Data Protection and Digital Information Bill

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 29th November 2023 Commons Chamber

It is crucial that we do everything possible to ease the administrative burden on police officers, to free up thousands of policing hours and get police back on to the frontline, supporting communities and tackling crime. My new clause would go a long way to achieving that, by facilitating the free flow of personal data between the police and the CPS, which would speed up the criminal justice process and reduce the burden on the taxpayer—a stated aim of the Government. How disheartening it must be for a police officer to take time and patience redacting data only to find that the case does not go forward, as occurs in 25% of cases. Common sense must prevail.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to the six amendments that I have tabled to the Bill. I am grateful to Mr Speaker for selecting amendment 11, which I will press to a vote. It is an extremely important amendment that I hope will unite Members across the House, and I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) for confirming his party’s support for it.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I add mine and that of the Labour party, too.

[Kate Osborne]

I thank my hon. Friend for that.

I have been contacted by many people and organisations about issues with the Bill. The British Medical Association and the National AIDS Trust have serious concerns, which I share, about the sharing of healthcare data and the failure to consider the negative impact of losing public trust in how the healthcare system manages data.

The Bill is an opportunity to adapt the UK’s data laws to strengthen accountability and data processing, but it currently fails to do so. It provides multiple Henry VIII powers that will enable future Secretaries of State to avoid parliamentary scrutiny and write their own rules. It undermines the independence of the Information Commissioner’s Office in a way that provides less protection to individuals and gives more power to the Government to restrict and interfere with the role of the commissioner.

The Government’s last-minute amendments to their own Bill, to change the rules on direct marketing in elections and give themselves extensive access to the bank accounts of benefit claimants, risk alienating people even further. I hope the House tells Ministers that it is entirely improper—in fact, it is completely unacceptable—for the Government to make those amendments, which require full parliamentary scrutiny, at this late stage.

We know people already do not trust the Government with NHS health data. The Bill must not erode public trust even more. We have seen concerns about data with GP surgeries and the recent decision to award Palantir the contract for the NHS’s federated data platform. A 2019 YouGov survey showed that only 30% of people trust the Government to use data about them ethically. I imagine that figure is much lower now. How do the Government plan to establish trust with the millions of people on pension credit, state pension, universal credit, child benefit and others whose bank accounts—millions of bank accounts—they will be able to access under the Bill? As my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) and others have asked, legislative powers already exist where benefit fraud is suspected, so why is the amendment necessary?

My amendment 11 seeks to ensure that special category data, such as that relating to a person’s health, is adequately protected in workplace settings. As the Bill is currently worded, it could allow employers to share an employee’s personal data within their organisation without a justifiable reason. The health data of all workers will be at risk if the amendment falls. We must ensure that employees’ personal data, including health data, is adequately protected in workplace settings and not shared with individuals who do not need to process it.

The National AIDS Trust is concerned that the Bill’s current wording could mean that people’s HIV status can be shared without their consent in the workplace, using the justification that it is “necessary for administrative purposes”. That could put people living with HIV at risk of harassment and discrimination in the workplace. The sharing of individuals’ HIV status can lead to people living with HIV experiencing further discrimination and increase their risk of harassment or even violence.

I am concerned about the removal of checks on the police processing of an individual’s personal data. We must have such checks. The House has heard of previous incidents involving people living with HIV whose HIV status was shared without their consent by police officers, both internally within their police station and in the wider communities they serve. Ensuring that police officers must justify why they have accessed an individual’s personal data is vital for evidence in cases of police misconduct, including where a person’s HIV status is shared inappropriately by the police or when not relevant to an investigation into criminal activity.

The Bill is not robust enough on the transfer of data internationally. We need to ensure that there is a mandated annual review of the data protection test for each country so that the data protection regime is secure, and that people’s personal data, such as their LGBTQ+ identity or HIV status, will not be shared inappropriately. LGBTQ+ identities are criminalised in many countries, and the transfer of personal data to those countries could put an individual, their partner or their family members at real risk of harm.

I have tabled six amendments, which would clarify what an “administrative purpose” is when organisations process employees’ personal data; retain the duty on police forces to justify why they have accessed an individual’s personal data; ensure that third countries’ data protection tests are reviewed annually; and ensure that the Secretary of State seeks the views of the Information Commissioner when assessing other countries’ suitability for the international transfer of data. I urge all Members to vote for amendment 11, and I urge the Government and the other place to take on board all the points raised in today’s debate and in amendments 12 to 16 in my name.

[John Penrose]

I rise to speak to new clause 2, which, given its low number, everyone will realise I tabled pretty early in the Bill’s passage. It addresses the smart data clauses that sit as a block in the middle of the Bill.

