Liberal Democrats perspective on e-Visas

 I've had a response from Layla Moran's office to my email about the government planning to use e-Visas for immigration raids.

"Dear Ray,

Thank you for taking the time to share your concerns about e-Visas.

As Co-President of The European Movement, Layla is deeply concerned by the growing number of cases where EU citizens have faced severe consequences due to errors or failures in the Home Office’s digital system. As you rightly point out, problems with proving immigration status can affect everything from healthcare access and housing to employment and education, all of which are fundamental rights people should be able to rely on.

We have heard of real-life experiences which highlight a system that is failing in both transparency and reliability, and we agree that this must be urgently addressed. The Liberal Democrats agree with Settled that a status system that leaves people in limbo, unable to prove their right to live, work, or access essential services in the UK, is not fit for purpose.

We believe EU citizens deserve a secure, reliable and inclusive form of proof of status. The Home Office must take urgent steps to restore confidence in the system, including commissioning an independent review into the operation of the eVisa platform and ensuring there are accessible backup forms of status available. Everyone who has the legal right to be in the UK should be able to prove it easily and consistently.

We continue to call for stronger UK–EU relations that go beyond the instability and bureaucracy of recent years, including by supporting Early Day Motion 1318. This EDM welcomes the progress made at this week’s UK–EU Summit, but also expresses concern that there is still much more to be done, not least on restoring people’s mobility rights and addressing the red tape many now face.

We greatly appreciate the work that Settled has done and continues to do. Please rest assured that Layla and her Liberal Democrat colleagues will keep pressing the Government to show greater ambition in resetting our relationship with Europe and to ensure that those who live, work, and contribute to communities in the UK, including long-standing EU residents, are treated with the dignity and security they deserve.

Thank you again for getting in touch.
 

Best wishes,

Office of Layla Moran
Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Oxford West & Abingdon "

 

Government plan to use eVisa scheme for immigration raids

The government has announced this week that the Home Office's flawed eVisa scheme will be used for immigration raids. So I've followed up my email to my MP to alert her to this development. The Open Rights Group are coordinating an effort to make MPs aware and ask for resistance to this scheme.

Dear Layla,

 I wrote to you recently about the Home Office’s flawed eVisa scheme.

 This week, little noticed in media reporting on the Prime Minister’s unconscionable ‘island of strangers’ targeting of immigrants speech, the Government announced that the eVisa scheme would be used to support immigration raids. If this goes ahead, people with the legal right to be in the UK could be deported because of flaws in the Home Office’s systems.

 Since the rollout of the eVisa scheme, the human rights organisation, the Open Rights Group, has heard about travellers stranded at airports, refugees unable to rent a home or get a job, and even a man being made homeless because of a data error. But these harms would pale into significance if eVisa data is used for immigration raids that result in deportation.

 Please will you contact  the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Yvette Cooper and urge her to stop eVisa data from being used for immigration raids and press again for the government to provide offline alternative for people to prove their immigration status when the eVisa is not working.  The seeds of another Windrush scandal have been sown and are sprouting.

 Regards,

 Ray

UK Government should allow physical proof of immigration status

In the face of the failing rollout of the UK government's eVisa scheme, I've written to my MP, again, at the suggestion of the Open Rights Group.

"Of the many failures of the Labour government since coming into power last year, their adoption of Conservative/Reform right-wing rhetoric and policies on immigration has been one of the most egregious.

Please can you take action to help people who are facing serious harms because of the Home Office’s flawed eVisa scheme.

The eVisa scheme was supposed to replace physical documents with online proof of immigration status. But the roll-out of the scheme has been chaotic. Technical and administrative problems mean that many people cannot create or access their eVisa at the crucial times that they need it. Many people are currently having to rely on expired documents to prove their right to be in the UK.

Since the scheme was supposed to come into effect on January 1, 2025 people who have the right to be in the UK have been prevented from boarding planes and had their travel plans disrupted. Refugees have been unable to rent homes or get jobs. At least one person has been made homeless because of an error in their eVisa. There are undoubtedly thousands more people facing such harms – including many of your constituents.

