Liam Byrne
MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill and Solihull North · Labour · United Kingdom
“The loss of 4,000 jobs at Jaguar Land Rover is a body blow for workers, families and communities across the west midlands, so I commend Richard Parker, the Mayor of the West Midlands, for moving quickly on Monday to put £500,000 on the table to help ensure that everybody gets back to work.”
“I wholeheartedly welcome this well-rounded statement from the Foreign Secretary, and put on record my thanks to the new Prime Minister for the hard yards that I know he has put in over recent days and weeks.”
“I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving way, and I offer my warmest congratulations to her on her appointment to the role; she will be a brilliant Minister.”
“Let me start with a word of thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Chester North and Neston (Samantha Dixon), who is not in her place, who said quite rightly that an awful lot has changed since the Bill was first introduced to this House. Indeed, a lot has been revealed over the course of the summer.”
“The effect of new clause 34 would be to ban off-ramping, ban new forms of digital currency transactions and ban memecoins, which are exactly the kind of measures that Ministers now need to bring forward. If we want to take the crypto system out of political finance, this is what we need to do.”
“No doubt we will learn that Mr Cottrell was in fact on the electoral register when that money was passed. No doubt we will discover that his mother, Fiona Cottrell, declared and did not disguise the fact that the money had ultimately come from her son.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,360 lines we hold for Liam Byrne, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 36 of 108.
“My hon. Friend gives a brilliant example. The point is that employment agencies play an incredibly important role in providing workers for particular sectors of the economy, from hotels to logistics, distribution and construction. The challenge is that the areas of the economy that have created the most jobs in the 10 years since the financial crash are those where terms and conditions are poorest, casualisation is highest and wages are lowest—and they are the areas where productivity is poorest, too. The Government could take a different kind of labour market approach that enhanced productivity and wages, and shut down some of the bad practices and casualisation that are creating a problem. As it happens, the Government have signed up to some pretty big ambitions in that area.”
“I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, not least because it gives me the opportunity to wish her a happy birthday. Could she remind the Committee how many prosecutions there have been for discriminatory advertising because employers chose to target their adverts?”
“I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 13 Review of Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations “(1) The Secretary of State shall lay before both Houses of Parliament a review of the application and operation of the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 in relation to the processing of personal data. (2) A review under subsection (1) shall be laid before Parliament by 31 January 2019.”— (Liam Byrne.) This new clause would order the Secretary of State to review the application and operation of the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002 in relation to the processing of data and lay that review before Parliament before 31 January 2019. Brought up, and read the First time.”
“I think it was in “Candide” that Voltaire introduced us to the word “Panglossian”, and we have heard a rather elegant and Panglossian description of a perfect world in which all is fine in the labour market. I am much more sceptical than the Minister. I do not think the current law is sufficiently sharp, and I am concerned that the consequence of that will be injustice for our constituents. The Minister raised a line of argument that it is important for us to consider. The ultimate test of whether the law is good enough must be what is actually happening out there in the labour market. I do not think it is good enough; she thinks it is fine. On the nub of the argument, a few more facts might be needed on both sides, so we reserve the right to come back to the issue on Report. This has been a useful debate.”
“Among our NATO allies, we can see a vulnerability to our enemies using social media platforms to sow division.”
“Yet I think we all recognise that organisations such as Facebook and YouTube are simply not working quickly enough to take down that kind of material, which we simply do not want people to see. I congratulate The Times , which has run a forensic campaign to shine a light on some of that bad practice. It is good finally to see advertisers such as Unilever beginning to deliver a tougher message to social media platforms that enough is enough. We know we have to modernise those regulations. The commercial world and politicians on both sides are saying, “Enough is enough.” We all fear the consequences of things going wrong with respect to the destabilisation of democracy in America—but not just in America. We have seen it across the Baltics, in France, in Germany, across southern Europe and in eastern Europe.”
