Victims and Prisoners Bill

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

3rd reading
Thursday 23rd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to speak on this very important Bill. I am delighted that it covers so many vital issues and will proceed, we hope, to Royal Assent before Parliament is prorogued.

I shall speak to Amendments 1 and 2. I thank my noble friends the Minister and Lady Barran, and their officials, for their engagement on this matter at some speed. I am delighted that Stella Creasy is here to listen to the debate. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, my noble friend Lady Finn and the noble Lord, Lord Russell, for their support, as well as the Opposition Front Bench.

Politics is the “art of the possible”, as the important quote goes. The Government have now accepted, after resisting for many months, the principle behind Amendment 2, which we repeatedly tabled in this House at various stages of the Bill. As we have heard, the law should be updated to recognise that, in cases of stalking and harassment, one of the things that the stalker or harasser can do to prolong their victim’s agony is to make a false and malicious allegation which stays on the record, and data controllers hide behind their rights in not deleting it even when the allegation has been found to be both false and malicious.

I recognise the progress that has been made in the tabling of Amendment 1. As ever, of course, the devil is in the detail. As my noble and learned friend Lord Bellamy has said, there are still grounds under Article 17(3) of the GDPR on which a data controller could refuse to delete the data. I really welcome his clear commitment that there needs to be strong guidance to the ICO and data controllers in the Explanatory Notes to the Bill, and also provisions in the victims’ code. The danger with all this is that we still leave the burden on victims to argue for the data to be erased, and the power remains with the data controller. That is what worries me about those exemptions in Article 17(3).

In that guidance, the data controller must be told that they need to set out substantive grounds for refusing any request for erasure of the data. We also hope that the Government will set out scenarios in which those exemptions in Article 17(3), provided for in law, cannot be used in cases where data records have been created as a result of malicious conduct.

Having said all that, I recognise where we are at this time in this Parliament. I will be interested to hear what other noble Lords might say in this short debate and what the Minister might say in summing up. I recognise and thank my noble and learned friend for the progress that he has made on this issue.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak very briefly. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for her persistence and skills in negotiating with her own party, which is possibly easier than doing it from outside the party.

I stress the absolute importance of giving crystal clear guidance. The occupation of data controller is not necessarily high on the list of most of us as a potential career. I suspect that it is not the most exciting part of many bureaucracies. I also suspect that it is an area where one follows the rulebook, or what one perceives to be the rulebook, particularly closely. I suspect that the ability of individuals to feel that they have the power to exercise their own judgment is somewhat limited and probably not encouraged. It is incredibly important that there is absolutely no doubt in the mind of even the least curious or the most obdurate data controller as to what is and is not acceptable in terms of erasure.

Other than that, I thank the Government for having thought about this carefully, and for having responded. I hope that as a result of this, the data controller in Waltham Forest who is making Stella Creasy’s life rather difficult will at least read this debate or be told of it and will rethink his or her decision to not erase the data.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

It is my privilege to follow both the noble Lord, Lord Russell, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan. I signed this amendment and continue to offer my support. I echo and agree with everything they said.

I have slight concerns that this is not just an issue about the data controller; it is also about social work practice. That really worries me, because there is a mindset that says that if anyone makes a complaint, we have to have it on the record just in case for the future. I hope that the government amendments are sufficient to provide an answer, but should we discover either that Stella Creasy’s case is not dealt with or that there are others, I put all future Governments on notice that there is a team in this House that will return to the subject.