Business of the House

Ian Murray Excerpts

Thursday 19th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Andrea Leadsom]

My hon. Friend has made a shocking announcement, and if he wants to write to me giving details of what he saw or heard, I shall be happy to take it up with the Home Secretary on his behalf.

[Ian Murray (Edinburgh South) (Lab)]

The data protection legislation currently going through the House is a welcome update to our legislative framework, but may we have an urgent statement from the relevant Minister on the unintended consequences that this legislation might have for MPs being able to communicate with their constituents?

[Andrea Leadsom]

The hon. Gentleman might be aware that a number of Members have raised this issue with me in recent days. Both the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Information Commissioner’s Office are putting out further advice for MPs. My own parliamentary staff undertook the first round of training, and found it much too generic: there was not enough detail about the consequences for pre-existing data we hold on constituents who have contacted us before, and so on. So there is now a huge effort under way to ensure that MPs get the advice they need so that they can be absolutely clear about the impact this has on their relationship with their constituents. To be clear, it is vital that our relationship with—our ability to communicate with, about and on behalf of—our constituents is not impaired in any way.