“Germany recently passed laws that require companies such as Facebook to take down hate speech in a very short time window or face fines of up to €10 million and Ireland has created a new regulator to provide a degree of overwatch, so it is intriguing that we are falling behind some of our most important neighbours, who now lead this debate. I began looking at this issue when I started researching new techniques in ISIS propaganda. In the excellent Scotland Yard counter-terrorism referral unit, I saw propaganda that was put together with the slickness of a pop video to incite people to commit the most heinous crimes, such as the one we commemorate today.”
“That is an extraordinary recognition by the head of one of the most important firms in the world. The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport reminded us as recently as this morning that as we come out of the European Union we will have a new opportunity to update the e-commerce directive. The House basically must put in place a new framework to regulate information services providers in a new way. A debate is raging among our neighbours about what steps we need to take to shut down the hate speech that is dividing communities, and we need to get into that debate quickly.”
“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. This is not normally my practice, but let me raise another area that is subject to a measure of cross-party consensus. There is widespread recognition that the e-commerce directive, which is used to regulate information services providers, is hopelessly out of date. It was agreed in around 2000. In effect, it allows information services providers to be treated as platforms rather than publishers. Since then, we have seen the growth of big tech and the new data giants that now dominate the digital economy, and they are misbehaving. Worse, they have become platforms for hate speech, social division and interference in democracy. It was intriguing to hear Mark Zuckerberg himself admit in the interview he gave yesterday that Facebook was indeed being used to try to corrupt elections.”
“I admire the Minister’s concern and ambition for administrative tidiness. She reminds me of an old quote by Bevin, who said once, “If you are a purist, the place for you is not a Parliament; it is a monastery.””
“In the case of the Minister, a nunnery, although Bevin was less enlightened than the hon. Lady. Here is a Bill; here is a new clause; the new clause is within scope. The object of the new clause is to deliver a Government objective, yet it is rejected. That is hard logic to follow. We have had the tremendous assurance, however, that there will be nothing less than a code of practice, so these huge data giants will be shaking in their boots in California, when they wake up. They will be genuinely concerned and no doubt already planning how they can reform their ways and stop the malpractice that we have grown all too used to. I am afraid that these amount to a collection of warm words, when what the country needs is action. With that in mind, I will push the new clause to a vote. Question put, That the clause be read a Second time.”
“They are often drawn in to disputes that rage out of control on social media platforms such as Instagram. Teachers are very alert to the dangers of this new world. They are doing a brilliant and innovative job of supporting children through it, but they are crying out now for good guidance to help them to implement the GDPR successfully.”
“They listen to me in horror when I explain that I am the shadow Minister for the Data Protection Bill, because they know this is looming and they are absolutely terrified of it. Why is that? Because they are good people and good educators; they go into teaching because they want to change the world and change children’s lives, and they recognise the new obligations that are coming, but they also recognise the realities of how their schools operate today. Those people know about the proliferation of data that they and their staff are collecting. They know about the dangers and risks of that data leaking—not least because most teachers I know who have some kind of pastoral care responsibility seem to spend half their time having to advise their children about what not to do with social media apps and what not to post.”
“185.] Lord Storey rode in behind my noble Friend, saying that “young people probably need more protection than at any other time in our recent history.” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 10 October 2017; Vol. 785, c. 170.] That is not something that has been debated only by the other place. UNICEF recently published a working paper entitled “Privacy, protection of personal information and reputation rights” and said it was now “evident that children’s privacy differs both in scope and application from adults’ privacy” but that they experience more threats than any other group. The “Council of Europe Strategy for the Rights of the Child (2016-2021)” echoed the same sentiment and observed: “Parents and teachers struggle to keep up with technological developments”. I have a number of friends who are teachers and headteachers.”
“My noble Friend has long been an advocate of that kind of thing, but the point is that he knows, and the other place recognised, that the way school information systems operate means they are often cloud based and integrated into all sorts of other data systems. There will often be contracts in place with all sorts of education service providers, which will entail the transfer of data between, for example, a school and a third party. It could well be that that third party is based overseas. As my noble Friend said: “Schools desperately need advice on GDPR compliance to allow them to comply with this Bill when it becomes law.” —[ Official Report, House of Lords, 10 October 2017; Vol. 785, c.”
