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 41 of 108.
“There should be agreement across the Committee on the need to protect our great collections, yet keep some companies, such as Google and Facebook, subject to the provisions in the Bill. We offer the amendment as a starter for 10. Obviously, we would be delighted if the Government accepted it; we would be even more pleased if they could perfect it.”
“We want to try to create a statutory definition for organisations that archive in the public interest. We have had a first attempt at drawing that in a narrow way, so it does not infringe on material that is stored that absolutely should be subject to general GDPR provisions. We have done our best to ensure that the archiving exemptions are proportionate to the public interest nature of the material being archived. We wanted to offer an amendment worded hopefully in such a way that, frankly, it excludes Google, Facebook and others from enjoying the exemptions sought here. This is the first place in the Bill where the debate rears its head. I am grateful to the range of museums, archives and the BBC that have helped us to craft this amendment. It should not be particularly controversial.”
“I do not want to pretend that this is a black-and-white case. Sometimes news archives in particular will be required to draw something of a grey line, and I am afraid the Minister has to earn her pay and be the one to decide where to draw that grey line. Sometimes there will be information stored in those archives that absolutely should be subject to the GDPR provisions. But if we are in effect granting a carte blanche for people to make requests of archives that require those archives to dip deep into the historical record, correct things and go through challenging processes to ensure they are right, I am afraid it will put a number of our archives out of business, and that will damage the health of our democracy. We have drafted this amendment with a number of aims.”
“A range of crucial organisations entrusted with the delicate task of keeping our archives up to date are seriously worried about the provisions in the GDPR. In fact, they believe the inadequacy of the derogations and exemptions in the GDPR, as it is proposed that we draft it into law, means that they will be quickly put out of business. In particular, that will bite on thousands of smaller archives. The point they have consistently made to us is that, although we have such great collections and archives in this country and a public interest culture around protecting some of those archives, we do not have any of the kind of legal protections that they enjoy in countries such as France. We do not have the defendable protections around archives that those abroad benefit from. The challenge in this Bill is a lack of precision.”
“They must be dynamic resources; they must be added to, and our success or failure in that task has a crucial bearing on the health of our democracy and our ability to, dare I say it, reflect on past mistakes and do better. I think it was the legendary Karl Popper who once said, “To err is human, to correct divine.” We make mistakes. It is important that we reflect on the mistakes we have made in the past, in order to do better next time around. Many of the more contemporary archives, particularly news archives, have had a crucial bearing on inquiries into historical child abuse, the injustices perpetrated at Hillsborough and at Orgreave, and HIV-contaminated blood. All those inquiries relied on records that were not necessarily historical; many were contemporary.”
“Our ability and our tradition of collecting mean that this country is now home to some of the greatest collections on the planet. It is fantastic to see many of these institutions now rapidly digitalising those archives. I was privileged to be able to visit the Natural History Museum recently, which I think is home to something like 83 million different specimens. It is now beginning to digitalise those archives in a way that opens them up not only to our schoolchildren, but to citizens of this country and those around the world who are keen on science. The point of this amendment is that we cannot simply preserve those archives in aspic.”
“I beg to move amendment 170, in schedule 2, page 151, line 8, at end insert— “(f) in Chapter IX of the GDPR (provisions relating to specific processing situations), Article 89(1) (safeguards and derogations relating to processing for archiving purposes in the public interest, scientific or historical research purposes or statistical purposes).” This amendment adds the restrictions imposed on archiving by the GDPR and the Bill to the list of matters in the Bill that benefit from the Journalism, Art and Literature exemption . The purpose of this amendment is to protect some of our important national archives. We in this country are some of the greatest collectors on earth; the tradition established by Sir Hans Sloane all those centuries ago inspired many generations that followed him.”
