case of the Met, the word “trial” has been used for the technology’s use at Notting Hill carnival. It has been trialled for three years in a row. When does a trial become a permanent fixture? I do not think that that can now be called a trial. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that if it is a trial, we should be gathering data, and they should be informing Parliament and the public and should be addressing the concerns around false positives and ethnic biases and whether it is being used proportionately. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston gave the astonishing figure that demonstrated the mismatch between the numbers of people who were covered by the facial recognition technology when just one individual was identified. That surely cannot be proportionate.

The question of technology within law enforcement gets to the heart of public consent for policing in this day and age, and the issues we have discussed today represent only the tip of the iceberg of potential privacy issues. So much of what defines an investigation today is data-driven. Data-driven policing and data-led investigations are transforming policing. It is already completely unrecognisable from when I was a special constable only 10 years ago. The police have the scope to access more of the intimate details of our personal lives than ever before.

The trialling of technology—including facial recognition and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West mentioned, risk assessment algorithms—has not been adequately considered by Parliament and does not sit easily within the current legal framework, but it is having some phenomenal results that we should not ignore. The identification of images of child sexual abuse rely on hashing technology, which enables law enforcement and the Internet Watch Foundation to scrape hundreds of thousands of images off the internet each year.

This week, we have had the news on what is in essence compulsion for rape victims to hand over their mobile phones for what potentially amounts to an open-ended trawl of data and messages, without which there is little prospect of conviction. That high-profile debate has lifted the lid on the ethical questions that ubiquity of data and technological advances are having on law enforcement. Nascent technologies such as facial recognition are at the sharp end of this debate. They do not just represent challenges around collecting and storing of data; they also provide recommendations to law enforcement agencies to act, to stop and search and, potentially, to detain and arrest people.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West said, we served on the Data Protection Bill Committee, where we discussed these matters briefly. We outlined our concerns about facial recognition, in particular the lack of oversight and regulatory architecture and the lack of operational transparency. I reiterate the call I made to the Home Secretary in May last year that Her Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary launch a thematic review of the operational use of the technology and report back to the Home Office and to Parliament.

We believe such a report should cover six key areas: first, the process police forces should and do follow to put facial recognition tools in place; secondly, the operational use of the technology at force level, taking into account specific considerations around how data is retained and stored, regulated, monitored and overseen in practice, how it is deleted, and its effectiveness in achieving operational objectives; thirdly, the proportionality of the technology’s use to the problems it is seeking to solve; fourthly, the level and rank required for sign-off; fifthly, the engagement with the public and an explanation of the technology’s use; and sixthly, the use of technology by authorities and operators other than the police.

It is critical as operational technology such as this is rolled out that the public are kept informed, that they understand how and why it is being used and that they have confidence that it is effective. The Minister has the power to commission reports of this type from HMIC and it would be best placed to conduct such a report into the use of police technology of some public concern.

We have discussed concerns about the accuracy of facial recognition tools, particularly in relation to recognising women and people from BME backgrounds—that is quite a swathe of the population! We do not know whether this is because of bias coded into the software by programmers, or because of under-representation of people from BME backgrounds and women in the training datasets. Either way, the technology that the police are currently using in this country has not been tested against such biases. In the debate around consent, it is extremely worrying that potentially inaccurate tools could be used in certain communities and damage the relationship with and the trust in the police still further.

As I said, we had some debates on this issue in the Data Protection Bill Committee, where we attempted to strengthen the legislation on privacy impact assessments. It should be clear, and I do not believe that it is, that police forces should be required to consult the Information Commissioner and conduct a full PIA before using any facial recognition tools.

I am further worried that the responsibility for oversight is far from clear. As we have heard, software has been trialled by the Met, the South Wales police force and other police forces across the country, particularly in policing large events. In September last year, the Minister made it clear in response to a written question that there is no legislation regulating the use of CCTV cameras with facial recognition. The Protection of Freedoms Act 2012 introduced the regulation of overt public space surveillance cameras, and as a result the surveillance camera code of practice was issued by the Secretary of State in 2013. However, there is no reference to facial recognition in the Act, even though it provides the statutory basis for public space surveillance cameras. The Surveillance Camera Commissioner has noted that “clarity regarding regulatory responsibility” for such facial recognition software is “an emerging issue”. We need clarity on whether it is the Biometric Commissioner, the Information Commissioner or the Surveillance Camera Commissioner who has ultimate responsibility for this use of technology. It would also be helpful if the Minister made absolutely clear what databases law enforcement agencies are matching faces against, what purposes the technology can and cannot be used for, what images are captured and stored, who can access those images and how long they are stored for.

