EU-US Umbrella Agreement

Matt Hancock Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2017 Written Statements

[The Minister for Digital and Culture (Matt Hancock)]

The Department for Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) is responsible for the Government’s participation in European negotiations on the EU-US Umbrella agreement, which is a comprehensive data protection framework for criminal law enforcement co-operation. A scrutiny override occurred when the UK voted in favour of the conclusion on the agreement before the European Scrutiny Committee could complete the process of scrutiny on the agreement. The proposal was:

Proposed Council Conclusion on the conclusion, on behalf of the European Union, of an agreement between the United States of America and the European Union on the protection of personal information relating to the prevention, investigation, detection and prosecution of criminal offences (8491/16).

The UK voted in favour of the conclusion on the Umbrella agreement. This triggered an override, which was induced by the deadline being brought forward to ensure the conclusion was concluded in time for the EU-US Justice and Home Affairs Ministerial summit in Washington DC on 6 December. With the accelerated timetable and the timing of the scrutiny Committee meetings, it meant that they could not consider our update in advance of their meeting and so the appropriate parliamentary scrutiny procedure was not possible on this occasion.

[HCWS533]