My Lords, I will speak very briefly. I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for her persistence and skills in negotiating with her own party, which is possibly easier than doing it from outside the party.
I stress the absolute importance of giving crystal clear guidance. The occupation of data controller is not necessarily high on the list of most of us as a potential career. I suspect that it is not the most exciting part of many bureaucracies. I also suspect that it is an area where one follows the rulebook, or what one perceives to be the rulebook, particularly closely. I suspect that the ability of individuals to feel that they have the power to exercise their own judgment is somewhat limited and probably not encouraged. It is incredibly important that there is absolutely no doubt in the mind of even the least curious or the most obdurate data controller as to what is and is not acceptable in terms of erasure.
Other than that, I thank the Government for having thought about this carefully, and for having responded. I hope that as a result of this, the data controller in Waltham Forest who is making Stella Creasy’s life rather difficult will at least read this debate or be told of it and will rethink his or her decision to not erase the data.