Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Bill

My Lords, I am grateful to the explanations given by the noble Lords, Lord Hylton and Lord Avebury. Sadly, I will resist the amendments because, apart from anything else, one has to be clear about the amount of effort and energy that would be appropriate, particularly because it would place a particularly burdensome requirement on the Secretary of State and the police. However, I seek to reassure the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, on some of the issues he raised. First, it is right and proper that human rights issues are taken forward under Article 8 of ECHR and we expect chief police officers to take this seriously. The Human Rights Act is a backdrop to all public service. We expect people to take it seriously and I believe that they do. In all of these issues it is important that that is noted and that people recognise the importance of doing so. The Data Protection Act and the eighth data protection principle come into play. That principle states:"““Personal data shall not be transferred to a country outside the European Economic Area unless that country or territory ensures an adequate level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects in relation to the processing of personal data””." It is a principle that would be followed. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, asked me how we would deal with the framework decision in terms our presidency and the work on data protection. The noble Lord knows that I am responsible for data protection in government and I spent a huge amount of time during the presidency dealing with many issues relating to data retention and data protection. He will also know that the European Parliament has started its deliberations on the work proposed by the Commission and the Council has not yet reached conclusions—not least, because there is a huge number of issues to take forward. I am happy to keep the noble Lord informed of how we get on. It is expected that we will make significant progress under the Austrian presidency. My own view is that we will not finish this until the Finnish presidency, because there is much to do. There is a great deal of commitment, particularly in the European Parliament, to ensure that the balance between how we share data and how we protect it is recognised. The Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Fettini has often talked about the scales of making sure that alongside security you protect people’s rights, and the Council of 25 nation states have approached that from different viewpoints, but I find a general recognition within the Council that this is an important aspect of what we do. Noble Lords will also know that at Vienna we discussed issues concerning Europol and data, ensuring that we had a consistent approach. I took that forward for the Home Office. As regards European Union work, we have to ensure that data protection issues are correctly understood and undertaken. There are issues about sharing data between nation states. We need to be clear with whom we are sharing information, on what basis and in what the circumstances and, broader than that, we have to recognise the importance of this. On the data protection principle, the exceptions that are applied concern substantial public interest. We need to think very carefully about what we are seeking to achieve. Essentially this concerns enabling the appropriate level within our police services to share information and give information appropriately. We believe that the safeguards are there. We accept the role of the Human Rights Act, as do the police. We accept the data protection principles, particularly the eighth principle. We accept that in the European Union much work still needs to be done on data protection but people need to be willing to adhere to how far we have gone. Our information commissioner meets regularly with his counterparts in Europe to discuss these issues. He and I are considering how best we can work together to deal with data protection issues across Europe. I am not sure whether that fully reassures the noble Lord, but I am very clear about the way in which we are seeking to approach the issue.