Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 19th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, despite the fact this is not being pushed to a vote—I respect that, and I concede that the Government have made some clarifications, and potentially concessions, along the way in this debate—I think that the issue is not yet resolved. I call on the Government to try to solve this problem now, rather than leave it open to more years of muddle, confusion and misinterpretation, and that can happen away from here. I have noticed that the Government are not averse to using the odd statutory instrument, to which I am usually opposed; in this instance, I urge them to use a statutory instrument to sort this out. I fear that, unless they do, it will undermine trust in the new system.

To clarify, we are looking to identify datasets that have muddled up sex and gender, such as data from HMPO and the DVLA, and those that have not, such as sex registered at birth. Because of that muddle, we cannot rely on those databases. Is that not the very point? We are trying at this point to provide clarity to DVS providers. By the way, this would not in any way result in outing individual transgender people when they are using the DVS system to prove their identity or other attributes, such as their age or whatever. We are trying to ensure that each database has some consistency. If a dataset allows some people to be recorded as the wrong sex, then the whole dataset is unreliable as a source of sex data.

It was very helpful that the Government clarified in the midst of this, for example, that an official document such as a passport, whatever is written on it, cannot be proof of a change of sex; it is simply a record of the way somebody wants to be identified and is no use as a reliable source of sex data. As I have said, there are other official documents such as the driving licence where that is not the case.

I would simply urge the Government, from their own point of view, so that we do not carry on having this muddle and confusion and so that this system becomes trusted, to make sure that they sort this out, even if they will not do so here and now.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her engagement and for defining what genuine scientific research is. I hope very much that the AI companies, when using this extraordinary exemption, will listen to the Government, and that the Government will ensure that the policy is enforced. The trust of the people of this country would be lost if they felt that their data was being reused by AI companies simply for product enrichment and profit, rather than for genuine scientific research. I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for their parties’ support.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for her introduction to the three Motions in this group.

On these Benches, we welcome the Supreme Court’s judgment on the meaning of “sex” in the Equality Act 2010. However, as Ministers have stressed—and we agree—it is paramount that we work through the implications of this judgment carefully and sensitively. As we have previously discussed, the EHRC is currently updating its statutory guidance.

Ministers have previously given assurances that they are engaged in appropriate and balanced work on data standards and data accuracy, and we accept those assurances. They have given a further assurance today about how the digital verification services framework will operate. We rely on those ministerial assurances. In summary, we believe that the previously proposed amendments were premature in the light of the EHRC guidance and that they risk undermining existing data standards work. On that basis, we support the Minister in her Motions A and D.

Turning to Motion B, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, will not press his Amendment 43B at this stage, as he intends to accept the assurances given by Ministers. We have consistently supported the noble Viscount’s efforts to ensure that scientific research benefiting from the Bill’s provisions for data reuse is conducted according to appropriate ethical, legal and professional frameworks. The Government have given significant assurances in this area. We understand that their position is that the Bill does not alter the existing legal definition or threshold for what constitutes scientific research under UK GDPR. The Bill does not grant any new or expanded permissions for the reuse of data for scientific research purposes, and, specifically, it does not provide blanket approval for using personal data for training AI models under the guise of scientific research. The use of personal data for scientific research remains subject to the comprehensive safeguards of UK GDPR, including the requirement for a lawful basis, the adherence to data protection principles and the application of the reasonableness test, which requires an objective assessment.

The collection of assurances given during several stages of the Bill provides reassurance against the risk that commercial activities, such as training AI models purely for private gain, could improperly benefit from exemptions intended for genuine scientific research serving the public good. I very much hope that the Minister can reaffirm these specific points and repeat those assurances.