Date: 2023-04-17
Jane Hunt: This Bill provides us with yet another opportunity to ensure that our legal and regulatory frameworks are tailored to our needs and specifications, now that we are free from the confines of EU law. It is crucial that we have a data rights regime that maintains the high data protection standards that the public expect, but it must do so in a way that is not overly burdensome to businesses and public services, and does not stifle innovation, growth and productivity. The Bill will go a long way to achieving that, but I would like to focus on one small aspect of it. Announcing the First Reading of the Bill, the Secretary of State stated that it would improve "the efficiency of data protection for law enforcement and national security partners encouraging better use of personal data where appropriate to help protect the public. It provides agencies with clarity on their obligations, boosting the confidence of the public on how their data is being used."--[Official Report, 8 March 2023; Vol. 20WS.] That is a positive step forward for national security, but we are missing a crucial opportunity to introduce further reforms that will reduce administrative burdens on police forces across the UK. I recently met members of the Leicestershire Police Federation, who informed me of the association's concerns regarding part 3 of the Data Protection Act 2018. Specifically, the Police Federation is concerned about how the requirements of part 3 interact with the Crown Prosecution Service's "Director's Guidance on Charging", which obliged the police to provide more information to the CPS pre-charge. That information includes unused material, digitally recovered material and third-party material, all of which must be redacted in accordance with the Data Protection Act. Combined, the guidance's requirements and the provisions of the Act represent a huge amount of administrative work for police officers, who would have to spend hours making the necessary redactions. Furthermore, much of that work may never be used by the CPS if no charge is brought, or the defendant pleads guilty before trial. Nationally, around 25% of cases submitted to the CPS result in no charge. This desk-based work would remove police officers from the frontline. Picture the scene of an incident. Say that 10 police officers attend, all turning on their body cameras as they arrive. They deal with different aspects of the incident; they talk to a variety of people and take statements, standing in different positions that result in different backgrounds to the video footage and different side-conversations being captured. The lead officer then spends hours, if not days, redacting all the written data and video footage generated by all the officers, only for the redacted data to be sent to a perfectly trusted source, the CPS, which will not necessarily take the case forward. The data protection Bill is meant to update and simplify the data protection framework used by bodies in the UK. The Bill refers to the work of the police in national security situations, but it should also cover their day-to-day work as a professional body. They should be able to share their data with the CPS, another professional body. Both have a legitimate interest in accessing and sharing the data collected. My hon. Friend the Minister for Data and Digital Infrastructure will know that this is an issue, as I have already raised it with her. I am very grateful for her considered response, and for the Government's commitment to looking into this matter further, including in the context of this Bill, and at whether the Police Federation's idea of a data bubble between the police service and the CPS is a workable solution. I look forward to working with the Government on the issue. It is vital that we do what we can to ease the administrative burden on police officers, so that we can free up thousands of policing hours every year and get police back to the frontline, where they can support communities and tackle crime. Speaking of easing burdens, may I also take this opportunity to wish my hon. Friend the Minister the very best with the arrival that is expected in, I suspect, the none-too-distant future?