“Amendment 113, in schedule 3, page 164, line 7, leave out “with the day on which” and insert “when”.— (Margot James.) This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71. Schedule 3, as amended, agreed to. Schedule 4 agreed to. Clause 16 Power to make further exemptions etc by regulations Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“(4) The persons referred to in sub-paragraph (1)(c) are— (a) a teacher at the school; (b) an employee of the Education Authority, other than a teacher at the school; (c) an employee of the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools, other than a teacher at the school; (d) the pupil to whom the record relates; (e) a parent, as defined by Article 2(2) of the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1986 (S.I. 1986/594 (N.I. 3)). (5) In this paragraph, “grant-aided school”, “independent school”, “proprietor” and “trustees” have the same meaning as in the Education and Libraries (Northern Ireland) Order 1986 (S.I. 1986/594 (N.I. 3)).” This amendment expands the types of records that are “educational records” for the purposes of Part 4 of Schedule 3.”
“Amendment 112, in schedule 3, page 162, line 3, leave out paragraph 16 and insert— “16 (1) This paragraph applies to a record of information which— (a) is processed by or on behalf of the Board of Governors, proprietor or trustees of, or a teacher at, a school in Northern Ireland specified in sub-paragraph (3), (b) relates to an individual who is or has been a pupil at the school, and (c) originated from, or was supplied by or on behalf of, any of the persons specified in sub-paragraph (4). (2) But this paragraph does not apply to information which is processed by a teacher solely for the teacher’s own use. (3) The schools referred to in sub-paragraph (1)(a) are— (a) a grant-aided school; (b) an independent school.”
“I am happy to withdraw the amendment, although I would say to the Minister that the helpful words we have heard this afternoon will not go far enough to satisfy the objections that we heard from organisations. We reserve the right to come back to this matter on Report. We will obviously consult the organisations that helped us to draft the amendment, and I urge her to do the same. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to. Schedule 3 Exemptions etc from the GDPR: health, social work, education and child abuse data Amendments made: 111, in schedule 3, page 160, line 21, leave out “with the day on which” and insert “when”. This amendment is consequential on Amendment 71.”
“We agree that the clause offers Ministers a rather sweeping power to introduce new regulations. Over the course of what has been quite a short day in Committee we have heard many reasons to be alarmed about equipping Ministers with such sweeping powers. We proposed an amendment to remove the clause, which I think was not selected because we have this stand part debate. What we need to hear from the Minister are some pretty good arguments as to why Ministers should be given unfettered power to introduce such regulations without the effective scrutiny and oversight of right hon. and hon. Members in this House.”
“The Opposition will move amendments to enshrine those principles more firmly into our law. Beyond that, I have no objections to this foundation stone of the Bill. Question put and agreed to. Clause 1 accordingly agreed to. Clause 2 Protection of personal data Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. Looking around the Committee Room, I see that you have an extremely unruly bunch of hon. Members to police in the next couple of weeks, but I know that you will do so with skill and care. The Opposition do not wish to object to clause 1, which is basically the foundation stone of the Bill. We wish only to underline the Bill’s peculiarity in that it seeks to incorporate a piece of European legislation into British law without actually reproducing the legislation in question. Throughout the debate, we will hear references to the general data protection regulation—GDPR—a text that appears nowhere in the Bill. I hope that over the coming weeks the Committee will therefore focus on a series of principles for data protection.”
“We do not think the Government want to depart from a harmonisation of regulations in this area over the years to come so the flexibility that this Bill currently offers will not be taken up. Let us put the matter beyond dispute and beyond doubt and let us incorporate article 8 into the Bill.”
“When we first crafted this new clause, there were some issues to which we were alert. A number of noble peers expressed a concern that we were creating too absolutist a right, a right without balancing test and provisions. That has been corrected in the new clause presented to this Committee today. We would therefore like to press it to a vote, as we want to ensure this fundamental right is part and parcel of British law for the years to come. It de-risks an adequacy agreement for data protection for the future. We have enjoyed the provisions of article 8 for some years, and there is no reason to suggest that they may be more troublesome in the years ahead.”
