Data Protection and Digital Information (No. 2) Bill

Layla Moran Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 17th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I start by echoing the well wishes to the Secretary of State on her imminent arrival. I am delighted to be here in my first outing as the Lib Dem spokesperson for science, innovation and technology, although in my mind I consider it as the spokesperson for proud geeks. I appreciate that is not a term everyone likes, but as a physics graduate and an MP for Oxford, where we have many fellow-minded geeks, I am proud to call myself that.

Much as this important Bill is geeky and technical—it sounds like it will be an interesting Bill Committee —it integrates into our whole lives. People have spoken about the potential and progress, and I agree to an extent with the comment from the hon. Member for Aberconwy (Robin Millar) about this being the new oil. However, in the context of climate change, there is a lesson for us there. Imagine that we knew then what we know now. We can already see that here. As new as some of these technologies are, and as new as some of these challenges may be, it does feel like, as legislators, we are constantly playing catch-up with this stuff.

We consult and we look, and we know what the problems are and what the issue fundamentally is, but I agree with the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) that we need a bit of vision here. I would argue that what we need is what my former colleague, the former Member for East Dunbartonshire, called for, which is a code of ethics for data and artificial intelligence. I sincerely hope that the Government, with the extra power to the elbow of the new Department, can put some real resource behind that—not in White Papers and thought, but in a proper bit of legislation that answers some of the questions raised earlier about the moral use, for example, of artificial intelligence in war.

Those are important questions. The problem and worry I have is that this Government and others will find themselves constantly on the back foot, unless we talk not just about the geekery and the technical bits—by the sounds of it, there are enough of us in the House who would enjoy doing that—but about the slightly loftier and more important ways that this Bill will connect with society.

In the digital first age, the Government themselves are encouraging those who want to access benefits and every other part of the state to do so digitally. If someone is to be a full citizen of the state, they are required often to give over their data. If someone does not want to engage with the digital realm, it is difficult for them to access the services to which they are entitled. Those are some of the big issues that encircle this Bill. It is fair to make that point on Second Reading, and I urge the Government, and especially the new Department, to give serious thought to how they will knit this all together, because it is incredibly important.

The Liberal Democrats have a few issues with the Bill. I associate myself with the remarks of the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), and in particular what he said in asking who is at the centre of the Bill, which is incredibly important. As liberals, we believe it should always be the citizen. Where there is a conflict of interest between the citizen, business and the state, in our view and in our political ideology, the citizen always comes top. I am not convinced that has been at the heart of the Bill at points. Citizens have been thought about, but were they at the centre of it at every stage? I am afraid that our ability as individuals to access, manipulate and decide who has our data has at various stages got lost.

The concerns we share with others are in four main areas: the Bill will undermine data rights; it will concentrate power with the Secretary of State—notwithstanding potential change in government, that is the sort of thing that Parliament needs to think about in the round, regardless of who is in power; the Bill will further complicate our relationship with Europe, as some have mentioned; and it sets a worrying precedent.

We need to understand where we start from. Only 30% of people in the UK trust that the Government use their data ethically. That means that 70% of people in the UK do not. Polls across the world have shown roughly the same thing. That is a huge level of mistrust, and we need to take it seriously. The Open Rights Group has described the Bill as part of a deregulatory race to the bottom, as the rights and safeguards of data subjects could be downgraded because of the changes proposed.

Clause 5 and schedule 1 to the Bill introduce a whole set of legitimate interests for processing data without consent and with few controls around their application. The Bill changes the definition of personal data, which would reduce the circumstances in which that information is protected. It reforms subject access requests, as others have said. We all run our own small businesses in our offices as MPs. We understand the burden placed on small businesses in particular, but it is absolutely the right of that individual to find out what is held on them in the way that subject access requests allow. If there is a conflict, it is the right of the individual that needs to be protected. The Government assess that the proposal would save about £82 a year—a price worth paying, given the number of consumers whom those businesses on average are looking after. There is an important hierarchy of user use that is not entirely captured by what the Government have been saying so far.

Big Brother Watch has said:

“The revised Data Protection and Digital Information Bill poses serious threats to Brits’ privacy. The Government are determined to tear up crucial privacy and data protection rights that protect the public from intrusive online surveillance and automated-decision making in high-risk areas. This bonfire of safeguards will allow all sorts of actors to harvest and exploit our data more than ever before. It is completely unacceptable to sacrifice the British public’s privacy and data protection rights on the false promise of convenience.”

I am deeply concerned that far from restoring confidence in data protection, the Bill sets a dangerous precedent for a future in which rights and safeguards are undermined. I have listened to what the Secretary of State has said at the Dispatch Box. I sincerely hope that those safeguards that the Government want to keep in place will remain in place, but we should be listening to those third-party groups that have scrutinised this Bill in some detail. There are legitimate concerns that need to be addressed.

My other concern is the concentration of power with the Secretary of State. As I have said before, while it would be lovely to think that all Secretaries of State and all Governments will all think the same on this and that we all have the same principles, my deep concern is that one day that will not happen. There is an important part for Parliament to play, especially when legislation is running behind what is happening in society, in raising the issues in real time. My worry is that by acting through secondary legislation, which we end up scrutinising less and less often, the Government do not have a mechanism for Parliament to feed in as society changes, which can be year-on-year. We need some way, whether through a Select Committee or whatever, to be able to keep pace with changes in society.

Finally, I want to talk about adequacy and in particular its loss being a real concern. I am pleased to hear that being raised on all sides in the House, which is a good sign, but I hope that this is not a case where little then gets changed in the Bill, as we have seen many times over. We could have it both ways: we can diverge from EU standards if we make the protection of the rights of the citizens stronger. Some who have mentioned divergence, however, have spoken about a weakening, which I worry will lead to a loss of adequacy.

In closing, will the Minister give a cast-iron guarantee to businesses that rely on it—and to our researchers who equally rely on it—that adequacy will not be watered down but will be one of the key tenets of how we move forward? Certainty for businesses and our researchers is incredibly important, and if there is any suggestion that changes in the Bill will affect that, they must be pulled immediately.