The Government’s new biometric strategy takes a small step forward on oversight, with a board to evaluate the technology and review its findings, but it meets too infrequently—three times since last July, as far as I can tell—to have effective oversight of the operational use of the technology. In any case, it is clearly not designed to provide operational safeguards, and that is where big questions remain about discriminatory use and effectiveness. The lack of operational safeguards and parliamentary scrutiny may lead to ill-judged uses of the technology.

I am hopeful that the Minister can assure us today of the Government’s intention to make things a lot clearer in this space, that existing and emerging technologies will be covered by clear, consistent guidance and legislation from the Home Office, that the relevant commissioner will have all the powers they need to regulate these technologies, and that our law enforcement agencies fully understand what they need to do, both before any technology or new method of data collection is rolled out, and afterwards, when an individual’s data rights may have been abused. We need clear principles, and I am not convinced that the legislative landscape as it stands provides that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Jones]

I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), my hon. Friends the Members for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) and for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), and the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Louise Haigh), for their contributions. I also welcome the interventions of the Chair of the Science and Technology Committee, the right hon. Member for North Norfolk (Norman Lamb), and the Minister’s responses.

It is clear from today’s debate that everyone, including the Minister and, by extension, the Home Office, agrees that we have some work to do, which is a good conclusion. I put it on the record that the Select Committee is interested in the actions being taken by the Scottish Government in the biometric data Bill that the hon. Member for Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East (Stuart C. McDonald) mentioned. We will keep a close eye on the work being done in Scotland, and think about what lessons we might learn in Westminster.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston said, if we have 29 million facial scans for one hit, we clearly need to have a better debate about the balance between impact and invasion of privacy. As many colleagues mentioned, the demand for a stronger regulatory system comes from not just police forces, commissioners, politicians and the public, but from the technology companies providing such solutions. They wrote to me in advance of the debate to say that they want to do the right thing, and would rather that there were a framework in which they can operate so that—no doubt for their own brand purposes—they are not pushing the envelope by delivering solutions that police forces and others may take too far.

I welcome the Minister’s commitment to privacy impact assessments. I am sure that we all welcome that confirmation. I understand that dealing with legacy IT systems is difficult; we have been talking about that on the Select Committee too. We encourage the Government not to put a sticking-plaster over old systems, but to invest in new ones, so that we are not just dealing with a legacy problem, but building something fit for the future. I look forward to reading the letter that the Minister referred to from Baroness Williams of Trafford.

The Minister said that it was good that in our system we can hold the Government to account and show our interest in such matters. It is clear from the debate, and from the Select Committee’s ongoing work, that we will continue to do so. We therefore look forward with anticipation to the further announcements that the Minister has committed to in the season of “summer”. Even though we do not quite know when that will start or end, we look forward to those announcements, and I thank him for his contribution.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered facial recognition and the biometrics strategy.

Immigration and Social Security Co-ordination (EU Withdrawal) Bill

Darren Jones Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons & Money resolution: House of Commons & Programme motion: House of Commons & Ways and Means resolution: House of Commons
Monday 28th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), who from a lifetime of experience is in the right place on this issue.

The nature of a country and the values that underpin it are often reflected in the rules of its immigration system. On that basis, the United Kingdom could be seen as hostile, expensive, often offensive and demeaning, and overly restrictive. That is not the type of country I wish to help to lead from this House. Our immigration system should be fair, both to those who wish to come here and those already here, and should strike a balance between rights, restrictions, contributions and rewards for those who wish to come and be a part of our great country.

At a time of rising populism, the Bill was an important opportunity for the Government to set the right tone, but on that measure they have failed, not least because the Bill is remarkably light on detail, instead giving Ministers wide powers to make up the rules as they see fit. It gives the House no insight into what they seek to do. It fails to recognise either the positive contribution migrants make to our country or the positive bottom line for UK plc; it fails to recognise the rights of British citizens living in the EU—in greater numbers than EU citizens in Britain; and it fails to recognise the different types of immigration, whether they be those who come because we need them, those who come to contribute, or those who come seeking asylum. Nothing in the Bill sets out what type of country we seek to become—what type of country we wish to be—and that is a grave missed opportunity.

