Electoral Registration Pilot Scheme (England) (Amendment) Order 2017

Lord Blunkett Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blunkett (Lab)]

My Lords, I was waiting to see whether anyone else would intervene. I will not detain the House very long. Will the Minister, either now or in writing—I promise I will not talk about Sheffield this afternoon—be kind enough to reflect on the juxtaposition of the existing Data Protection Act 1998 with the Digital Economy Bill in relation to data sharing and, crucially, with the general data protection regulation of 2016, which the Government indicated on 1 March they would be taking forward and putting on statute the necessary changes, prior to implementation, in May 2018?

I welcome very strongly the proposals for the pilot schemes. The discerning approach will be very important for getting to households that are difficult to reach, dealing with churn and ensuring that, particularly with the Glasgow and Birmingham proposition, there is a real understanding of the difficulty within inner cities. I am concerned that we do not get caught with what is otherwise a very sensible privacy change—a tightening of the regulations under the GDPR—taking into account, as the Minister indicated, that there will be a privacy impact assessment. Will he say a little more about that?