“Given the complexity of the GDPR and some of the costs and questions around implementing it, the complexity of the education system means that we urgently need a code of practice that schools can draw on to help them get the GDPR right, and to help our educators in their task of keeping our children’s data safer than it is today. In my argument, I will draw on the excellent contribution made on Second Reading by my noble Friend, Lord Knight, who said: “Schools routinely use commercial apps for things such as recording behaviour, profiling children, cashless payments, reporting” and so on.”
“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. This is another entirely sensible new clause, which I hope the Government will take on board, either at this stage or on Report. We rehearsed earlier in Committee the debate about the reality and challenges of the fact that our education providers are now collecting, managing and often losing significant amounts of very personal data relating to children. Any of us who has children at school will know the joys of ParentPay, which means that schools are collecting biometric data on our children. We know that schools are keeping exam results and all kinds of records and evaluations about our children online.”
“That sounds like a terrifying application; my hon. Friend’s daughter very much has my sympathies. He is absolutely right. Lord Knight made this point with such power in the other place. The technology is advancing so quickly, and schools know that if they can monitor things in new, more forensic ways, that helps them to do their job of improving children’s education. However, it has costs and consequences too. I hope that Her Majesty’s Government will look sympathetically on the task of teachers, as they confront this 200-and-heaven-knows-what-page Bill.”
“I call on Ministers to make their task, their lives, and their mission that bit easier by accepting the new clause.”
“Yes. My hon. Friend has done an extraordinary job of exposing that minor scandal. I am surprised that it has not had more attention in the House, but hopefully once the Bill has passed it is exactly the kind of behaviour that we can begin to police rather more effectively. I am sure that Ministers will recognise that there is a need for this. No doubt their colleagues in the Department for Education are absolutely all over it. I was talking to a headteacher in the Minister’s own constituency recently—an excellent headteacher, in an excellent school, who is a personal friend. The horror with which headteachers regard the arrival of the GDPR is something to behold. Heaven knows, our school leaders and our teachers have enough to do.”
“(9) The Secretary of State must, no later than one year after the day on which this Act receives Royal Assent, lay before both Houses of Parliament draft regulations in relation to the functions of the Personal Data Ethics Advisory Board as listed in subsections (2), (3), (4), (6) and (7) of this section. (10) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.’— (Darren Jones.) This new clause would establish a statutory basis for a Data Ethics Advisory Board. Brought up, and read the First time .”
“(5) Where a data controller or processor does not follow the code under this section, the data controller or processor is subject to a fine to be determined by the Commissioner. (6) The board must report annually to the Secretary of State. (7) The report in subsection (6) may contain recommendations to the Secretary of State and the Commissioner relating to how they can improve the processing of personal data and the protection of data subjects’ rights by improving methods of— (a) monitoring and evaluating the use and management of personal data; (b) sharing best practice and setting standards for data controllers; and (c) clarifying and enforcing data protection rules. (8) The Secretary of State must lay the report made under subsection (6) before both Houses of Parliament.”
“(3) The board must work with the Commissioner to prepare a data ethics code of practice for data controllers, which must— (a) include a duty of care on the data controller and the processor to the data subject; (b) provide best practice for data controllers and processors on measures, which in relation to the processing of personal data— (i) reduce vulnerabilities and inequalities; (ii) protect human rights; (iii) increase the security of personal data; and (iv) ensure that the access, use and sharing personal data is transparent, and the purposes of personal data processing are communicated clearly and accessibly to data subjects. (4) The code must also include guidance in relation to the processing of personal data in the public interest and the substantial public interest.”
“(2) The board’s functions, in relation to the processing of personal data to which the GDPR and this Act applies, are— (a) to monitor further technical advances in the use and management of personal data and their implications for the rights of data subjects; (b) to monitor the protection of the individual and collective rights and interests of data subjects in relation to their personal data; (c) to ensure that trade-offs between the rights of data subjects and the use of management of personal data are made transparently, inclusively, and with accountability; (d) to seek out good practices and learn from successes and failures in the use and management of personal data; (e) to enhance the skills of data subjects and controllers in the use and management of personal data.”