The Bill offers little hope to people in Bristol North West, whether the hundreds of doctors, nurses and social care workers at Southmead Hospital, or the migrant labourers in Avonmouth working in our warehousing and logistics business, or the people I meet in my constituency surgery week in, week out, including, sadly, victims of modern slavery—I know the Government have done great work on that, and I pay tribute to them and look forward to the conclusions of the review of ways of strengthening the support victims receive—or its scientists, researchers and technology entrepreneurs.

A recent report by the Science and Technology Select Committee, on which I sit, noted that collaboration across disciplinary and geographical boundaries was the foundation of scientific and technological endeavour—one this country has a proud history of leading and no doubt wishes to lead in the future—but also highlighted the overly restrictive tier 1 visa system for exceptional talent and how difficult the tier 2 system made it for employees and employers who want and need to be here to come here. It also dealt with long and short-term stays for the purposes of research and collaboration on innovation. We are failing to be able to bring the best scientific teams and technological minds to our country at a time when we need them not only to fuel our own GDP and economic success but to secure our position in the world as a leader in science and innovation.

I have a few questions that I hope the Minister will respond to when she sums up, although some have been asked already. First, in respect of the many nurses and social care workers and other low-paid workers, including scientists and innovation and tech entrepreneurs in Bristol earning less than £30,000 a year, are the Government not confusing vital skills with pay, and pay with value? The value that many of our low-paid workers, whether in healthcare or other settings, add to my constituents is hugely valuable but may not be reflected in their pay. We should be saying in this country that we welcome their contribution to creating a fairer, more open and more tolerant society, but instead we are saying that they do not earn enough to have the right to be here.

Secondly, is it right that amendments to immigration policy should not be debated on the Floor of the House? I understand that the Government have given themselves this power in the Bill, but surely the Minister will today confirm that they will none the less bring those matters to the House, both for debate and in the interests of their own accountability. Thirdly, there has been some concern about EU citizens who reside in this country for valid reasons other than exercising their treaty rights and whether they will be protected as part of the transitional arrangements if we leave the EU. I hope the Minister will clarify that distinction. She says “when” we leave the EU. I am hopeful that we will not be doing so.

[Mr Ben Bradshaw (Exeter) (Lab)]

Hear, hear.

[Darren Jones]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that.

Fourthly, in response to the report by the Science and Technology Committee, which I recommend to all right hon. and hon. Members, I hope the Minister will say how she and her Department will seek to meet the requirements I mentioned in order that we might stay at the forefront of international collaboration on scientific endeavour.

Lastly, I assume the Government will not admit it, but this is a prime opportunity to set out what type of country we want to be, whether Brexit happens or not; to say to people around the world who Britain is and what their experience will be here; to say to people who live in this country what values we expect of our communities and what we will not condone and that xenophobia is not welcome, regardless of what people felt they could and could not say as a consequence of the leave campaign; to set out afresh a new, innovative, welcoming and fair immigration system that brings to life the values that supposedly represent the Treasury Bench’s intentions for this country. Instead, it is a failure on all the measures I have set out, so I will happily not be supporting the Bill this evening.

European Union (Withdrawal) Act

Darren Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O'Hara).

I rise as one of the Brexit generation of politicians elected to this place because of the causes and consequences of Brexit. I now find myself, as a Member of this House, faced with a divided Parliament and a divided country embroiled in a constitutional crisis not previously seen in our history, and I am being asked to use my vote on behalf of my constituents to make this great country of ours poorer and weaker in the world. Understandably, in that context, many people look to us with bemusement, questioning our ability as elected politicians to lead and to serve.

Regardless of whether one voted to leave or stay in the European Union, we do not have what we were promised. The Prime Minister’s proposals are worse than our current position, and they mean that Brexit will dominate the political agenda for many years to come. Leave voters were promised £350 million a week for the NHS. Instead, we have European doctors and nurses leaving us and Government risk assessments resulting in the stockpiling of medicines. Leave voters were promised that the UK could go it alone, with new trade deals around the world. Instead, we have heard the United States say it is not that interested, and we have the prospect of a transition period—which we may never get out of—that will make us unable to conclude trade deals until 2021 at the earliest.

Leave voters were promised that we would take back control of our laws. Instead, the Prime Minister’s proposals lock us into European regulations without the UK having a meaningful say. Unsurprisingly, this confirms that we have more power and more influence as a member of the European Union. We do not have what we were promised. Our current position is far better, and we will be locked into a debate on Brexit for the next decade.