It is wonderful to see the degree of cross-party support for the smart data measures. The shadow Minister’s remarks show that the Labour Front Bench have drunk deeply from the Kool-Aid, in the same way as the rest of us. It is vital that the measures move forward as fast and as safely as possible, because they have huge potential for our economy and our GDP growth. As the Minister rightly said, they seek to build on the undoubted world-leading success of our existing position in open banking.

My new clause is fairly straightforward, and I hope that the Minister will elaborate in his closing remarks on the two further measures that it seeks, which I and a number of other people urged the Secretary of State to take in a letter back in July. To underline the breadth of support for the measures, the letter was signed by the chief data and analytics officer of the NatWest Group, leading figures in the Financial Data and Technology Association, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Ozone API, the director general of the Payments Association, the founder and chief executive of Icebreaker One—who is, incidentally, now also chair of the Smart Data Council—the founder of Open Banking Excellence, and the CEO of the Investing and Saving Alliance. I am making not only a cross-party point, but a point that has widespread support among the very organisations involved in smart data, and particularly the open banking success that we all seek to replicate.

If we are to replicate our success in open banking across other parts of our economy, we need two things to be true. First, we must make sure that all data standards applied in other sectors are interoperable with the data standards that already exist in open banking. The point is that data standards will be different in each sector, because each sector’s data is held in different ways, in different places and by different people, under different foundational legal powers, but they must all converge on a set of standards that means that health data can safely and securely talk to, say, energy data or banking data.

Following on from my earlier intervention, when the Minister was talking about Government new clause 27, if we are to have data standards that allow different bits of data to be exchanged safely and securely, it is essential that we do not end up with siloed standards that do not interoperate and that cannot talk to each other, between the different sectors. Otherwise, we will completely fail to leverage our existing lead in open banking, and we will effectively have to reinvent the wheel from scratch every time we open up a new sector.

I hope that, by the time the Minister responds to the various points raised in this debate, inspiration will have struck and he will be able to confirm that, although we might have different data standards, it is the Government’s intention that those standards will all be interoperable so that we avoid the problem of balkanisation, if I can put it that way. I hope he will be able to provide us with a strong reassurance in that direction.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Thursday 26th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

I thank my hon. Friend for enabling me to lay out some important points. Channel 4 is being sold as a public service broadcaster and the criteria that he has outlined will absolutely be in there. If anybody cares to read the broadcasting White Paper, we have put a number of things into the media Bill—not just the sale of Channel 4—that will help Channel 4, including provisions on prominence and the introduction of a code that will put all public service broadcasters and streamers on a level playing field in terms of what they can broadcast in the UK. It will be sold as a public service broadcaster and there will be a requirement to continue to make distinctive British content, such as “Derry Girls”, “Gogglebox” and all those programmes that are distinctly British. There will be a requirement to do that, as well as what he has listed.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

T7. I put on record my best wishes to the two opposing sides around my constituency, the men’s and women’s teams of Newcastle United and Sunderland AFC, on a successful season for all involved. To stay on football, I and many of my constituents are disappointed that the north-east has not been selected to host any games in the upcoming 2022 women’s Euros and the closest game will take place more than 120 miles away in Rotherham. Can the Secretary of State tell the House why the north-east will not be home to any of the games? What benefits will people from Jarrow and the north-east gain from that highly anticipated football tournament?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Nigel Huddleston)]

There is always overwhelming demand from our fantastic sports facilities around the country to host those amazing events. That is why we are aggressively pursuing many international and other sporting events so we can make sure that the love is spread across the whole country. I am sorry that the hon. Lady is disappointed on this occasion. Those decisions are not made directly by Government, but we work with all the organising authorities to try to ensure that we level up sporting opportunities across the country. I am happy to speak to her about future opportunities.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Attorney General]

I regularly visit CPS teams around the country, and there is a huge amount of dedication and commitment to improving performance. No one is under any illusion about the scale of improvement needed. However, we are seeing huge measures, with investment and resources being ploughed into the system nationwide—whether that is Operation Soteria, or the pilots in the south-east and in Avon and Somerset. All around the country, we are seeing better practices, focusing on closer collaboration between the police and the prosecutor, earlier investigative advice and more support for victims. We now have some changes to the disclosure guidelines, which are going to focus on supporting victims. I think that, cumulatively, we are going to see improvements and the early data gives me grounds for optimism.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

2. What steps she is taking to increase the number of prosecutions relating to violence against women and girls.

[Ruth Cadbury (Brentford and Isleworth) (Lab)]

3. What steps she is taking to increase the number of prosecutions relating to violence against women and girls.

[The Attorney General (Suella Braverman)]

I have seen at first hand the horrendous damage that these crimes do to victims, particularly when I was honoured to visit the Havens, which is a sexual assault referral centre, and that is why tackling violence against women and girls is a central mission of this Government. Supporting victims from the report to the police right through to trial and sentencing is a service that all victims deserve. I am working very closely with the Lord Chancellor and the Home Secretary so that we get a whole-system response to this challenge. I am very pleased to see that there has been a notable change in the volume of prosecutions, which has increased by more than 10% from quarter 2 to quarter 3 in 2021-22.