“There will be Governments of many colours over the course of the next 70 or 80 years and in this Committee we do not want to risk leaving unfettered a future Government who may take a less reasonable position than the famously reasonable Minister. That is why we want to move the incorporation of article 8 into British law. We currently have a Bill without a data protection instrument and without clear data protection principles. That is a high-risk situation when, today, we have a low-risk regime. Nobody is particularly troubled by the current privacy regimes; we have been operating under article 8 of the EU charter of fundamental rights for some time and, certainly, no arguments I have heard suggest that it is troublesome in any way. What is wrong with continuing with it?”
“To coin a phrase, they are trying to have their cake and eat it. That is not a reasonable position. The Minister will reassure us that that is not the intention of Her Majesty’s Government today. No doubt, she will tell us there is no will to try and win a race to the bottom in the data protection regime and many of us may be sympathetic to her position, as she is quite famously a reasonable Minister. However, the Tory party is not a stable place and the worry on all parts is not only how long the Minister will enjoy her office but what will come after her and what Government will come after this Government.”
“Our lawyers played a fundamental role in shaping the EU charter of fundamental rights, but now, in the EU (Withdrawal) Bill, the Government decide to kill off the whole thing. In killing off the whole thing, and in particular article 8—the fundamental foundational right to privacy—we create a new risk to keeping in lockstep the data protection regime in this country and the data protection regime in the European Union. If we bring that into doubt, we jeopardise an adequacy agreement for the future. I fear that, by setting their face against this new clause 12, the Government are, in some way and for some reason, trying to preserve the illusion of harmony between our regime and the regime of the European Union in order to camouflage the flexibility that might allow it to depart from regulatory harmonisation in the years to come.”
“Secretary of State for the Home Department to the High Court, which confirmed the right of privacy in this country. This is not something that is necessarily party political; this is something on which there is strong cross-party consensus. These principles will become all the more important as the EU (Withdrawal) Bill is given effect because the Bill has thousands of ideas and proposals but kills off only one piece of legislation: the EU charter of fundamental rights. A British tradition helped shape the EU charter of fundamental rights. We are the country of the Magna Carta and we are the country that helped craft the European convention on human rights after world war two to ensure there was never a return to the horrors of the 1930s and 1940s.”
“Members can look it up if they like, but the Government have not set it out in a schedule or anywhere else. The fact that the Bill does not include the GDPR makes it all the more important that the House agrees a series of principles that are good now and for the future. Principles are paramount, and in this Bill the principle of privacy is first among equals. The question of privacy is not disputed. It is a principle that has been agreed by our own Supreme Court in a recent case that was brought by the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), who is now the Secretary of State for Brexit. Together with my hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson), he brought the case of David Davis and others v.”
“Let us put the data sharing regime between us and the European Union beyond doubt, not just for the short term but for the long term. Failure to get an adequacy agreement could arguably be fatal to the British economy. We simply cannot consider a shred of risk to that adequacy agreement. I hope that, having looked at this amendment and appreciated some of the refinements we made in the other place, the Government will decide that they will not put dogma in the way of agreeing to it. It is too important to leave to doubt. In the debate on clause 1, I said that this principle was all the more important, because right hon. and hon. Members are being asked to agree to a Bill that does not feature the GDPR, which it seeks to incorporate into British law. Hon.”
“Her Majesty’s Opposition did not make it up; it was crafted with techUK—an organisation that represents 950 companies, which employ something like 800,000 people and make up about half of the UK tech industry. When techUK proposes a fundamental measure of reform, it is important that we listen. When we leave the European Union, we will need to agree with it an adequacy agreement by which it recognises the data protection regime in this country as adequate and therefore indicates that it is permissible for us to share data across the continental borders. The question, therefore, is how do we put that adequacy agreement beyond any doubt, not just for the immediate years after Brexit but for the decades to come? We know that trade will be fundamental to the health and wellbeing of our economy over many, many years.”
