The Data Protection Bill will be discussed in the Lords this afternoon and it contains a lot of sensible reforms on how we protect private information. However, it also contains a lot of Henry 8th powers giving Ministers the right to by-pass Parliamentary scrutiny if they want to change the law in the future. This is an obvious threat to democracy. Giving such Putin powers to this government is a bad idea, and it remains a bad idea if a Corbyn government takes charge in a few years’ time as the powers give the executive the ability to change the rules, and that is always a bad idea.

I am putting a series of amendments to the Data Protection Bill, drawn up by the campaign group Liberty. These aim to maintain Parliament’s traditional role of amending and passing legislation. This is vitally important for protecting privacy and data protection. It is also a test of the Lord’s willingness to resist executive power grabs ahead of the Brexit legislation

Copies of my amendments and others can be found here.