Britain is a powerful nation. We are one of the largest and most sophisticated economies in the world, and we should be proud of our status and of the benefits it brings to the British people. In contrast, the Prime Minister’s proposals are a humiliation.

The majority of my constituents in Bristol North West voted to remain and, based on my extensive engagement with them, I know they continue to want to do so. Whether for advanced manufacturing jobs in aerospace and automotive industry across north Bristol, for NHS jobs at Southmead Hospital, for research jobs at our two universities or for warehousing and logistics jobs reliant on import and export in and around the port at Avonmouth, our current position as a member of the European Union is far stronger than any other option on the table.

I did not stand to be the Member of Parliament for my home constituency, where I was born and raised, only to come here to vote to make my constituents poorer. Whether I am an MP for a short time or for a long time, as a millennial and as the father of a daughter who turns one today, I will be left to deal with the mess left behind by this incompetent Government long after they leave the Treasury Bench.

In the face of the inevitable rejection of the Prime Minister’s proposals, I support the call for a people’s vote. All of us, regardless of whether we voted to stay or to leave, now know what leaving the EU means. I did not know when I voted to remain, and nor did people who voted to leave. New facts have emerged. It is not patronising to say to people that they have the right to change their mind now they know what leaving the EU means—a basis for the rules on which we leave and a wish list for the future. It is not undemocratic to provide more democracy by going back to the people. It is the right of the British people to have the final say on whether we leave on the Prime Minister’s proposed basis or stay in the European Union.

Securing a people’s vote is not the end, regardless of whether the outcome is to leave or stay. We now know loud and clear that the country is divided, driven apart by an increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots, between the cities and the towns, between the south and the north, between the old and the young and between the rich and the poor and struggling, characterised by differences in access to education, in the ability to rent or own a secure home, in the reliance on struggling public services and in the despair that comes from flatlining wages and a fear that our children are being raised in a country in decline.

Leaving the European Union will not fix these woes, and neither will remaining, unless we reform both the EU and Britain. As politicians, it is our job to step up to meet that cry for change and put forward a radical programme of reforms that shows we can be on the up once again. As politicians, we must not pander to the politics of the easy answer, as we have seen in this Brexit campaign. Instead we must be honest about the significant challenges facing our country in a fast-changing world. We must embrace the opportunity and the power of patriotism to drive our great nation forward, and discard the destructive desire of national populism to secure power for power’s sake.

This country of ours feels as though it is coming to the end of its current chapter. In a proudly sovereign Parliament, at the centre of a strong and successful United Kingdom, we have a choice to make about what comes next. We are a proudly sovereign Parliament, with our sovereignty derived from the British people, which gives us the right to go back to them to check and ask for further instruction. I truly hope that from the ashes of Brexit, whatever that will mean, we choose a future of hope and possibility, anchored in the reality of the world that we find ourselves in, and not another chapter of self-inflicted, populist decline.

Modern-day Slavery

Darren Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Gareth Snell]

My hon. Friend must be somewhat prescient, because he has read ahead in my speech before I have managed to get to that point. I shall touch on it later.

I welcome the announcement by the Government of the review of the Modern Slavery Act, which will be ably chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Birkenhead (Frank Field) and the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller), as well as the noble Lady Butler-Sloss. That is a triumvirate of expertise if ever there were one. I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for being present this afternoon.

I want to talk about the processes in the Modern Slavery Act. It was a step forward in properly attacking and dealing with some of the horrible situations people find themselves in, but it also contained important preventive measures that helped to reduce modern slavery in all forms, whether sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, forced labour or criminal exploitation.

For me, one of the most important parts of the Act is section 54, which requires large companies with a turnover of £36 million or more to place on record transparency in their supply chains. Such modern slavery statements are a welcome process to deal with these problems but, if we are honest and up front, the implementation is simply not working properly. At a meeting of the Public Accounts Committee, on which I sit, the Home Office confirmed that it does not compile a list of companies that may be required to make a declaration, does not have a list of those that have done so and, importantly, does not maintain the database. Any further analysis of the information in the declarations is made by non-governmental organisations.

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

On that point, will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating TISCreport, which was developed and is based in Bristol? It has looked at the 18,000 companies with revenue of more than £36 million, and it is the only organisation that maintains a database of the companies that comply with section 54. The database is now searchable via a zoomable map. Will he encourage the Minister to engage with TISCreport and to allow it to help the Home Office in its endeavours?