“Despite all the efforts of the Secretary of State for International Trade, the reality is that the EU data economy, sitting next door to us, remains one of the most important, if not the most important, global markets from which we should aspire to profit over the years to come. One of the great risks of Brexit is that technology firms will relocate, which is already beginning to take place. Many such firms will choose to headquarter in the Republic of Ireland. It is therefore in everybody’s interest that our trade and data protection regimes allow the smooth export of digitally enabled services. I hope that is not a contentious point. In new clause 12, we propose to incorporate into British law what is, in effect, at the cutting edge of global data protection measures. It is not a trivial or frivolous new clause.”
“New clause 12, which I tabled with other Opposition members of the Committee, seeks to achieve something very simple: to incorporate article 8 of the EU charter of fundamental rights into British law. It is beyond dispute that both sides of the House share the objective of ensuring friction-free trade with our neighbour, the European Union, over the years to come. The role of this Bill in enabling that trade is of fundamental significance. Something like 70% of our exports of goods and services rely on the smooth transfer of data, and we know that the European data economy will be worth something like £643 billion by 2020.”
“The Minister is rehearsing the argument that was made in the other place before the requirements that we put into our amendments. She can see as well as me that the new clause was rewritten so that, under subsection (2), it is to be interpreted only “in accordance with the provisions, exceptions and derogations of this Act;”. So the idea that we are creating some kind of new and unfettered right is nonsense. We had this debate in the other place. We made refinements and they have been presented in the new clause. If there is no dispute about the importance of adequacy and of putting it beyond risk, what is the problem with putting the question beyond doubt and dispute and incorporating the same foundation that is enjoyed in the European Union into British law?”
“It is not a new right; it is a roll-over of an existing right. I have not heard of a case prosecuted in British courts where there was a problem with balancing the right that we currently enjoy with anything else. We simply seek to roll this right over into the future.”
“However, that is exactly what the Minister is doing by creating a pot pourri of legislation, which lawyers and judges will have to pick their way through. It is much simpler, much lower-risk, much safer and better for economic growth if we put beyond doubt, dispute and question the harmonisation of our data protection regime with our single most important market. That is why we need to incorporate article 8.”
“The challenge we have is in the thousands of decisions that our regulators must take in the future. How do we put beyond doubt or dispute the preservation of regulatory lockstep with our single most important market next door? The Uruguayan defence offered by the Minister will reassure few people. We should not be aspiring to the Uruguayan regime; we should be aspiring to something much deeper, more substantive and more harmonious. The Minister’s proposal will create a field day for lawyers. We all like lawyers; some of our Committee members are former lawyers—recovering lawyers in some cases. Lawyers should enjoy a profitable and successful future, but we in this House do not necessarily need to maximise their profit-making possibilities in the future.”
“The challenge we have with regulating in this particular field is that sometimes we have to be anticipatory in the way we structure regulations. Anyone who has spent any time with the British FinTech industry, which Ministers are keen to try and enhance, grow and develop for the years to come, will know that FinTech providers need to be able to test and reform bits of regulation in conjunction not only with the Information Commissioner but with other regulators such as the Financial Conduct Authority. For those regulators to be able to guarantee a degree of regulatory certainty, sometimes they will need to look beyond the letter of a particular piece of legislation, such as the Data Protection Bill when it becomes an Act, and reflect on the spirit of that legislation. The spirit is captured best by fundamental rights.”
“As noble peers argued in the other place, the challenge with incorporating the GDPR into British law is that this is a piece of regulation and legislation that reflects the world of technology as it is today. It is not the first bit of data protection legislation and it will not be the last. At some point in the years to come, there will be a successor piece of legislation to this Bill and the courts’ challenge will be to make judgments that interpret an increasingly outmoded and outdated piece of legislation. We have to ensure that judgments made in the British courts and in the European courts remain in lockstep. If we lose that lockstep, we will jeopardise the future of an adequacy agreement. That will be bad for Britain, bad for British businesses and bad for technology jobs in all our constituencies.”
