Data Protection: Immigration Exemption

Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede Excerpts

Monday 31st January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede (Lab)]

My Lords, we last debated this on 19 January and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, for bringing this Take Note Motion to the House. To put it on the record, in 2018 the Labour Party opposed the immigration exemption, but, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lord, Lord Paddick, accurately said, we voted in favour of the Government’s position regarding the statutory instrument which we considered on 19 January.

I reread the lobbying material we have received from the Open Rights Group and the3million. It is clear that the Court of Appeal suspended the effect of its declaration until 31 January—which is today—and I do not know enough about the procedure of that court, but will we receive some information, maybe through the Government, of the result of that declaration? I can see that both noble Lords are shaking their head.

I thank the Minister for copying me in on the letter she sent to the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee. It makes clear there was some attempt at consulting the Open Rights Group and the3million, but clearly that discussion did not result in placating those groups. So it may well be that there is a further judicial review or a further challenge by those groups. The noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, has very fully set out the likely basis for that challenge.

As we said in the aftermath of the debate on the statutory instrument, the noble Baroness, Lady Hamwee, and the noble Lords, Lord Paddick and Lord Clement-Jones, have a lot of experience with this Bill, having debated it in 2018 and having brought the matter back repeatedly since then. We on the Labour Benches will be interested to hear what the Minister has to say. As I said, we originally opposed this element of the Bill and we would be interested to see how confident the Minister is that the changes put forward by the Government will not result in a further challenge.

[The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)]

I thank noble Lords who have spoken in this debate. As noble Lords will know, paragraph 4 of Schedule 2 to the Data Protection Act 2018 outlines specific rights under the UK GDPR that can be restricted if they would likely prejudice either

“the maintenance of effective immigration control, or … the investigation or detection of activities that would undermine the maintenance of effective immigration control”,

known as the immigration exemption. As noble Lords have pointed out, these regulations amend the immigration exemption, following the judgment in the case of Open Rights Group & another v the Secretary of State for the Home Department. This statutory instrument builds on existing safeguards of individual rights and should be welcomed.