[Kate Osborne]

I thank the Attorney General for her response. In 2020, one in 20 victims of sexual assault reported being drugged or spiked by the perpetrator responsible for their assault, and that was before the terrifying reports last year of young women being injected. Given the scale and seriousness of this spiking epidemic, does the Attorney General regard it as acceptable that just 102 people were convicted for spiking offences in the whole of 2021? What more is being done to tackle this?

[The Attorney General]

I know that the Home Office is looking very closely at the issue of spiking. There will be movement on this because we take it very seriously, and we are very concerned about the increasing number of incidents relating to the spiking of victims as a way of attacking and sexually assaulting them. In the data we are beginning to see on how the system is responding—whether that is the number of referrals the police are making to the CPS, the number of charges that the CPS is passing on to trial and for prosecution, or the actual conviction rate—we are seeing improvements. We want to go further, of course, but we are seeing early signs of improvement.

Football Governance

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Elliott. I thank all those who have signed the petitions and the 9,000-plus people who responded to the Committee’s survey.

More than 10 million people sat down yesterday to watch England play Croatia. Football is our national sport, and football clubs stand as historic institutions in our communities across the UK. Although I acknowledge that a move towards a 50+1 ownership model for clubs in England cannot be achieved overnight, the forthcoming review must be used as an opportunity to rebalance the current ownership structure in favour of match- going supporters.

In April, I co-ordinated a letter from more than 60 MPs and peers, cross-party, calling for a simple change in the law to force Premier League and English Football League clubs to give their long-standing season ticket holders a 51% voting majority on any decision affecting a club’s identity or future. The ESL debacle highlighted why it is essential that supporters are given the majority vote in their clubs. It underlines a growing sense that our clubs are all too often run in the interest of remote and unaccountable owners.

The Glazer family takeover of Manchester United is a prime example. Before the Glazers took over in 2005, Manchester United had no debts. Today, the club’s net debt stands at around £455.5 million, yet the Glazer family continue to pocket huge dividends. The forthcoming review must recommend additional criteria to prevent rogue owners from buying clubs solely for their own gain.

I represent thousands of Newcastle United fans in my Jarrow constituency. Their club has stagnated under Mike Ashley, who applies to his football club the same business model as that used by his Sports Direct empire—minimalism, low spending and little or no regard to decent, hard-working people. It would be remiss of me not to mention that I also have a few thousand Sunderland fans in my constituency.

There is no doubt that the football pyramid needs reform and improvement. It must ensure that a proportion of money from Premier League clubs trickles down to teams below them and to grassroots football, in turn securing the future of the game. It goes without saying how much grassroots clubs matter to our communities. Earlier this year, Hebburn Town won the FA vase, which got the town noticed and had a massive impact on Hebburn’s civic pride. However, a huge number of our grassroots teams are on the brink. If they go, it will not just hit the football pyramid, but tear the heart out of many post-industrial communities that are already struggling. That is why it is essential that the forthcoming review recommends an independent financial regulator to represent the interests of supporters, protect against bad practices and generally seek to prioritise the wider good of the game rather than allowing clubs to act solely in their self-interest.

Football must act as an equaliser. Clubs must do all they can to ensure social justice in their own communities and in the wider football community. We cannot allow further disconnection between fans and their teams while a wealthy few line their pockets, because, ultimately, football is nothing without its fans.

Elected Women Representatives: Online Abuse

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

I thank the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) for this important debate.

Women are under-represented at all levels of decision making, which means that action is urgently needed from the Government and all political parties to ensure that the voices of women in all our diversity are heard. Only 34% of MPs, and only 35% of elected councillors in England and Wales, are women. Those statistics matter because when women are not equally represented in positions of power, we do not get an equal say in policy making, which inevitably leads to unequal outcomes.

It is crucial that we do all we can to remove the barriers to women’s representation in politics, including online threats and the experience of violence, abuse and harassment. Violence and abuse against women in politics, both online and offline, not only prevent women from standing for election; they drive those who have already been elected to leave politics early, as we have heard. I am pleased to see the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) contributing to this debate. It is a real shame that his is the only contribution from a male colleague, other than my hon. Friend the Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson), of course.

It is a sad fact that women politicians who are black, Asian or from an ethnic minority background face an increased risk of abuse based on their race, as well as their gender. As highlighted by Amnesty International, in the six weeks prior to the 2017 general election women MPs in Westminster from those backgrounds received 35% more abusive tweets than white women MPs.

