I am grateful to the noble Lord for his intervention, because it allows me to refer back to the recently received JCHR report, Legislative Scrutiny: The EU (Withdrawal) Bill: A Right by Right Analysis. I am sure he is familiar with it. It says, if I can find the paragraph—I will talk quickly until I do—that there is still some doubt as to whether the treatment accorded to Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights is covered in the Data Protection Act. The report says:
“The Government … relies heavily in its analysis”,
on the GDPR,
“as a means of incorporating Article 8 of the Charter into domestic law. The GDPR and the Data Protection Bill contain numerous rights for data subjects. However, the Bill does not explicitly incorporate Article 8 … Given the vast number of exemptions and derogations from these rights provided for in the Bill, there is a question as to whether the Bill offers protection that is equivalent to Article 8 of the Charter”.
I put it to the noble Lord that this is an open question.
I know that I am straying into territory that we do not need to, but I started doing that because I was aware that my noble friend the Leader of the Opposition had not yet arrived to take the Statement. I have now been caught going a bit further than I should have, and I apologise to your Lordships’ House. I will sum up quickly. I accept the good intentions from the Minister. May I suggest to her that it might be worth one further discussion on this issue before we finalise our consideration of this Bill and the Data Protection Act? With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.