Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, whether she had discussions with the Secretary of State for Justice, prior to publication of that Department's proposals in the document entitled Human Rights Act Reform: a Modern Bill of Rights, on the potential risks to the adequacy agreement from proposals in that document relating to the human rights regime that affect the UK General Data Protection Regulation and Data Protection Act 2018, as identified by the Information Commissioner.

As was set out in the Bill of Rights consultation, the UK remains fully committed to the international human rights treaties to which it is party.

The Bill of Rights will ensure those rights in the European Convention on Human Rights can be interpreted in the UK context, with respect for our legal traditions and the will of elected lawmakers.

The UK has two EU adequacy decisions, under the General Data Protection Regulation and the Law Enforcement Directive. As the European Commission itself has made clear, a third country is not required to have exactly the same rules as the EU in order to be considered adequate. Indeed, there are thirteen other countries which have EU adequacy, including Israel, Japan, New Zealand and Canada. All of these nations pursue independent and varied approaches to data protection and human rights.

The UK is firmly committed to maintaining high data protection standards and ensuring that rights and liberties are protected - this will not change. Our view is that reform of UK legislation on human rights is compatible with maintaining free flow of personal data from international partners.