Internet of Things: Regulation

Debate between Liam Byrne and Matt Warman

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Matt Warman]

The hon. Lady pre-empts my next point: all of this is predicated on consent. The consumer has to understand that they are giving up their data for a particular purpose and a particular benefit. As the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham (Jon Cruddas) said in what was a fascinating speech—albeit one where I wondered if I had at times transcended, if not humanity, at least this debate—these are fundamental issues that have effects far beyond what we might think of in an arcane debate about the ownership of data. I commend the approach that says we are dealing with issues that go far beyond a debate about technology, which will have an impact on huge aspects of humanity itself, whether we get them right or wrong. That is why it is important to consider them in that wider way.

The hon. Lady was right to point out that, in some ways, the internet of things represents a whole new chapter of how technology is becoming more common in our homes and making our lives easier and more enjoyable, but potentially also more fraught with decisions that we need to be aware we are making. I will trump the hon. Lady’s numbers: Statista says that by 2025, there will be 75 billion internet-connected devices worldwide—I am sure other analysts are available to provide even higher numbers. In our estimates, that translate to some 15 devices per household by next year. The internet of things is very real; it is already with us.

[Liam Byrne]

Before the Minister moves on, I just want to clarify one point. Is it his position to accept that data that is generated as user data does have an economic value, but that it is basically fine for the individual to surrender that economic value through the way in which they consent to use a service?

[Matt Warman]

I feel like the right hon. Gentleman is going to accuse me of wilfully misunderstanding his question, but it is obviously fine for an individual to choose what they do with their own data. If that involves, as he puts it, surrendering the data for a particular purpose, that is their decision to make. I am not sure that that is quite the question he was asking. The point about consent being absolutely in the hands of the user is the most important one to make. That is why the cyber-security of the products that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne central referred to is so hugely important, in many ways; it is why we have put so much effort into delivering the code of practice for consumer IOT security.

The hon. Lady mentioned the sale of potentially insecure devices, which is one of the key planks that we are seeking to address. People want to have implicit trust in their devices and they need to have confidence in how their data is being used, not just when they first purchase that device but into the future as well.

[Liam Byrne]

The Minister is helpfully helping me join some dots. Why does he think that it is right for the Government to intervene to ensure that the consumer has particular cyber-security protections but not to ensure that the consumer enjoys any particular economic protections, for example around the value that is created through third-party use of their data?

[Matt Warman]

It is obviously about a balance between different situations. The Government, in a host of ways, provide a degree of opportunity for the kind of protection that the right hon. Gentleman seeks. In other fields there are already opportunities for redress in extreme circumstances. In some ways he and the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central are asking for greater coherence in this space, and others. It is precisely for that reason that my Department is developing the strategies that they both referred to. On the one hand he seems to attack the bonfire of the quangos, but on the other he seemed to want fewer regulators, so I am almost reduced to asking what his favourite number is.

[Liam Byrne]

My point is simply that according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer I will soon not be allowed to sell my labour for less than £10.50 an hour. The Government have put a floor on the economic freedom that I enjoy, and that is giving me a degree of economic protection. Why does not the same principle apply to the way in which my data as opposed to my labour is exploited?

[Matt Warman]

That is a philosophically interesting question but it is also obvious that at the moment data is readily given up in exchange for a service. I am not sure whether the right hon. Gentleman would therefore seek to put a value on the service and say, “That service, whether offered by Facebook or whoever, should not be worth less than a certain amount.” That seems to be the logical conclusion of his argument, which is why I say it is perhaps more an interesting philosophical question than a practical one.

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[Matt Warman]

Essentially I agree with the hon. Gentleman that it is obvious that not everyone reads the terms and conditions of every single thing they have signed up to for any website; but it seems to me that Government’s role in this space is not to stop people making those decisions. It is to make sure that people have a better understanding of the decisions they make, and that they trust the companies that are doing whatever it may be with their data. That obviously requires us to put certain constraints on the behaviour of companies, as we do in every other circumstance. However—and I do not think the hon. Gentleman is suggesting this—it should surely not be for us to say that people should not be allowed to make certain decisions. I think that on the Government side of the House we would be keen to free people up to make whatever decisions they reasonably want to make.