The immediate solution:

The Home Office recently updated its guidelines to allow migrants with legacy paper documents to continue using them. This could be extended to all migrants that have the right to remain in the UK. Having a physical document as a back up will mean that people can prove their immigration status even if they are unable to show their eVisa because of technical glitches or Internet outages. It will also help people who do not have a smartphone or who are not digitally literate.

Please will you contact the Minister for Migration and Citizenship, Seema Malhotra and urge her to take this simple step to allow people to have an optional physical document to prove their right to be in the UK"

Court of Appeal Declare Data Protection Act Immigration Exemption Unlawful

On Wednesday, 26 May, 2021, the UK Court of Appeal issued a decision in The Open Rights Group & Anor, R (On the Application Of) v The Secretary of State for the Home Department & Anor [2021] EWCA Civ 800 declaring the unconscionable immigration exemption in the 2018 Data Protection Act (Paragraph 4 of Part 1, Schedule 2) unlawful.

The case was brought by the Open Rights Group and the3million and supported by the ICO.

The result brought some cheer to a week in which the European Court of Human Rights effectively accepted, in the case of Big Brother Watch & others v UK, that mass surveillance was compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights. The thin edge of a substantial fundamental rights offending wedge. The sole exception, among the 18 judges was Portuguese justice, Paulo Pinto de Albuquerque who, in concluding his dissenting judgment, said:

59. This judgment fundamentally alters the existing balance in Europe between the right to respect for private life and public security interests, in that it admits non-targeted surveillance of the content of electronic communications and related communications data, and even worse, the exchange of data with third countries which do not have comparable protection to that of the Council of Europe States. This conclusion is all the more justified in view of the CJEU’s peremptory rejection of access on a generalised basis to the content of electronic communications , its manifest reluctance regarding general and indiscriminate retention of traffic and location data and its limitation of exchanges of data with foreign intelligence services which do not ensure a level of protection essentially equivalent to that guaranteed by the Charter of Fundamental Rights . On all these three counts, the Strasbourg Court lags behind the Luxembourg Court, which remains the lighthouse for privacy rights in Europe. 

60. For good or ill, and I believe for ill more than for good, with the present judgment the Strasbourg Court has just opened the gates for an electronic “Big Brother” in Europe. If this is the new normal that my learned colleagues in the majority want for Europe, I cannot join them, and this I say with a disenchanted heart, with the same consternation as that exuding from Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere mei, Deus."

I hope to get round to a more detailed assessment of the Big Brother Watch case another time but having been partly consoled by the thought that at least the immigration exemption was toast, a close reading of the Court of Appeal decision led to the unfortunate conclusion that it is still very much alive and kicking.

The short version of the story is that Lord Justices Warby, Singh and Underhill have indeed declared the immigration exemption unlawful but only on a technicality. Essentially the government didn't get all their legislative ducks in a row when passing the law and didn't follow the UK GDPR rules on how to implement a contemptible measure like this. The immigration exemption itself was not thrown out on principle. 

Basically, if the UK government want to implement something like the immigration exemption circumventing data protection rights, they have to do so according to specific GDPR Article 23 rules. They failed to follow the rules, so the exemption is unlawful. 

"29. The argument has been wide-ranging but I would suggest that, if my Lords agree, this appeal can and should be decided on the following short and straightforward basis. There presently exists no legislative measure that contains specific provisions in accordance with the mandatory requirements of Article 23(2) of the GDPR. In the absence of any such measure, the Immigration Exemption is an unauthorised derogation from the fundamental rights conferred by the GDPR, and therefore incompatible with the Regulation. For that reason, it is unlawful. The appeal succeeds on this aspect of Ground 2, and it is unnecessary to reach conclusions on the other issues raised."

