Leaving the EU: Data Protection — House of Commons, 2017-10-12
Topic: Civil Rights
Daniel Stephen Zeichner (Labour, Centre-left): It is a pleasure to follow my regional neighbour, the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford). May I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Matt Western) on his excellent maiden speech? He started by suggesting that he was going to talk about happiness, which is something that we could all do with much more of, and then quite rightly began to reflect on the everyday experiences of his constituents which, sadly, involve less happiness. He did manage to conclude on a positive and optimistic note for the future. I congratulate him on his contribution and on choosing to make it in a debate in which, as we have heard, the stakes are so high. When the public voted last year, I doubt that any of those who voted leave were actually voting to make data transfers more difficult, to make business more complicated, to stop the planes flying, to find video games unplayable and to find regularly used websites suddenly becoming unavailable. If 29 March 2019 is exit day, as some parts of the Government say on some days of the week, April fool’s day 2019 will be a day when the papers really will not have to make it up. Some have described the movement of data across Europe as the fifth freedom. In fact, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) made exactly that point. I suspect that most of us, and most of our fellow citizens, are only dimly aware of what actually happens to our data, but it does really matter. The design, extent and provisions of the British data protection framework will have profound implications for the nature of UK-EU trade relations. Today’s debate is particularly timely given the proceedings on the Data Protection Bill that are already under way in the other place. It is vital that we get this framework right I chair the all-party group on data analytics, and I have seen at first hand the way in which data has moved to the centre of every sector. Wherever we go, people are talking about data. I hope that the Minister will accept an invitation to meet the all-party group fairly soon to talk about how we can build awareness not just of how transformational this is likely to be, but of how complicated it will be to ensure that we get it right As we have heard, data is an increasingly valuable commodity, with the UK conducting three quarters of its cross-border data exchange with the European Union. The EU data economy was worth €272 billion in 2015 and has continued to grow rapidly since We have played a key role within the European Union in developing the GDPR, which will come into effect in the UK from May 2018. The European Commission proposed this new legislative framework back in January 2012 as an update and a levelling mechanism to protect citizens across Europe. It has taken five years of discussion and hard work for the regulation to be agreed. This significant measure for the UK does a number of things. It significantly widens the definition of personal data, transforms the notion of consent, carries severe fines for companies in case of non-compliance and fundamentally alters the way in which companies can store and process personal data Back in February, the Minister told the House of Lords EU Home Affairs Sub-Committee that the GDPR was a "good piece of legislation", and I welcome the Government’s sensible decision to adopt the GDPR into UK law. But, as many have pointed out, there are problems ahead, not least with some elements of the relationship with the Investigatory Powers Act 2016. Both techUK and Ukie—the Association for UK Interactive Entertainment—which covers things such as video games, highlighted that concern when the Government published their paper in August, and both noted that the paper did not address an issue that the Government knew to be problematic Why would it matter if data flows were interrupted? Well, we are good at data in the UK. Our digitally intensive industries account for 16% of gross value added, 24% of total UK exports and 3 million jobs. The digital sector is growing 32% faster than the national average. We are at a significant competitive advantage in the digital economy. At 10% of GDP, the digital economy makes a larger contribution to our economy than that in any other G20 country, so it really matters to us. Beyond that, it is a vital enabler in the overall UK economy and society. We are increasingly digitised, with all sectors increasingly reliant on data flows. They underpin retail, health, finance, manufacturing and the automotive industries, to name just a few. The Government have confirmed that: "Over 70% of all trade in services are enabled by data flows, meaning that data protection is critical to international trade." That confirms that they do understand and appreciate the importance of data protection Additionally, data flows benefit consumers, allowing innovation in products and services, streamlining performance in industry and improving global communication. They reduce business costs, leading to more investment in research and development, and improve productivity. In some ways, the problem is that our membership of the European Union gives us special advantages. In a profound irony, we actually have more control over our own privacy regime when we are within the European Union than we will have when we are outside it. Let me explain how that comes about Outside the EU, we become a third country in terms of our relationship with the European Union. The Government say that the best way forward is an adequacy agreement, or something akin to one, which would need to be secured with the European Commission. There are alternatives, but they are difficult, unstable and particularly ill-suited to UK businesses, especially small and medium-sized enterprises. The large corporations may be able to manage, but the small businesses will not. UK firms, particularly the start-ups in my part of the country, would have to jump through hoops and hurdles that their European counterparts would not have to. While our companies would be spending time and money agreeing standard contractual clauses with customers, their EU counterparts and competitors would simply be getting on with business.