[Liam Byrne]

The Minister is being incredibly generous and this is the last time I shall intervene. To round out the picture that my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) is presenting, network effects mean, obviously, that in social media land we have monopolies—or, if not monopolies, certainly oligopolies. It has long been an established principle of consumer welfare protection that there should therefore be some kind of price protection. In a debate about how we protect and enhance the economic welfare of the citizen if we do not recognise a defined value for their data—which they are not freely surrendering into a free market, but giving over to a monopoly—surely the quid pro quo is some kind of price regulation on the other side. The Minister cannot have it both ways.

[Matt Warman]

The right hon. Gentleman raises a lot of points in one short paragraph. I understand what he accuses me of seeking, when he speaks of having it both ways. Actually the services that are offered digitally, ostensibly free, are different from services in a physical world where we might talk about the kind of monopoly that he has mentioned. In that sense, all he is doing is underlining why we need to get things right, in a way where the digital challenges are understood, without reinventing the wheel and pretending that all online challenges are necessarily different from those in the physical world. It is an emerging picture, which is why I refer back to the technology innovation strategy that we published in June 2019 and that includes new measures, such as the Spark procurement programme, to enable Government and the wider public sector to benefit from new digital technologies and the service that can be provided by stimulating the UK’s world-leading tech sector. It is also why we set up the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, which will allow us to consider how we might best benefit from those opportunities and ensure that we seek not to design in the kind of prejudices that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central mentioned. One of its first papers is on smart speakers and voice assistants and on how industry and Government can work together to ensure that the products do what they are supposed to and that users consent to them.

We should also be mindful that the 75 billion devices, or however many there turn out to be, will have a physical environmental impact. I am therefore pleased that as part of its resources and waste strategy, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has committed to updating the existing guidance for local authorities on managing the collection of smart items and similar electricals. That might sound like a minor point, but it is probably less minor than others.

The hon. Lady mentioned the Prime Minister’s speech at the United Nations General Assembly. I am not delivering the rhetorical flourishes that he delivered late at night at the UN, but it is important to say that he made that speech in that location because this country is already a world leader in this area in so many ways. It is right that our Prime Minister is addressing these issues and the legitimate public concern.

It is also right that, as several hon. Members have mentioned, when we seek to regulate in this area and on online harms, we in this country and across the parties should be proud that the UK is a liberal democracy that seeks to lead the way. We have an opportunity to shape a global debate, as my Opposition counterpart, the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill, observed.

In some ways, the greatest thing we can do is use Britain’s status in this area and on the world stage to try to develop global standards. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central mentioned those of the ETSI, which in its way is world-leading: it seeks to produce standards that can be replicated or mirrored globally, addressing some of the coherence that risks arising in the area. She says that we are not providing leadership and quotes the Prime Minister’s speech, but I say that his speech demonstrates the existing status of Britain’s leadership in the area already. If I am being kind to her, although we disagree on several minor issues, I should say that she too would agree that Britain has a huge opportunity to capitalise on its place in the world on this issue.

In June, we published a White Paper, “Regulation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution”—we are sticking to that number, although I understand that there is a dispute over whether it is correct. It confirms that the Government will establish the regulatory horizons council to identify the implications of precisely the sort of technological innovation that the hon. Lady spoke about, and to advise the Government on regulatory reform so that we can take exactly the kind of steps that she highlights.