“First, she said that the source of our new protections would be the incorporation of EU case law and legislation as enshrined by the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill. Of course, that is simply not applicable to this case, because the one significant part of European legislation that the withdrawal Bill explicitly does not incorporate is the European charter of fundamental rights. The Minister slightly gave the game away when she read out the line in her briefing note that said that the rights we currently have in EU law would be enshrined and protected “so far as it is possible to do so.” That is exactly the kind of risk we are seeking to guard against.”
“I am afraid we have heard a very weak argument against new clause 12. The Minister sought to prosecute two lines of argument: first, that new clause 12 risks confusion in the courts; and, secondly, that it is not needed. Let me take each in turn. First, there can be no risk of confusion because this is not a new right. It is a right we already enjoy today, and our courts are well practised in balancing it with the other rights we enjoy. We are simply seeking to roll over the status quo into the future to put beyond doubt an adequacy agreement not just in the immediate years after we leave the European Union but in the decades that will follow. Secondly, the Minister sought to persuade us that the new clause was not needed, and she had a couple of different lines of attack.”
“We will seek to prosecute these arguments in a vote, at your discretion, Mr Hanson, but I hope that before we get to that point, the Government will see sense and accept the amendment.”
“My hon. Friend is right. He speaks with tremendous knowledge on this particular subject. There is a real risk that one of our most important industries will have its foundations wrecked by the inadequacies of this piece of legislation. There is no risk of confusion, there is no creation of a new and unchecked, unfettered right. We can draw no comfort from the EU (Withdrawal) Bill. There is a great risk of regulatory confusion and divergence over the years to come. I simply cannot understand why the Government would seek to put dogma and not the future protection of the British technology industry first. This is not a trivial or frivolous issue; it has been put forward by the industry association representing half of technology jobs in this country. I hope that the Committee is persuaded by these arguments.”
“Will she also say a little more about her plans to ensure that there are statutory codes of practice to which everyone who provides education services must adhere?”
“The amendments look like tidying-up amendments, but it would help if the Minister put on the record the extent to which they will allow the Bill to bite effectively on the nation’s schools. Obviously, schools collect a great deal of data. They often hold not only exam data but data relating to eligibility for free school meals, and most schools operate systems such as ParentPay, which means that they capture children’s biometrics. Anything to do with the protection of children’s data has to be treated incredibly seriously. The school system in this country has been balkanised—often, academies are set up as private sector entities in complex chains and have problematic governance arrangements—so I think we would all benefit from the Minister saying a few words about the Bill’s bite on schools, academies and colleges.”
“Will the Minister set on the record explicitly the fact that academies are covered in the same way as schools? An academy may be set up by a private sector organisation, set up as a charitable body, or set up in a way that is outwith the formal education system. Ofsted has raised concerns about unregulated schools, for example. Can she confirm whether organisations that provide education services—whether they are academies, charities or local education authority schools—are governed by the codes? Crucially, can she confirm that she will publish the code of practice?”
“We therefore need a data protection regime that helps and does not hinder, which is why the Government should accept these carefully crafted amendments.”
“If we look at facilities such as BT at Dashwood Park, the Crick Institute or GSK in Stevenage, we see big global companies with hundreds of smaller companies around them which are undertaking research with much greater speed and much lower risk, but with an impact that could change the world. We cannot jeopardise the conduct of that research. My hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge is right to point out that where there is doubt about the law, or the powers and freedoms of research firms, there is a risk that such firms simply will not undertake such work in the UK, and instead will seek relationships either with global companies or, increasingly, with universities that have R&D facilities elsewhere. We want to create the world’s best place to undertake new science, and that means having a research regime that is the best in the world.”
“I hope that the Minister will reflect on the reality—the way in which research is conducted in our country is changing. In the past, I have called that a shift from the cathedral to the campus. Once upon a time, big firms put a lot of people in a large building and prayed for the best. Now, they are building business parks and creating ecosystems of innovation where they may have a shared research and development facility, otherwise known as a university. There may be big international companies with global reach organised around them, but there are also scores of much smaller firms. They may be as small as a couple of post-docs in a shared lab.”