“I am reassured by that and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 17 Personal data ethics advisory board and ethics code of practice ‘(1) The Secretary of State must appoint an independent Personal Data Ethics Advisory Board (“the board”).”
“I hope the Minister will just say that a code of practice is on the way so we can safely withdraw the new clause.”
“I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time. I will touch on this new clause only very briefly, because I hope the Minister will put my mind at rest with a simple answer. For some time, there has been concern that the way in which data collected by the police through automatic number plate recognition technology is not adequately ordered, organised or policed by a code of practice. A code of practice is probably required to put the police well and truly within the boundaries of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Bill. With this new clause, we are basically asking the Secretary of State to issue a code of practice in connection with the operation by the police of ANPR systems under subsection (1), and we ask that it conform to section 67 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984.”
“(4) A person or organisation to whom such a targeted dissemination disclosure notice is given shall comply with it within such time as is specified in the notice.” This new clause would amend the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 to allow the Electoral Commission to require disclosure of settings used to disseminate material where the platform for dissemination allows for targeting based on demographic or other information about individuals. — (Liam Byrne.) Brought up, and read the First time.”
“(2) The Commission may under this paragraph issue at any time a targeted dissemination disclosure notice, requiring disclosure of any settings used to disseminate material which it believes were intended to have the effect, or were likely to have the effect, of influencing public opinion in any part of the United Kingdom, ahead of a specific election or referendum, where the platform for dissemination allows for targeting based on demographic or other information about individuals, including information gathered by information society services. (3) This power shall not be available in respect of registered parties or their officers, save where they separately and independently fall into one or more of categories (a) to (i) of sub-paragraph (1).”
“I am indeed mollified. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the clause. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. New Clause 21 Targeted dissemination disclosure notice for third parties and others (No. 2) “In Schedule 19B of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 (Power to require disclosure), after paragraph 10 (documents in electronic form) insert— 10A (1) This paragraph applies to the following organisations and individuals— (a) a recognised third party (within the meaning of Part 6); (b) a permitted participant (within the meaning of Part 7); (c) a regulated donee (within the meaning of Schedule 7); (d) a regulated participant (within the meaning of Schedule 7A); (e) a candidate at an election (other than a local government election in Scotland); (f) the election agent for such a candidate; (g) an organisation or a person notified under subsection 2 of this section; (h) an organisation or individual formerly falling within any of paragraphs (a) to (g); or (i) the treasurer, director, or another officer of an organisation to which this paragraph applies, or has been at any time in the period of five years ending with the day on which the notice is given.”
“They are private groups and dark groups, and it is perfectly possible to switch on dark money behind those ads circulating the hate material to thousands and thousands if not millions. We know that that was standard practice in the German and French elections. There is a risk—we do not know what the risk is because the Government will not launch an inquiry—that such activity was going on in the Brexit campaign. I anticipate that there will be more revelations about that this weekend. However, the challenge is that our election law is now hopelessly out of date.”
“Here we have a kind of perfection of what I have called in the past a dark social playbook—for example, hackers such as Cozy Bear or Fancy Bear attacked the Democratic National Committee during the American elections. We also have a partnership with useful idiots such as WikiLeaks, an unholy alliance with what are politely called fake news sites such as Westmonster or indeed Russia Today or Breitbart, which spread hatred. We have a spillover into Twitter. Once a row is brewing on Twitter, we get troll farms such as the Internet Research Agency in St Petersburg kicking in. Half of the tweets about NATO in the Baltics are delivered by robo-trolls out of Russia. It is on an absolutely enormous scale. Once the row is cooking on Twitter, we get the import into Facebook groups.”