In that process, security should not be an afterthought; it has to be embedded. Thus far, we have taken the approach of working with industry, and industry is now saying to Government—the hon. Lady will have heard these calls as well—that greater clarity, particularly in regulation, will help consumers and the industry itself. Many of the internet-connected devices that are currently on the market still lack even the most basic cyber-security provisions. Some 90% of 331 manufacturers that supply the UK market and that were reviewed in 2018 did not use a comprehensive vulnerability disclosure programme up to the level that we would expect; I think that hon. Members on all sides would agree that that is unacceptable. Organisations have a duty of care to their customers, to help make sure that they can access and use their internet-connected products safely.

Although Government have previously encouraged industry to adopt a voluntary approach, it is now clear that decisive action is needed to ensure that stronger cyber-security is built into these products by design. That is why we launched our consultation on secure consumer IOT in May. That consultation built on the extensive work to which I have referred. It allows us to talk about minimum security principles for connected devices, which my Department elaborated on in the document published last year. Our focus will be on ensuring that there is a baseline of cyber-security built into all consumer IOT products by design, to eliminate the most harmful practices.

These are, I freely admit, low-hanging fruit. We wish we did not have to tackle issues such as forbidding the use of universal default passwords, ensuring that manufacturers provide a contact point for security researchers, and making sure that consumers are informed at the point of sale of the minimum length of time for which security updates are provided for their device. Those measures address some of the issues raised by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central, and we would like to go further in due course. We will respond on what that will look like as soon as possible after the consultation.

We are advocating a staged approach to enforcing those principles through regulation. Obviously, there is always a balance to be struck between regulation and legislation, and in this case I think it will be a bit of both. We will publish the formal response to our consultation on the regulatory approach later this year, but we are mindful of the urgency of this work. Our approach must keep pace with the technological change identified by the hon. Lady. We have said that we will review the code of practice every two years. The development of the code of practice may not sound exciting, but as the hon. Lady acknowledged, and as the hon. Member for Dagenham and Rainham said, these things are hugely far reaching, even if they do not sound as exciting as some people might wish, because then they would attract the attention they perhaps deserve.

There is major business support for our approach, including from the signatories to the cyber-security tech accord. I always hesitate to say “major business support”, because businesses will not always necessarily greet with enthusiasm the actions of a sensible regulator. Some would say that this is a sign of success. We will develop the strategy, but ultimately the security of the internet of things is a global challenge and it requires a global effort to get it right and to shape those norms.

In February 2019 we worked closely with international standards bodies and the National Cyber Security Centre to make sure that we publish the ETSI standard to which the hon. Lady referred, though without the complementary tone it deserves. None the less, I understand her point.

We do not think it is right to expect all users of all internet-connected devices to become cyber-security experts, and we recognise the need to take from them the burden of differentiating between good and bad. That is why we have been clear with industry what good practices will look like, and we wish to support manufacturers of all sizes to embed them and to support retailers to make sure that they are obvious.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Liam Byrne and Matt Warman

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman]

I hesitate to speak on behalf of the Secretary of State in response to every aspect of that question, but I am confident that she does not need to bring a man to answer questions for her.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

We would have a world-class regime for shutting down fake news and disinformation if we had courts that were actually accessible in the fight against misbehaviour by big tech. The breakthrough in the Court of Appeal yesterday, in the case of Richard Lloyd, shows just how hard it is to bring to account big tech firms, like Google, that have clearly misbehaved. So when the Minister brings the online harms Bill to the House—he might tell us when he expects that to happen—will he look again at the proposals that we will table in Committee to make it far easier to bring class actions against some of the biggest firms on earth? He has the chance to level the legal playing field against big tech; will he tell the House that he is determined to seize it?

[Matt Warman]

We are absolutely determined to tackle these vital issues, because we know that the behaviour of social media companies is not always acting in the best interests of all our constituents. Of course we will look at any proposals that are advanced by the Labour party, but it is important to say that we need to get this right, and that requires us to work with industry, as well as against it.

Data Protection Bill [ Lords ] (Seventh sitting)

Debate between Liam Byrne and Matt Warman

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

I am enjoying the right hon. Gentleman’s history lesson about Estonia.