[Gareth Snell]

My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. NGOs are doing some excellent work but, fundamentally, I believe that such work should be done by the Home Office and by Government—because we are talking about something set out in statute—rather than relying on the benevolence of third-party organisations.

Despite the work of the organisation in my hon. Friend’s constituency, and even though the matter has been progressed, I know that the Minister is aware of concerns about how section 54 is being implemented. Back in April I asked a question in the Chamber of a Department for International Development Minister, who confirmed that a hub was being set up. Will the Minister present today confirm what progress has been made on that hub?

What is really worrying, however, is that an investigation by The Guardian demonstrated that of the companies that had made a modern slavery statement, more than two thirds had failed to refer specifically to the risk of modern slavery. They had made a declaration, but it did not comply with the requirements of the Act. More worryingly, only 19% of all agricultural businesses that should be making a statement have done so, and that is an area in which exploitation could be rife.

Unfortunately, because everything is being done by third-party NGOs, the ability to compel necessary information simply does not exist. Until the Government introduce something on a formal statutory basis, more and more organisations will seek to put aside their responsibilities. The Co-operative Group, which I shall talk about later, has estimated that it is cheaper and easier for organisations simply to ignore the requirements than it is for them to produce the statements and submit them. There is no validation and so no penalty for failing to make a declaration.

The section 54 requirement also applies only to commercial organisations. The public sector, however, is a huge spender of money—billions and billions of pounds are spent in procurement—yet no public authority is required to make declarations to demonstrate their actions to reduce modern slavery. Were we to extend section 54 to cover public bodies and authorities, that might not stop certain aspects of modern slavery happening, but we would be able to have oversight of where the billions of pounds in public procurement are ultimately being spent, and Members could look for the impact on modern slavery.

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) for securing this important debate and for introducing another six tests to remember. I support every single one of them.

I will make a very short speech—not least because I have only two minutes—about the unintended priority that this became as a consequence of being the new MP for Bristol North West. I grew up and have lived in my constituency for most of my life, but I never knew that modern slavery was taking place on my doorstep; it was not until I was elected that I came face to face with it, both through constituents in my surgeries and as a result of raids in Bristol thanks to the excellent work of Avon and Somerset police. I now understand about Bristol’s excellent history with Unseen, which provides the national modern slavery helpline, which was established and is based in Bristol.

TISCreport, which I have already mentioned, is looking at supply chains’ compliance with the Modern Slavery Act. I should add that even though I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central that the Home Office should have a statutory responsibility to ensure that data is used properly, that does not mean that it cannot work with non-governmental bodies to ensure it is done in the best possible way.

In my final minute, let me say that this is not just a domestic issue but an international one. We in the United Kingdom have something to be proud of in our work at home as well as abroad. I had the pleasure of being in Nairobi for 36 hours with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association during the summer recess, where I saw at first hand the impact that British money is having on the ground in Kenya not only in aid but in security. British police officers were working with Kenyan police officers to massively increase the enforcement potential in investigation on the ground, although interestingly there was a lack of resourcing for victim support—something that was pledged to change as a consequence of the CPA organising meetings between non-governmental organisations and Kenyan politicians.

My one question for the Minister—I am sorry to be the one to introduce the Brexit word—is whether the projects on the ground in Kenya and other countries that are co-funded by the European Union and the United Kingdom will continue to be funded in a no-deal scenario.

Data Protection Bill [ Lords ] (Eighth sitting)

Darren Jones Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

I want to add some further comments in support of the new clauses.

The Science and Technology Committee, one of the two Committees that I sit on, has had a detailed debate on algorithmic fairness. It is important to understand what the new clauses seek to do. There is a nervousness about regulating algorithms or making them completely transparent, because there are commercial sensitivities in the coding in respect of the way they are published or otherwise.

These new clauses seek to put the obligation on to the human beings who produce the algorithms to think about things such as equalities law to ensure that we do not hardcode biases into them, as my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge said on Second Reading. It is important to understand how the new clauses apply to the inputs—what happens in the black box of the algorithm—and the outputs. The inputs to an algorithm are that a human codes and sets its rules, and that they put the data into it for it to make a decision.

The new clauses seek to say that the human must have a consistent and legal obligation to understand the equalities impacts of their coding and data entry into the black box of the algorithm to avoid biases coming out at the other end. As algorithms are increasingly used, that is an important technical distinction to understand, and it is why the new clauses are very sensible. On that basis, I hope the Government will support them.