Those statistics become even more shocking when we consider that there are just 37 ethnic minority MPs in the House of Commons right now. That is just 5.7% of all MPs. Once again, the well documented disproportionate impact of the pandemic on BAME communities highlights why it is important that barriers preventing women of colour from standing for office are also broken down so that policy can be effectively influenced in this area by those with a diverse lived experience.

I hope that the Minister can share the Government’s wider strategy on the increase in online abuse and extremism due to lockdown. It is clear that the increase in online abuse is posing a real threat to democracy and equal participation. Equal Power data shows that there has been a big increase in the number of women saying that they are unlikely to put themselves forward in an election in the space of the last 18 months. In December 2019, 59% of women surveyed said that they were unlikely to stand as an MP, with 44% saying that they were unlikely to stand as councillor. That figure has risen if there were an election within the year—just a year on from the start of the pandemic—to 74% unlikely to stand as an MP and 62% unlikely to stand as a councillor.

I agree with the Centenary Action Group that the online harms Bill is an opportunity to tackle online abuse against women and girls, including elected representatives. However, there is concern that the White Paper falls short when addressing the disproportionate levels of online harm faced by women and those with protected characteristics. I hope that the Minister can agree that the online harms Bill must include gender-based abuse as a priority and recognise the compounding harm experienced by those with multiple protected characteristics rather than characterise them as separate issues. Abuse of any nature, online or offline, is unacceptable. It damages both democracy and equality.

Oral Answers to Questions

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question, and we understand the strength of feeling on this. The Secretary of State met Sir Elton John recently as well to discuss the issue. We care passionately about finding a solution to this, which is why we set up the DCMS-led working group on creative and cultural touring. It involves representatives from across the creative and cultural touring sectors and all the key Government Departments that have a handle on this, and we are working through all the issues and all the options to help the sectors resume touring as easily as possible when it is safe to do so, but, as the hon. Lady said, the priority is getting touring performers the information and support they need to tour, and, crucially, working bilaterally to ensure the process is as smooth and seamless as possible when they are able to do so.

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Oliver Dowden)]

This month’s Budget provided further support to sports, arts, tourism, heritage and creative industries, including an extra £700 million to help cultural and sports venues reopen their doors when restrictions ease, and an extension to our hugely successful film and TV production restart scheme. The Budget also included several measures to put tech and digital connectivity at the heart of our recovery, including half a billion pounds for the Help to Grow scheme, and last week I published our 10 tech priorities for the coming year.

As we move from rescue to recovery, we have announced a number of pilots to help get people back, including at the FA cup final. I met the events research programme again on Tuesday; as a first step, I look forward to the return of grassroots sports on 29 March.

[Kate Osborne]

As highlighted earlier by the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden), the FA vase final between Hebburn Town and Consett AFC has been rescheduled to take place behind closed doors at Wembley stadium on 3 May. This is the biggest match in Hebburn Town FC’s history, so I want to add my support on this issue. Will the Secretary of State work with the FA to make the final a pilot event for allowing the safe return of spectators to such sporting events?

[Oliver Dowden]

I share the hon. Lady’s desire to get sports fans back in stadiums as quickly as we can, as has been highlighted by my colleagues on the Government Benches. We have already set out a road map, and I think it is important to people that we stick to that road map, which would see fans returning socially distanced from 17 May.

We have already set out a pilot for the FA cup final. It is important to understand what these pilots are about. They are about testing fans coming into and out of stadiums; they are not windows to allow extra events to happen. We will of course keep this under review, and if there were a possibility, of course I would grab it.

Coronation Street: 60th Anniversary

Kate Osborne Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this debate, and I congratulate all the team who work on “Coronation Street” on reaching this milestone. Does she agree that “Coronation Street” should be recognised for its groundbreaking storylines over the years? She mentioned the first trans character in a British soap in, I think, 1998 and how “Coronation Street” has sensitively highlighted social issues such as that, teen pregnancy, domestic violence and male rape.

[Tracy Brabin]

That is a great intervention, because wasn’t it groundbreaking? So many families watching that storyline in their living room may not have understood the humanity or the difficulties of being trans in 21st-century Britain, but they loved Hayley. It opens people’s mind to things they may not necessarily have experienced, so my hon. Friend is absolutely right. Those script writers pushed the boundaries. They were very brave to have that storyline, but we loved her. We really did love that couple so much. It was absolutely heartbreaking.

To pick up on a couple of other storylines: Aidan’s suicide, which led to more calls to the Samaritans than they have ever had; Shona’s memory loss; revenge porn; racism, with the writers working closely with Doreen Lawrence to make it authentic and to give it credibility; and James, a young gay footballer struggling against homophobia. And, right up to recent days, with Bethany Platt’s sexual exploitation, David Platt’s male rape ordeal, Yasmeen’s marital coercive control and, as was mentioned, the sad death of baby Oliver. Never shying away from a difficult storyline and shining a light into the lived experience of others is what our soap operas do best. They strive to inform as well as to entertain.