For the Brexiters, btw, shouting we are no longer in the EU, the GDPR is indeed directly applicable in EU member states only and applied from 25 May 2018. The UK has exited the EU but the UK parliament decided to keep substantially the same law in place in the UK. As the appeal court judges say at paragraph 12,

"(1) Sections 2, 3 and 6 of the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (“EUWA”) provided for certain aspects of EU law to remain in force, as part of English law, notwithstanding withdrawal. This is known as “retained EU law”. The GDPR, DPA 2018, and relevant CJEU case-law pre-dating IP completion day all fell into this category. 

... 

” The Immigration Exemption is “pre-exit domestic legislation”. 

(3) A statutory instrument of 2019 made amendments to the GDPR and DPA 2018 with effect from IP completion day. 1 As a result the GDPR, as it applies domestically, is now known as “the UK GDPR”. But the UK GDPR has the same legal status today as the GDPR had before IP completion day. Article 23 is now in slightly amended terms, but the amendments are not material. In Article 23(1), references to “the Union” and “Member State” are deleted and the power to restrict is now conferred on the Secretary of State. There is no change to Article 23(2). The Immigration Exemption is unamended."

So, the judges were free to declare the immigration exemption incompatible with article 23 of the GDPR and article 23 of the UK GDPR and to strike it out.

In paragraphs 14 to 18 the judgment is not exactly complementary on Home Office activities in this area, referring to their extensive use of the immigration exemption to deny people access to their data in 10,823 cases, "authoritative reports that cast doubt on the accuracy and reliability of the Home Office decision-making in the arena of immigration and data protection"  and that "it is clear that the Immigration Exemption plays a significant role in practice as a brake on access to personal data".

When dealing with the original judge's decision approving the immigration exemption, the Court says he relied on UK domestic case law to side with the government and say they were not obliged to follow the black letter requirements of GDPR article 23. In other words he felt the technicalities of article 23 were irrelevant in this context.

The appeal court decided he got this wrong. A clear line of judgments from the Court of Justice of the European Union supports the Open Rights Group, the3million and the ICO argument that the government do have to follow the rules of article 23 if they want to ignore data protection rights in connection with immigration cases. In the Digital Rights Ireland (2014), Tele 2 & Watson (2016), EU-Canada PNR (2017), Privacy International and La Quadrature du Net (2018, decided on the same day), the CJEU was "alert to the risk of over-broad derogations from fundamental rights; requires any derogation from fundamental rights to be justified by proof of strict necessity; and does not consider that this, or the requirement of proportionality, can be satisfied unless the appropriate safeguards are built into the legislative measure."

The CJEU was aware that member states would make end runs around fundamental rights when they felt like it and wanted to set up some hurdles to negotiate if that was the aim. And the UK government's argument that we should not worry our little heads about them taking away the rights of people because, like, they can always try another law if they are worried, didn't pass muster with Lord Justice Warby and his two colleagues.

"48. As I have indicated, however, I would prefer to decide this case on a narrower basis. I do not believe Article 23 should be construed as merely requiring the state to provide a general legal framework that contains guarantees of necessity and proportionality, and other safeguards. That might be a legitimate interpretation of Article 23(1), if it stood alone. But our analysis must reflect the fact that when updating and strengthening EU data protection law in the GDPR the legislature chose to depart from the approach to derogation that it had adopted in Article 13 of the Data Protection Directive. It particularised the requirements of Article 23(1), at some length, and in some detail, in Article 23(2). It seems to me that the respondents’ argument fails to explain or account for this and, in the process, leaves Article 23(2) with no significant purpose or function. In one sense, Article 23(2) clearly does provide a checklist. But I do not consider it plausible that Article 23(2) was intended to amount to nothing more than a sort of high level aide-memoire to the state about the kinds of matters it should have in mind when deciding whether to derogate from fundamental rights, in pursuit of one of the specified aims. The checklist is cast in mandatory terms, and calls for “specific” provisions. Sir James’s submission that these “specific provisions” can be found in general principles of human rights or administrative law, or in existing Articles of the GDPR is unconvincing. Article 23(2) itself – on the face of it – requires them to be contained in “any legislative measure referred to in paragraph 1