[The Chair]

I call the Minister, whose birthday it is today.

--- Later in debate ---

[Liam Byrne]

That sounds like a terrifying application; my hon. Friend’s daughter very much has my sympathies. He is absolutely right. Lord Knight made this point with such power in the other place. The technology is advancing so quickly, and schools know that if they can monitor things in new, more forensic ways, that helps them to do their job of improving children’s education. However, it has costs and consequences too. I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will look sympathetically on the task of teachers, as they confront this 200-and-heaven-knows-what-page Bill.

[Darren Jones (Bristol North West) (Lab)]

Does my right hon. Friend share my concerns that, in response to a number of written parliamentary questions that I tabled, it became clear that the Government gave access to the national pupil database, which is controlled by the Government, to commercial entities, including newspapers such as The Daily Telegraph?

[Liam Byrne]

Yes. My hon. Friend has done an extraordinary job of exposing that minor scandal. I am surprised that it has not had more attention in the House, but hopefully once the Bill has passed it is exactly the kind of behaviour that we can begin to police rather more effectively.

I am sure that Ministers will recognise that there is a need for this. No doubt their colleagues in the Department for Education are absolutely all over it. I was talking to a headteacher in the Minister’s own constituency recently—an excellent headteacher, in an excellent school, who is a personal friend. The horror with which headteachers regard the arrival of the GDPR is something to behold. Heaven knows, our school leaders and our teachers have enough to do. I call on Ministers to make their task, their lives, and their mission that bit easier by accepting the new clause.

[Liam Byrne]

I am reassured by that and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 17

Personal data ethics advisory board and ethics code of practice

‘(1) The Secretary of State must appoint an independent Personal Data Ethics Advisory Board (“the board”).

(2) The board’s functions, in relation to the processing of personal data to which the GDPR and this Act applies, are—

(a) to monitor further technical advances in the use and management of personal data and their implications for the rights of data subjects;

(b) to monitor the protection of the individual and collective rights and interests of data subjects in relation to their personal data;

(c) to ensure that trade-offs between the rights of data subjects and the use of management of personal data are made transparently, inclusively, and with accountability;

(d) to seek out good practices and learn from successes and failures in the use and management of personal data;

(e) to enhance the skills of data subjects and controllers in the use and management of personal data.

(3) The board must work with the Commissioner to prepare a data ethics code of practice for data controllers, which must—

(a) include a duty of care on the data controller and the processor to the data subject;

(b) provide best practice for data controllers and processors on measures, which in relation to the processing of personal data—

(i) reduce vulnerabilities and inequalities;

(ii) protect human rights;

(iii) increase the security of personal data; and

(iv) ensure that the access, use and sharing personal data is transparent, and the purposes of personal data processing are communicated clearly and accessibly to data subjects.

(4) The code must also include guidance in relation to the processing of personal data in the public interest and the substantial public interest.

(5) Where a data controller or processor does not follow the code under this section, the data controller or processor is subject to a fine to be determined by the Commissioner.

(6) The board must report annually to the Secretary of State.

(7) The report in subsection (6) may contain recommendations to the Secretary of State and the Commissioner relating to how they can improve the processing of personal data and the protection of data subjects’ rights by improving methods of—

(a) monitoring and evaluating the use and management of personal data;

(b) sharing best practice and setting standards for data controllers; and

(c) clarifying and enforcing data protection rules.

(8) The Secretary of State must lay the report made under subsection (6) before both Houses of Parliament.

(9) The Secretary of State must, no later than one year after the day on which this Act receives Royal Assent, lay before both Houses of Parliament draft regulations in relation to the functions of the Personal Data Ethics Advisory Board as listed in subsections (2), (3), (4), (6) and (7) of this section.

(10) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.’—(Darren Jones.)

This new clause would establish a statutory basis for a Data Ethics Advisory Board.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Darren Jones]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

New clause 17 is in my name and that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill. I do not take it personally that my other hon. Friends have not signed up to it; that was probably my fault for not asking them to do so in advance.