[Liam Byrne]

There is lots more of it.

[Matt Warman]

I had that sense. The key thing about Estonia, aside from the fact that it is a far, far smaller country, is that the register for the digital ID that the right hon. Gentleman is talking about is held centrally by the Government. There is a fundamental difference between this country and Estonia. If he were seriously to propose to citizens in the UK that the Government should hold that central register, I think they would give him pretty short shrift. In his long lecture, will he either make the case for a Government-held central register or acknowledge that it would still be a pretty tough thing to get past the British public?

[Liam Byrne]

I am very happy to. I am lucky enough to be able to draw on my extensive experience as the Minister for ID cards in the Labour Government. I will take the hon. Gentleman, in detail, through the architecture I proposed. Well, he asked for it.

The challenge we confronted in about 2006 is that we originally proposed one big database for all the data, including biometric data. That was an error. The architecture I proposed in its stead was a way of connecting three different databases—one that would have basically held Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency data, a second that would have held the passport services data, and then a couple of identifiers that would have allowed those two records to be indexed and joined together. That brought the cost of the ID card system down by about two thirds.

Although the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness says that the British public would not like Government databases to hold all that information, that happens to be the country they live in. The Passport Office and DVLA hold comprehensive data on most people, and people find that extremely useful.

I was very careful about what I said. What I said was not that we should have compulsory e-ID, but that we should have a public option so people can choose to use it. That is obviously a different regime from Estonia’s, where ID cards have been compulsory since the country was invented about a century ago.

Giving people a public option would be quite attractive. There are, however, important safeguards that we need to learn from. It would be a mistake to have biometric information connected to that kind of service. We do not need biometric information connected to that kind of service. The ID card system in India has gone down that route, and it has suffered pretty significant leaks of biometric data over the past year and a half. If people get their hands on that data, that will be far more dangerous. The Estonian system, in which people have an electronic ID and a password that sits in their head—a two-factor authentication—has proven much more successful.

My broader point is that we should have a debate about the data rights that we, as citizens of this country, should have. Partly, that is about having rights to things that would make our lives better and would allow us to pursue new freedoms, such as the freedom not to have a million and one passwords, which we lose track of. It is also about having certain protections. We have had a useful debate, and will have an even longer one shortly, about the right to be treated fairly by algorithms. That is obviously incredibly important. The Government have given a nod in that direction, so the Minister will probably say a little about their digital charter.

On the different sides of the House, there are different philosophies on rights. The Conservative party traditionally defends rights to do with negative freedoms, and my side often talks the language of positive freedoms—the power to do things, which we think is necessary for social justice. However, I hope that in the months ahead we can have a sensible conversation about what negative and positive freedoms we can crystallise and enshrine in a bill of digital rights. At some point in this century, we shall write that. It is inevitable, because the world will change in a way that requires it, and the citizens of this country will begin to demand it. What we are starting to debate today is what will come to pass at some point. I hope to be the Minister who drives it through in the next Labour Government, which is imminent.

I hope, too, that we can debate that idea and help to perfect it. Where regimes of rights have been most effective, they have stood the test of time. For something to stand the test of time, it always helps if there is a little—not too much—cross-party consensus.

The new schedule has a couple of ideas at its core, and we are lucky in having been able to draw on not only the rights literature, but the incredible work of Baroness Kidron. As well as being a talented member of the creative industries, she has been one of the leading champions of the creation of strong digital rights for our children. As we have rehearsed in Committee previously, the issue is fundamental, not marginal. About a third of online users are children. The Government will have, in a way, to step in that direction. They will have to step towards new clauses 5 and 6, and new schedule 1, because they have committed to issuing an age-appropriate design code that will operationalise clause 124. I want to encourage the Government to think creatively about the way they will write the code of practice on age-appropriate design codes, with at least one eye on the broader bill of data and digital rights, which we want to propose.