49. It may be that this wording is not to be read entirely literally; but it is remarkably specific and surely must be given some meaning. At any rate, in my judgment the better view, in the light of the CJEU jurisprudence, is that Article 23(2) requires any derogation to be effected by a “legislative measure” that is tailored to the derogation, legally enforceable, and contains provisions that are specific to the listed topics - to the extent these are relevant to the derogation in question - precise, and produce a reasonably foreseeable outcome. It can, I think, be said that this interpretation follows from the CJEU decision in La Quadrature. As I read that decision, the Court adopted and applied in the context of Article 23 of the GDPR the body of jurisprudence it had built up over the preceding years when dealing with Article 15 of the e-Privacy Directive and the Data Retention Directive. More generally, in this respect the Luxembourg jurisprudence and the language of Article 23(2) seem to me to be broadly if not precisely in step. The CJEU has repeatedly rejected submissions to the effect that domestic legislation should be held to pass muster on the basis that sufficient safeguards could be found elsewhere in the overall legal framework. The language of Article 23(2) seems to me to reflect the lines of reasoning enunciated in Digital Rights Ireland [54] and Tele2 [117-118], and the legislature may properly be considered to have intended an outcome on the same lines. 

50. The essence of the reasoning, as I see it, is that broad legal provisions, such as those that require a measure to be necessary and proportionate in pursuit of a legitimate aim, are insufficient to protect the individual against the risk of unlawful abrogation of fundamental rights. The legal framework will not provide the citizen with sufficient guarantees that any derogation will be strictly necessary and proportionate to the aim in view, unless the legislature has taken the time to direct its attention to the specific impacts which the derogation would have, to consider whether any tailored provisions are required and, if so, to lay them down with precision. This approach will tend to make the scope and operation of a derogation more transparent, improve the quality of decision-making, and facilitate review of its proportionality. To my mind the evidence to date as to the relevant decision-making tends to emphasise the importance of characteristics such as these." 

The good judge also takes comfort to note his conclusions "are consistent with paragraphs 45-46 of the Guidelines 10/2020 on restrictions under Article 23 GDPR published by the European Data Protection Board (“EDPB”)".It is clear that the immigration exemption in the Data Protection Act does not comply with GDPR article 23.

"The Exemption itself contains nothing, specific or otherwise, about any of the matters listed in Article 23(2). Even assuming, without deciding, that it is permissible for the “specific provisions” required by Article 23(2) to be contained in some separate legislative measure, there is no such measure."

What happens next remains to be seen. The Court has declared the immigration exemption unlawful but stopped short of striking it out, declaring the next steps the "subject of separate argument" for another day.

"55. The claim form seeks a declaration that the Immigration Exemption is incompatible with the Charter and the GDPR, and an order that it be disapplied, or alternatively a more limited form of declaration, specifying the conditions under which the Exemption might be lawfully applied. But at the conclusion of the hearing it was common ground that if we were in favour of the appellants the question of what relief should follow our decision would need to be the subject of separate argument...

56. The appropriate remedy in a case of incompatibility is a sensitive matter... Here, I have identified an omission that is, in principle, capable of remedy by measures that amend or supplement the existing provision. In the circumstances, I see merit in the cautious approach of both sides. I would defer a decision on relief, inviting further submissions on that issue in the light of these reasons."

The bottom line is that the reprehensible immigration exemption in the 2018 Data Protection Act is unlawful in its current form but it lives to fight another day. So, with the highest of plaudits due to the Open Rights Group and the3million for pursuing the case (and kudos to the ICO for supporting them), the knowledge that the exemption remains and the government essentially gets a license to reshape it, in a more legally acceptable form, is depressing.

US Supreme Court upholds Trump Muslim ban

The US Supreme Court, in Trump v. Hawaii, has determined, by a slim 5-4 majority, that Trump has the power to ban Muslims entering the US and the ban is justified by legitimate national security concerns.