The new clause would bring a statutory footing to the data and artificial intelligence ethics unit, which I am very pleased that the Government have now funded and established, through the spring statement, in the Minister’s Department. It comes off the back of conversations with the Information Commissioner in Select Committee about the differing roles of enforcing legislation and of having a public debate about what is right and wrong and what the boundaries are in this ever-changing space. The commissioner was very clear that we need to have that debate with the public, but that it is not for her to do it. The ICO is an enforcer of legislation. The commissioner has a lot on her plate and is challenged by her own resource as it is. She felt that the new unit in the Department would be a good place to have the debate about technology ethics, and I support that assertion.

With no disrespect to any colleagues, I do not think that the House of Commons, and perhaps even the Select Committees to a certain extent, necessarily has the time, energy or resource to get into the real detail of some of the technology ethics questions, nor to take them out to the public, who are the people we need to be having the debate with.

The new clause would therefore establish in law that monitoring, understanding and public debate obligation that I, the ICO and others agree ought to exist in the new data ethics unit, but make it clear that enforcement was reserved for the Information Commissioner. I tabled the new clause because, although I welcome the Government’s commitment to the data and AI ethics unit, I feel that there is potential for drift. The new clause would therefore put an anchor in the technology ethics requirement of the unit so that it understands and communicates the ethical issues and does not necessarily get sidetracked into other issues, although it may seek to do that on top of this anchor. However, I think this anchor needs to be placed.

Also, I recognise that the Minister and the Secretary of State supported the recommendation made previously under the Cameron Government and I welcome that, but of course, with an advisory group within the Department, it may be a future Minister’s whim that they no longer wish to be advised on these issues, or it may be the whim of the Treasury—with, potentially, budget cuts—that it no longer wishes to fund the people doing the work. I think that that is not good enough and that putting this provision in the Bill would give some security to the unit for the future.

I will refer to some of the comments made about the centre for data ethics and innovation, which I have been calling the data and AI ethics unit. When it was first discussed, in the autumn Budget of November 2017, the Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the unit would be established

“to enable and ensure safe, ethical and ground-breaking innovation in AI and data-driven technologies. This world-first advisory body will work with government, regulators and industry to lay the foundations for AI adoption”.

Although that is a positive message, it says to me that its job is to lay the foundations for AI adoption. I agree with that as an aim, but it does not mean that at its core is understanding and communicating the ethical challenges that we need to try to understand and legislate for.

I move on to some of the documents from the recruitment advertising for personnel to run the unit from January of this year, which said that the centre will be at the centre of plans to make the UK the best place in the world for AI businesses. Again, that is a positive statement, but one about AI business adoption in this country, not ethical requirements. It also said that the centre would advise on ethical and innovative uses of data-driven tech. Again, that is a positive statement, but I just do not think it is quite at the heart of understanding and communicating and having a debate about the ethics.

My concern is that while all this stuff is very positive, and I agree with the Government that we need to maintain our position as a world leader in artificial intelligence and that it is something we need to be very proud of—especially as we go through the regrettable process of leaving the European Union and the single market, we need to hold on to the strengths we have in the British economy—this week has shown that there is a need for an informed public debate on ethics. As no doubt all members of the Committee have read in my New Statesman article of today, one of the issues we have as the voice of our constituents in Parliament is that in order for our constituents to understand or take a view on what is right or wrong in this quickly developing space, we all need to understand it in the first place—to understand what is happening with our data and in the technology space, to understand what is being done with it and, having understood it, to then to take a view about it. The Cambridge Analytica scandal has been so newsworthy because the majority of people understandably had no idea that all this stuff was happening with their data. How we legislate for and set ethical frameworks must first come from a position of understanding.

That is why the new clause sets out that there should be an independent advisory board. The use of such boards is commonplace across Departments and I hope that would not be a contentious question. Subsection (2) talks about some of the things that that board should do. The Minister will note that the language I have used is quite careful in looking at how the board should monitor developments, monitor the protection of rights and look out for good practice. It does not seek to step on the toes of the Information Commissioner or the powers of the Government, but merely to understand, educate and inform.

The new clause goes on to suggest that the new board would work with the commissioner to put together a code of practice for data controllers. A code of practice with a technology ethics basis is important because it says to every data controller, regardless of what they do or what type of work they do, that we require ethical boundaries to be set and understood in the culture of what we do with big data analytics in this country. In working with the commissioner, this board would add great value to the way that we work with people’s personal data, by setting out that code of practice.