The 5Rights movement has a couple of important ideas. One is the right to remove: children should be able to remove content that they have uploaded. There are probably members of the Committee who have posted all kinds of unfortunate content in their lives, which they might not want to have there in the future. That is certainly true of many children I know. The right to remove is, I think, widely accepted, and is reflected as one of the ambitions of the Bill.

The second right is the right to know. Children should be able to learn easily the who, what and why—and know for what purposes their data is being exchanged. That is important. The Minister herself has talked about the need to educate online users—to educate us all, so that we become better critical consumers of the content that we find online. That is doubly important for children.

The third right is the right to safety and support. Much of what upsets young people online is not illegal. It is legal. Support is often quite sparse and fragmented. It is often pretty invisible to children and young people when they need it most.

It will be challenging for the Government to turn the right to informed and conscious use into part of the code of practice, but that is incredibly important. It is simply unfortunate that social media firms spend quite so much money, effort and engineering talent on creating features that create a kind of addiction because of the rush of endorphins that they trigger in young people’s minds.

Those technologies, techniques and tricks of the trade are based on exactly the same principles as casino slot machines, and it is quite telling that a number of social media leaders have, over the last six months, gone on the record to say that they will not let their children use the apps that millions of children around the world use. The right to informed and conscious use will be difficult for the Government to interpret, but it is none the less important.

The right to digital literacy is perhaps the most important of all. It is something that our schools already do a terrific job of putting into practice, but what struck me in Estonia is the way that people see the right to internet access as basically a social right. That is surely something that we should debate and put in practice, too.

We have had quite a collection of evidence over the last year from people such as the Children’s Commissioner, who have ridden in behind and supported Baroness Kidron’s 5Rights movement. The Children’s Commissioner recently said:

“The social media giants have simply not done enough to make children aware of what they are signing up to when they install an app or open an account.”

The idea that children can look at these pages and pages of terms and conditions and just click and agree to them is obviously nonsensical. Indeed, the Children’s Commissioner, when reflecting on that, said:

“Children have absolutely no idea that they are giving away the right to privacy or the ownership of their data or the material they post online.”

The Government have obviously sought to exercise their derogation under the GDPR and set the age of consent at 13, rather than 16, so the code of practice that the Minister has agreed to is really important.

We would like this bill of data rights to go alongside more effective mechanisms to ensure that those rights are enforceable. That is why we tabled our amendments to clause 80(2). We think it is impossible in today’s economic environment for ordinary citizens to take effective action against the biggest firms on earth. These five firms have a market capitalisation, although it is slightly less than it was, of about $2.5 trillion, so the idea that a humble citizen can take on some of these giants is nonsensical. We would therefore like this bill of data rights to sit alongside a much more effective, open and democratic form of class action.

I am really interested in the Minister’s observations on the rights we have set out. Article 1 of our proposed new schedule covers equality of treatment, which is enshrined in the GDPR. The GDPR is long—we have made incredible progress through it, article by article—and it is a miracle that we have arrived at page 123 of the Bill by Thursday afternoon, but that is a real testament to the skilful chairing of Mr Hanson and you, Mr Streeter. The principle of equality of treatment is written throughout every clause of the Bill. The point is that it is written through 200 clauses, so we think a basic statement of equality of treatment is a good place to start.

Article 2 covers the right to security, which is the subject of the Bill. Again, let us set that out in terms. Article 3 covers the right to free expression, which is something we have signed up to in articles of the European convention on human rights. It is something that we should set within the context of a bill of data rights. Article 4 covers the right of equality of access. Giving equal access to the digital environment is extremely important. The digital environment creates a network, and network effects mean that the more people joined to it, the greater the value of the network. It is important to specify, set out and declare that we see equality of access to the digital environment as important.