“The challenge today is that that philosophy was comprehensively updated by General Gerasimov, the Russian Army’s chief of staff, and it came alongside a very different world view presented by President Putin after his re-election as President in 2012 and in his first state of the union address in 2013. It was in that address that President Putin attacked what he called a de-Christianised morally ambivalent west. He set out pretty categorically a foreign policy of contention rather than co-operation. Since 2012, we have seen what is basically a history of tactical opportunism. A little bit unlike the Soviet era, what we now have are sometimes authorised groups, sometimes rogue groups, seeking openings where they can and putting in place disruptive measures. They are most dangerous when they target the messiness of digital democracy.”
“There is no Geneva convention for hybrid war that defines what is good and what is bad and what is legal and illegal, but most legal scholars agree that a definition of hybrid war basically touches on a form of intervening against enemies in a way that is deniable and sometimes not traceable. It contains a basket of measures and includes the kind of tactics that we saw deployed in Crimea and Ukraine, which were of course perfected after the invasion of Georgia. We see it in the Baltics and now we see it not just in America but across western Europe as well. Such a technique—a kind of warcraft of active measures—has a very long history in Russia. Major-General Kalugin, the KGB’s highest ranking defector, once described the approach as the “heart and soul” of Soviet intelligence.”
“I suspect that Cambridge Analytica has now had quite enough notice to do whatever it likes to the evidence that the Information Commissioner sought. This basket of clauses seeks to insert common-sense provisions to update the law in a way that will ensure that the data protection regime we put in place safeguards the health and wellbeing of our democracy. We need those because of what we now know about allegedly bad companies such as Cambridge Analytica, and because of what we absolutely know about bad countries such as Russia. We have been slow to wake up to the reality that, since 2012, Russia has been operating a new generation of active measures that seek to divide and rule its enemies. There is no legal definition of hybrid war, so there is no concept of just war when it comes to hybrid war.”
“I am happy to end on a note of cross-party consensus. We agree that we need to modernise our hopelessly outdated election laws. The news a couple of hours ago that the Information Commissioner’s application for a search warrant at Cambridge Analytica has been deferred—suspended until tomorrow—underlines the fact that the laws we have today for investigating malpractice that may impinge on the health of our democracy are hopelessly inadequate. The Information Commissioner declared to the world—for some reason on live television on Monday—that she was seeking a warrant to get into Cambridge Analytica’s office. Five days later there is still no search warrant issued by a court. Indeed, the court has adjourned the case until tomorrow.”
“I hope that that change is made and that, as a consequence, further amendments will be tabled to ensure that our democracy is protected against the threats we know are out there. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion. Clause, by leave, withdrawn. Question proposed, That the Chair do report the Bill, as amended, to the House.”
“Voter Consultancy Ltd, for those who have not studied its financial records at Companies House, as I have, is a dormant company. It has no accounts filed. There is no cash flowing through the books. The question that provokes is: where does the money come from for the dark social ads attacking Conservative Members? We do not know. It is a matter of public concern that we should. The law is out of date and needs to be updated. I will not press the matter to a vote this afternoon because I hope to return to it on Report, but I hope that between now and then the Minister and the Secretary of State reflect on the argument and talk to Mark Sedwill, the National Security Adviser, about why the national security strategy does not include an explicit objective to defend the integrity of our democracy.”
“Worse, we have a Financial Conduct Authority that, because it does not have a data sharing gateway with the Electoral Commission, cannot share information about the financial background of companies that might have been laundering money going into political and referendum campaigns. The law is hopelessly inadequate. Through that great hole, our enemies are driving a coach and horses, which is having a huge impact on the health and wellbeing of our democracy. That is not a day-to-day concern in Labour constituencies, but it is for the Conservative party. Voter Consultancy Ltd took out targeted dark social ads aimed at Conservative Members, accusing some of them of being Brexit mutineers when they had the temerity to vote for common sense in a vote on Brexit in this House.”
“That is a deeply disappointing answer. I was under the impression that the Secretary of State said in interviews today that he is open-minded about the UK version of the Honest Ads Act that we propose. That appears to be in some contrast to the answer that the Minister offered. What this country has today is an Advertising Standards Authority that does not regulate political advertising; Ofcom, which does not regulate video when it is online; an Electoral Commission without the power to investigate digital campaigning; and an Information Commissioner who cannot get a search warrant.”