I hope that the new clause adds value to the work that the Minister’s Department is already doing. My hope is that by adding it to the Bill—albeit that current Parliaments cannot of course bind their successors and it could be legislated away in the future—it gives a solid grounding to the concept that we take technology ethical issues seriously, that we seek to understand them properly, not as politicians or as busy civil servants, but as experts who can be out with our stakeholders understanding the public policy consequences, and that we seek to have a proper debate with the public, working with enforcers such as the ICO to set, in this wild west, the boundaries of what is and is not acceptable. I commend the new clause to the Committee and hope that the Government will support it.

[Margot James]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising this very important subject. He is absolutely right. Data analytics have the potential to transform whole sectors of society and the economy—law enforcement and healthcare to name but some. I agree with him that a public debate around the issues is required, and that is one of the reasons why the Government are creating the centre for data ethics and innovation, which he mentioned. The centre will advise the Government and regulators on how they can strengthen and improve the way that data and AI are governed, as well as supporting the innovative and ethical use of that data.

--- Later in debate ---

There is more here that we agree on than disagree on, but the centre for data ethics and innovation, which we are in the process of creating, will, I trust, be the answer to much of the issue raised by the hon. Gentleman in his new clause. I hope that he feels confident enough in that to withdraw it.

[Darren Jones]

I thank the Minister for her co-operative words and for the invitation to be part of this developing area of public policy. Having already plugged my New Statesman article, I will plug a part of it, which is the news that, having worked with some of the all-party parliamentary groups, I am pleased that we will launch a commission on technology ethics with one of the Minister’s colleagues, whose constituency I cannot quite remember, I am afraid, so I cannot make reference to him. But he is excellent.

We look forward to working with industry, stakeholders and politicians on a cross-party basis, to get into the debate about technology ethics. I accept the Minister’s warm words about co-operating on this issue positively, so that hopefully the outcomes of this commission can perhaps help to influence the work of the unit, or centre, and the Government’s response to it.

I would like this new unit to be given a statutory basis, to show its importance. It is vital that it has clout across Government and across Departments, so that it is not just a positive thing when we have Ministers who are willing to take part in and listen to this debate and instead is something that will go on with successive Ministers, should the current Minister be promoted, and with future Governments, too. However, in return for the Minister’s warm words of co-operation, I am happy not to press the new clause to a vote today.

[Daniel Zeichner]

Very briefly, I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on data analytics. This is a subject, of course, that is very dear to our hearts. I will just say that there is a great deal of common ground on it. I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol North West for trying to put it into the Bill, because I, too, think it needs to be put on a statutory basis. However, I will just draw attention to a lot of the very good work that has been done by a whole range of people in bringing forward the new structures.

I will just say again that in general I think we are heaping a huge amount of responsibility on the Information Commissioner; frankly, we are now almost inviting her to save the world. She and her office will need help. So an additional body, with resources, is required.

The Royal Society and the British Academy have done a lot of work on this issue over the last few years. I will conclude by referring back to a comment made by the hon. Member for Gordon, because it is worth saying that the Royal Society and the British Academy state in the conclusions of their report:

“It is essential to have a framework that engenders trust and confidence, to give entrepreneurs and decision-makers the confidence to act now, and to realise the potential of new applications in a way that reflects societal preferences.”

That is exactly the kind of thing we are trying to achieve. This body is essential and it needs to be set up as quickly as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Darren Jones]

I beg to ask leave to withdraw the new clause.

Clause, by leave, withdrawn.

New Clause 20

Automated number plate recognition (No. 2)

“(1) Vehicle registration marks captured by automated number plate recognition systems are personal data.

(2) The Secretary of State shall issue a code of practice in connection with the operation by the police of automated number plate recognition systems.

(3) Any code of practice under subsection (1) shall conform to section 67 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.”—(Liam Byrne.)

This new clause requires the Secretary of State to issue a code of practice in connection with the operation by the police of automated number plate recognition systems, vehicle registration marks captured by which are to be considered personal data in line with the opinion of the Information Commissioner.

Brought up, and read the First time.

[Liam Byrne]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

I will touch on this new clause only very briefly, because I hope the Minister will put my mind at rest with a simple answer. For some time, there has been concern that the way in which data collected by the police through automatic number plate recognition technology is not adequately ordered, organised or policed by a code of practice. A code of practice is probably required to put the police well and truly within the boundaries of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Bill.

With this new clause, we are basically asking the Secretary of State to issue a code of practice in connection with the operation by the police of ANPR systems under subsection (1), and we ask that it conform to section 67 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. I hope the Minister will just say that a code of practice is on the way so we can safely withdraw the new clause.