Article 5 sets out the right to privacy, which, again, is scattered throughout the Bill, although we would like to consolidate and crystallise it and bring it together. Article 6 covers ownership and control, which will only grow in importance. This is not the place to get into the vexed debate about who owns the copyright to the data that someone might have and the new data that might be created by joining that data with someone else’s. However, the question of who owns the copyright, and therefore who owns the value of data that is personal in origin, is only going to grow. That debate is almost the 21st century equivalent to that on the enclosure of the commons, frankly. Who owns the copyright of data will become more important as the value of data grows exponentially.

Article 7 talks about the right to fairness when it comes to automated decision making, which we will come to in the debate on algorithmic fairness. Algorithms are making more and more decisions in our lives. People have a right not to be treated unfairly as a result of those decisions. In the phrase used by my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge, we cannot have a world in which yesterday’s injustice is hard-coded into tomorrow’s injustice. We think that ensuring a right to algorithmic fairness in our bill of data rights is important. The rights to participation, protection and removal are important too.

We have a long tradition of rights in this country; we are the world’s pioneers of them. It is because we have been that pioneer down the centuries that we are today the world’s fifth-biggest economy, but we are not the world’s leading digital society. It is an ambition of the Opposition that we should be, and we think that a bill of digital rights would help us to get there.

Data Protection Bill [Lords] (Sixth sitting)

Debate between Liam Byrne and Matt Warman

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

I shall be mercifully brief. As a print journalist for 15 years, I start by saying that the entire industry was genuinely horrified to learn of the extent and the offences that had been committed by organisations that, in the main and over many centuries, worked genuinely in the public interest. We should not forget that journalists who work in the media today, and were doing so while that was going on, are in the main trying to do the kind of public service that we would all defend. We should not underestimate the horror with which the industry greeted the stories of what happened to the Dowler family and many others, be they celebrities or other victims. I hope we would agree across the House that the media in the main have fulfilled that remit. I should also say, as did my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon, that I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendments proposed by the Scottish National party. We should prize consistency above all else in this area.

The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill said that he was surprised to learn that the Government did not seek to proceed with the second part of the Leveson inquiry. It was in our manifesto, so his surprise is surprising. I can only conclude that he did not read the Conservative manifesto. Perhaps he read the Labour manifesto and was so horrified he could not face reading another one.

[Liam Byrne]

I just could not understand it.

[Matt Warman]

The Labour one? Quite right. We should bear in mind the two things used in favour of the position taken by the Conservative party and the Government in the manifesto. The first, as my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon said, is that the world has indisputably moved on. Even Sir Brian Leveson agrees that the world has moved on. The challenges that face our modern media are not the challenges that would have been subject to the Leveson inquiry. The more important point is that, where there are legitimate concerns about the media and how people are treated, the solution to that is effective and independent regulation, and that is what we have now more than ever.

[Liam Byrne]

The hon. Gentleman served on The Daily Telegraph long enough to know that the IPSO code today bears a striking resemblance to the old editors’ code. Perhaps he could give us the benefit of his experience and tell us whether he is satisfied that the IPSO code meets the tests set out by Sir Brian Leveson and agreed in all parts of the House.

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[Matt Warman]

I will say two things. I had a mercifully limited engagement with what was then the Press Complaints Commission, although we did have to deal with some complaints in my small bit of the paper. Although we took it seriously, it is in no way comparable with the seriousness that IPSO is now taken. That might be down to the fact that the scale of the apology that can be demanded by IPSO, and has to be given, is exponentially greater. That is a crucial deterrent when it comes to the work done by journalists in the newsroom, who sometimes regard their editors as figures of great fear as much as great role models.

The other side is that we have a crucial low-cost arbitration system that allows people who are not of the means that the right hon. Gentleman described to bring cases against the media and get the redress they deserve when people make mistakes. Those are the two crucial differences between the PCC and IPSO. The latter is a fundamentally more powerful, very different regulator, but it has the credibility and independence that IMPRESS will simply never have.

[Liam Byrne]

Would the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Matt Warman]

I thought the right hon. Gentleman might want to come in.

