Question to the Home Office:

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of David Anderson's finding that there is no compelling case for the compulsory retention of third party data in his report of the Investigatory Powers Review.

As my right Honourable Friend, the Home Secretary, said in her statement to the House of Commons on 11 June (Col 1356), which I repeated, David Anderson does not say that access to third party data should not be permissible or possible but that a compelling operational case should be made first. The Government will consider all David Anderson’s recommendations carefully before bringing forward legislative proposals.