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

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with reference to her Department's consultation entitled Data: a new direction, for what reason that consultation did not assess the risk of not having an adequacy agreement relating to data transfers from the UK to the EU.

The Data: a new direction consultation included an assessment of the impact of a change in adequacy status with the EU arising as a result of proposed reforms.

The UK is firmly committed to maintaining high data protection standards - now and in the future. Protecting the privacy of individuals will continue to be a national priority. We will continue to operate a high-quality regime that promotes growth and innovation, and underpins the trustworthy use of data.

EU adequacy decisions do not require an ‘adequate’ country to have the same rules, and our view is that the proposed reform of UK legislation on personal data is compatible with maintaining free flow of personal data from Europe.