[Liam Byrne]

The hon. Gentleman was an experienced and respected journalist and has a track record on which to draw in his reflections. He did not quite answer the question whether he thought the code of conduct that IPSO regulates meets the tests set out by Sir Brian Leveson and agreed on both sides of the House. Will he reflect on whether the code of conduct is prone to changes driven through by newspaper editors? There is no guarantee that newspaper editors cannot influence that code, and its shape and bite, in the years to come.

[Matt Warman]

The right hon. Gentleman is right that there is a continuous thread to the sensible key principles of press regulation, and for journalists to have a role in shaping those is not entirely illegitimate. None the less, we must bear in mind that those principles should serve the public before they serve the press. That is what is in the principles that Sir Brian Leveson sought to suggest. The right hon. Gentleman is right that we agree on those on both sides of the House, and that IPSO strikes the right balance. The sense that both the world and the regulator have changed should reassure both Opposition Members and members of the public who would like the Government to secure a free but sensibly regulated press that serves all of us.

[Matt Warman]

I agree, which is why IPSO rather than IMPRESS strikes the right balance between the two. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill made great play of David Cameron promising IPSO, but I would make great play of Government delivering on the manifesto pledges they made when they fought an election in 2017. Not doing what he set out also delivers on a promise—the more recent promise should take precedence.

My hon. Friend the Member for North Devon powerfully made the case against section 40, which seeks to punish the victim. That would obviously have a clear chilling effect not only on our local newspapers, which are often on the brink of bankruptcy, but on the broader media. We can look at fantastic pieces of journalism even today, such as the one about Cambridge Analytica. The Guardian itself says, “Please, we would like your donations so we can keep our valuable journalism free”—the paper has had to fight off three pieces of legal action by Cambridge Analytica and one from Facebook. Those huge corporations seek to shut down legitimate investigation, and the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill suggests that if they were to bring and win cases, The Guardian should pay for them. That is an extraordinary position to take.

[Liam Byrne]

rose—

[Matt Warman]

I am sure the right hon. Gentleman is about to assure me that he is not taking that position.

[Liam Byrne]

Let us be real about this. The idea that companies such as Facebook or Cambridge Analytica will desist from legal action to shut down stories that they do not like—the idea that that will not happen at any time in the future, even under the existing regimes—is for the birds. The argument that is better made by some of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues is to do with the risk to local newspapers, most of which are now owned by Trinity Mirror, which makes tens of millions of pounds in profit, or the Johnston Press. The point is that vexatious claims can be shut down and thrown out at any one of three stages by the regulator or, before the case goes to arbitration, by the arbitrator or by a judge, so the incidence of costs arising will not be on the scale the hon. Gentleman anticipates. Equally, he must accept that, without a form of low-cost arbitration, justice is denied to people who are maligned by newspapers.

[Matt Warman]

I enjoyed the right hon. Gentleman’s speech, but I disagree with him profoundly. I worked for a newspaper that had, by comparison with our local papers, an enormous budget. The threat of having to pay the legal bills of Facebook and Cambridge Analytica would have a profoundly chilling effect, even at the very highest level of journalism.

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[Liam Byrne]

Finally and very briefly, the hon. Gentleman is making an eloquent argument. Why, then, was that proposed by the right hon. Members for West Dorset and for Basingstoke? How did they get it so profoundly wrong?

[Matt Warman]

That is a fascinating philosophical question, but I can only tell the right hon. Gentleman that I would not have voted for it. I appreciate that he will say that it is easy for me to say that now, but the idea that people in this place would be convinced that it is the best possible model is simply not plausible after the statements that my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon and I have made today. Surely we need a set of press regulations that preserves the independence of the media, and their ability to invest in journalism at local and national level, which we all want if we are to hold the powerful to account. We also need regulations that allow hon. Members to say with a clear conscience that we have done nothing that puts those businesses in serious jeopardy.