“We will not get an adequacy agreement with the EU if we cannot keep data safe in this country. The Cambridge Analytica scandal shows how grave that threat has become. To get to the bottom of that threat, it is vital that we understand the network of companies associated with that malign octopus. Will the Secretary of State commit now to auditing and making public all Government contractors with links to Cambridge Analytica, some of whom, I understand, the Foreign Office is assembling for a secretive weekend somewhere in the countryside on Saturday?”
“There are many individuals and intellectual property agreements between Cambridge Analytica and other firms, and I hope that the Secretary of State will reflect on his answer and come forward with a more comprehensive approach. This episode has revealed that the Information Commissioner simply does not have the power to conduct investigations properly. It is ludicrous that it has taken her so long to get a search warrant for Cambridge Analytica offices, and it is ludicrous that people frustrating her investigations do not face jail for that frustration. Will the Secretary of State now commit to bringing forward extra powers for the Information Commissioner in the Data Protection Bill? If he does not, we will.”
“The specific instance that I want to take up concerns the fact that about 700 British citizens have gone to fight in foreign conflicts—for ISIS in particular. The battery of intelligence-gathering facilities that we have allows us to use remote data-sensing to detect, track and monitor them, and to assemble pictures of their patterns of life and behaviour. It is then possible for our intelligence services to do stuff with those data and patterns, such as transfer them to the military or to foreign militaries in coalitions of which we are a member. For the benefit of the Committee, will the Minister spell out whether the clause, and potentially clause 97, will bite on that kind of capability? If not, where are they aimed?”
“We are rattling through the Bill this morning and will soon reach clause 109, to which we have tabled some amendments. Clause 96, within chapter 3 of part 4, on intelligence services processing, touches on the right not to be subject to automated decision making. I do not want to rehearse the debate that we shall have later, but I think that this is the appropriate point for an explanation from the Minister. Perhaps she will say something about the kind of administration that the clause covers, and its relationship, if any—there may not be one, but it is important to test that question—to automated data-gathering by our intelligence services abroad, and the processing and use of that data.”
“I do not think the clause actually says anything about age selection. How do we set boundaries around the clause? Let us say that minors—people under the age of 18—want to travel to Syria or some other war zone. Is the Minister basically saying that the clause will bite on that kind of information and lead to a decision chain that results in action to intervene? If that is the case, will she say a little more about the boundaries around the use of the clause?”
“The point is that the clause does create a burden. It does not detract from a burden; it creates an obligation on intelligence services to ensure that there is not automatic decision making. We seek not to add burdens, but to question why the Minister is creating them.”
“Will the Minister explain how, in practice, this right is to become a reality?”
“The challenge for Members of Parliament trying to represent such individuals is that they will get a one-line response when they write to the relevant officials to say, “I am seeking to represent my constituent on this point.” A right to information about decision-making will be created under clause 98. I ask the Minister, therefore, when dealing with very sensitive information, how is this right going to be exercised and who is going to be the judge of whether that right has been fulfilled satisfactorily? There is no point approving legislation that is superfluous because it will have no effect in the real world. The clause creates what looks like a powerful new right for individuals to request information about decisions taken by the intelligence agencies, which might have a bearing on all sorts of things in their lives.”
“This is a vexed and difficult area. The subject of the clause is the right to information about decision making, which is very difficult when it comes to the intelligence services, and I have had experiences, as have others I am sure, of constituents who come along to an advice bureau and claim to have been subject either to intelligence services investigation or, in some cases, to intelligence services trying to recruit them. Sometimes—this is not unknown—an individual’s immigration status might be suspect. I had one of these cases about five or six years ago, where the allegation was that the intelligence services were conspiring with the UK Border Agency and what at that time was the Identity and Passport Service to withhold immigration documents to encourage the individual to become a source.”
“Will the Minister give an example of how the right is going to be made a reality? What are the scenarios in which a constituent might be able to exercise this right? I am not interested in the conventions and international agreements this happy clause tends to agree with, but I would like to hear a case study of how a constituent could exercise this right successfully.”