“I want to say a few words in support of my hon. Friend and these important amendments. I think there is an acknowledgement on both sides of the Committee that if we are to prosper in the world that is coming, we are going to need to increase the amount of money that we spend on research and development and make sure that a research-driven economy reaches every corner of the country. The world of innovation and research is changing very quickly. I think it is next year that China becomes the world’s largest science spender for the first time in several centuries. If we are to compete in this new world, we need to invest more in our R&D base. The Government have made some helpful commitments in this area. Their proposals are not quite as ambitious as the Labour amendments, but none the less all progress is welcome.”
“She gave a pretty comprehensive list, but will she put beyond doubt whether canvassing and collecting canvass returns were in her mind when she tabled the amendment and are therefore covered by the amendment? That would be extremely helpful. The amendment is well intentioned. The health of our democracy is important to all parties. We look forward to the conversations that she will broker through the parliamentary parties panel.”
“I was surprised and not a little troubled that the Minister did not include the opportunity of creating Member-specific apps in her list—especially those which suck out the pictures from someone’s phone without their permission. Presumably that was not included in her list because that is already illegal. I am grateful to the Minister for tabling the amendment and for her earlier correspondence with my noble Friend Lord Kennedy. She undertook to reflect on that correspondence and bring forward amendments. She helpfully set out a list of some of the activities that may be undertaken by a political party that fall within the ambit of the amendment.”
“However, rather than simply wave clause 9 through, it is incumbent on the Minister to say a little about how she will ensure that there are adequate safeguards in place to protect our children from the very threats the Secretary of State lit up in lights on Saturday.”
“Many of us have children who are already engaged in this and, as a parent, I have real concerns about the freedom with which social media companies can develop and deliver these techniques, as well as their freedom to take a rather relaxed view of taking down often unfortunate and extremist content. I know that we will have this debate later, and we have tabled amendments to encourage the Government to set a deadline for reforming the electronic commerce directive. It is important to draw a little more out of the Government about how they see the safeguards coming into place around clause 9. We have not sought to challenge the derogation the Government seek to enshrine in the Bill, but we ensured widespread support for Baroness Kidron’s amendment on the creation of an age-appropriate code.”
“We have had revelations from engineers who have worked at companies such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram that a great deal of thought goes into how they create devices and forms of interaction that encourage that basic addiction to their apps. We are at the beginning of what I hope is a period of re-regulation and better regulation of these firms, so that we can do away with many of the risks that affect our children. In a way, I was encouraged to see the Secretary of State’s interview with The Times on Saturday, in which he said very clearly that he would like to see better regulation of social media firms in this country before his own children are tempted to engage in this exciting online world.”
“The clause is an important topic of debate because it enshrines the Government’s derogation from European frameworks in law and sets the minimum age of consent for data processing at 13 rather than 16. That derogation was invented before social media companies arrived at their current strength and delivered the very wide and sophisticated range of tools that help ensure that children become almost addicted to social media devices. In the debate on this topic over the last two or three months there have been fresh revelations from leaders of social media firms that they forbid their children to engage in the apps that their companies deliver.”
“They will not damage or diminish the Secretary of State’s ability to keep regulation up to date. Many of us have been in this place long enough to know that it is perfectly within the Executive’s power to keep regulatory reform on track if the political will is there. We are asking for a defence of Parliament’s right to oversee, scrutinise and, where necessary, constrain the powers of the Secretary of State to regulate in this field.”
“1464.] That includes, for example, the insurance sector. That is patently nonsense. It would not constrain the Government’s ability to introduce wise regulations in this place; it would simply constrain the Government’s ability to do that unilaterally without effective recourse to Parliament. We are seeking a very clear Government explanation as to why the Secretary of State, not Parliament, should be empowered to alter the data protection regime to keep it up to date, and that explanation needs to be all the more robust following the remarks that the Minister has made about her attitude towards incorporating the fundamental right of privacy in British law. We think that the amendments would be sensible constraints on Henry VIII powers. There is wide consensus across both Houses that they are necessary.”