Police Service of Northern Ireland: Security and Data Protection Breach Debate
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Gavin Robinson
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Police Service of Northern Ireland: Security and Data Protection Breach
Gavin Robinson Excerpts(8 months, 1 week ago)
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Chris Heaton-Harris
I will happily find out the appropriate way of reporting, as the hon. Lady suggests. As I have said, I think this is going to have a very long tail, so the ramifications as it plays out will ripple through the system for a very long time indeed.
Gavin Robinson (Belfast East) (DUP)
On behalf of my colleagues, I welcome the new shadow Secretary of State to his place. I look forward to working with him. I also thank his predecessor for all his efforts to engage with us.
It is important to correct a number of inaccuracies in the Secretary of State’s response. There was no hidden table but, as is common with Excel spreadsheets, there was more than one field. There was human error, but there were five levels of security to assess what was going out, all of which failed. That speaks to systemic failure within the PSNI. I welcome the resignation of the Chief Constable this afternoon and I think it is important that collectively—politically and in society—we all work together. I hope the Secretary of State will support us in this to instil confidence again in the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
Chris Heaton-Harris
I did not know that the hon. Gentleman was such an expert in Excel. I am certainly not, so I am happy to be corrected by him on the detail of that, but I think my statement was pretty thorough and I agree with what he says.