Justice Kennedy reluctantly went along with the majority opinion, noting that even if the courts didn't have power to review every action of a public official, such officials still have have an obligation to conduct themselves in accordance with their oath to uphold the constitution.

"There are numerous instances in which the statements and actions of Government officials are not subject to judicial scrutiny or intervention. That does not mean those officials are free to disregard the Constitution and the rights it proclaims and protects. The oath that all officials take to adhere to the Constitution is not confined to those spheres in which the Judiciary can correct or even concurring comment upon what those officials say or do. Indeed, the very fact that an official may have broad discretion, discretion free from judicial scrutiny, makes it all the more imperative for him or her to adhere to the Constitution and to its meaning and its promise. 

The First Amendment prohibits the establishment of religion and promises the free exercise of religion. From these safeguards, and from the guarantee of freedom of speech, it follows there is freedom of belief and expression. It is an urgent necessity that officials adhere to these constitutional guarantees and mandates in all their actions, even in the sphere of foreign affairs. An anxious world must know that our Government remains committed always to the liberties the Constitution seeks to preserve and protect, so that freedom extends outward, and lasts."

Justice Sotomayor with whom Justice Ginsburg joined in dissenting, was scathing of the majority, accusing them of ignoring the facts, misconstruing legal precedent and turning a blind eye to the suffering Trump's ban inflicts on countless families and individuals, many US citizens.

"The United States of America is a Nation built upon the promise of religious liberty. Our Founders honored that core promise by embedding the principle of religious neutrality in the First Amendment. The Court’s decision today fails to safeguard that fundamental principle. It leaves undisturbed a policy first advertised openly and unequivocally as a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” because the policy now masquerades behind a façade of national-security concerns. But this repackaging does little to cleanse Presidential Proclamation No. 9645 of the appearance of discrimination that the President’s words have created. Based on the evidence in the record, a reasonable observer would conclude that the Proclamation was motivated by anti-Muslim animus. That alone suffices to show that plaintiffs are likely to succeed on the merits of their Establishment Clause claim. The majority holds otherwise by ignoring the facts, misconstruing our legal precedent, and turning a blind eye to the pain and suffering the Proclamation inflicts upon countless families and individuals, many of whom are United States citizens. Because that troubling result runs contrary to the Constitution and our precedent, I dissent."

Proposed immigration exemption in UK Data Protection Bill

Having co-signed an Open Rights Group coordinated letter to EU Commissioners Frans Timmermans, Věra Jourová, and Tiina Astola about the proposed immigration exemption in UK Data Protection Bill, I have now written to my local MP, Layla Moran, on the matter. Copies of both communications below.

Dear Layla,

The UK government are proposing to incorporate an unconscionable clause in the Data Protection Bill, currently going through parliament, relating to immigrants. The immigration exemption provision removes individuals’ right to data protection if it is likely to prejudice “effective immigration control”. This will remove the right of individuals to receive information from a subject access request: a core mechanism in any immigration dispute.

According to the Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration 10% of immigration dispute cases involved administrative errors, errors that can throw people’s lives into disarray. The Guardian is one of the few mainstream media outlets making any effort to report on the devastating impact of the government’s destructive approach to immigration and has covered stories of numerous people who have been in the UK for, in some cases, decades being deported or threatened with deportation. Some of these have been able to challenge the bureaucratic brutality of Home Office mistakes affecting them. If the proposed immigration exemption clause passes into law in the new data protection legislation it will callously derail the capacity of future victims of Home Office errors to defend themselves.

Along with a number of other concerned academics I have co-signed a letter, co-ordinated by the Open Rights Group, to EU commissioners, Frans Timmermans, Věra Jourová, and Tiina Astola asking that they intercede with the UK government on this matter. Copies have also been sent to Guy Verhofstadt, chief Brexit representative of the European Parliament, and the European Data Protection Supervisor,  Giovanni Buttarelli. I include a full copy of the letter below. It is also available at https://www.openrightsgroup.org/ourwork/correspondence/letter-to-eu-commissioners.