It does not seem to me that a costly Leveson 2 is the best use of public money, or that the threat of section 40 will ever be the best use of private money, putting legitimate local and national media out of business. Those arguments seem to me like a powerful case for IPSO, and for a sensible look at the sustainability of the press, as the Prime Minister has set about doing. They do not under any circumstances seem to me like a good reason to vote for the amendments.

[Margot James]

I will set out the Government’s position on clauses 142, 168, 169 and 205, before returning to the amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Argyll and Bute.

As we have heard, clause 142 requires the Government to establish an inquiry with terms of reference similar to those contained in part 2 of the Leveson inquiry, but in relation to data protection only. The Government set out our intention not to reopen the Leveson inquiry in our response to the consultation on the future of the inquiry on 1 March. I will not repeat the arguments in full, but I will say that the Government’s firm focus is on the problems faced by the media right now.

The Government recognise that there is a great deal of feeling on both sides of the debate. We have listened to all views, including those of victims, in reaching a decision. No one seeks to excuse the past behaviour of individual media organisations, nor to legitimise it. As the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill said, some of the stories we heard at the beginning of the Leveson inquiry were horrific. The Government have a duty, however, to make decisions that are proportionate and in the public interest. In the light of all the evidence available, it is apparent that part 2 of the inquiry is no longer appropriate or proportionate.

Part 1 of the inquiry lasted over a year, and heard evidence from more than 300 people, including journalists, editors and victims. Since then, the majority of the Leveson recommendations have been implemented. Three major police investigations examining a wide range of offences have been completed. More than 40 people were convicted, some of whom were sent to prison. There have also been extensive reforms to policing practices, and significant changes to press self-regulation.

As a result, the terms of reference for part 2 have largely been met, and the culture that allowed phone hacking to become the norm has changed. Meanwhile, the media are facing critical challenges that threaten their sustainability, including fake news, declining circulations and gaining revenue from online content. Free and vibrant media are vital to democratic discourse, and we need to tackle those challenges urgently. Holding a costly and time-consuming public inquiry looking predominantly backwards is not the right way to go.

The Government are committed to addressing these issues, and we are developing a digital charter to ensure that new technologies work for the benefit of everyone, with rules and protections in place to keep people safe online and to ensure that personal information is used appropriately. As part of that, we are also undertaking work to ensure that there are sustainable business models for high-quality media online. The media landscape is different and the threats are different, too. Issues such as fake news mean there is a need to protect the reliability and objectivity of information.

Likewise, clauses 168 and 169 are similar to the provisions contained in sections 40 and 42 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, but apply to breaches of data protection law only. The Government do not believe that introducing a provision similar to section 40 of the 2013 Act into the Bill is appropriate, but in relation to data protection only. That is particularly so given our decision earlier this month to repeal section 40 when there is a suitable legislative vehicle. In coming to that decision, we considered all the available evidence, including the views of respondents to the public consultation that we undertook last year. Many respondents cited concerns about the chilling effect that section 40 would have on the freedom of the press, which was so ably summed up by my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness.

Data Protection Bill [ Lords ] (Fifth sitting)

Debate between Liam Byrne and Matt Warman

Tuesday 20th March 2018 Public Bill Committees

[Liam Byrne]

The reason we would do that is that there has been an exponential increase in drone strikes by President Trump’s Administration and, as a result, a significant increase in civilian deaths in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, Yemen and east Africa. It would be pretty odd for us not to ensure that a piece of legislation had appropriate safeguards, given what we now know about the ambition of one of our most important allies to create flexibility in rules of engagement.

[Matt Warman (Boston and Skegness) (Con)]

I agree with the right hon. Gentleman on that point, but is not the more important point that our legislation cannot be contingent on that of any other country, however important an ally it is? Our legislation has to stand on its own two feet, and we should seek to ensure that it does. To change something, as he attempts to, purely on the basis of changes over the past couple of years would set a dangerous precedent rather than guard against a potential pitfall.