The immigration exemption does not belong in the Data Protection Bill. Please use your voice in Parliament to encourage your fellow MPs to ensure it is removed from the Bill.

Regards,

Ray Corrigan

Concern over United Kingdom’s proposed ‘immigration exemptions’ from Data Protection Bill

Dear Frans Timmermans, Věra Jourová, and Tiina Astola

We, the undersigned, write to express our concern regarding the UK Government’s incorporation of the General Data Protection Regulation into domestic law. Setting aside other areas of concern, the UK’s Data Protection Bill proposes an exemption that would remove individuals’ fundamental right to data protection if it is likely to prejudice “effective immigration control”.

This proposed exemption (‘the immigration exemptions’) will remove the right of individuals to receive information from a subject access request: a core mechanism in any immigration dispute. Further restrictions would remove the government’s responsibility to process an individual’s data in accordance with the principles of data protection including lawful, fair and transparent processing. The exemption would allow data to be shared across UK government institutions without accountability or opportunity for recourse.

The immigration exemptions would potentially leave EU citizens applying for residency post- Brexit without access to their personal data at the most crucial time. As a result, decisions taken about a person’s right to remain which may be based on incorrect information would not be rectified, because individuals would be unable to see that the personal data held is incorrect.

EU citizens could be mistakenly forced to leave the United Kingdom as a result of the immigration exemptions.

Further, the proposed immigration exemptions would appear to violate both the General Data Protection Regulation and the Charter of Fundamental Rights:

- The General Data Protection Regulation Article 23(1) stipulates that any restrictions underthe clause must “respect the essence of the fundamental rights and freedoms and [must be] a necessary and proportionate measure in a democratic society...”.

- Under Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights every individual in the European Union is entitled to the protection of personal data concerning him or her. This includes the right of access to data which has been collected concerning him or her, and the right to have it rectified.

The blanket immigration exemptions go beyond the necessity and proportionality of restrictions under Article 23 of the GDPR and directly interfere with an individual’s right of access to data, and for their data to be processed fairly under Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

We are concerned about the potential impact the immigration exemptions will have on the United Kingdom’s adequacy when it leaves the European Union. The judgment by the Court of Justice of the European Union in Maximillian Schrems v. Data Protection Commissioner C- 362/14, lays out at para 74 in no uncertain terms, that the practical requirement for adequacy requires:

“...protection essentially equivalent to that guaranteed within the European Union.”

And at para. 95:

“Legislation not providing for any possibility for an individual to pursue legal remedies in order to have access to personal data relating to him, or to obtain the rectification or erasure of such data, does not respect the essence of the fundamental right to effective judicial protection, as enshrined in Article 47 of the Charter.”

Each of you represent an institution which holds a mandate to protect the interests of EU citizens and uphold the Charter of Fundamental Rights. That mandate includes the respect of these rights by member states.

We believe these proposed exemptions are particularly significant to all EU citizens currently resident in the United Kingdom in maintaining the protection of rights guaranteed to them in the Charter of Fundamental Rights.

We call on you:

- to communicate to the United Kingdom that the immigration exemptions must be removed to secure the compatibility with the essence of the fundamental right to data protection, and the Charter of Fundamental Rights; and

- to examine the exemptions impact on EU citizens’ ability to enforce their residency rights after Brexit under the agreements currently being brokered.

Yours sincerely,

Douwe Korff, Emeritus Professor of International Law, London Metropolitan University and Associate, Oxford Martin School of the University of Oxford

Judith Rauhofer, Lecturer in IT Law, University of Edinburgh

Dr Andrew A. Adams, Deputy Director, Centre for Business Information Ethics, Meiji University, Tokyo, Japan

Anna Fielder, Trustee and Chair Emeritus, Privacy International

Mike O’Neill, Director, Baycloud Systems, The Oxford Centre for Innovation

Marie Georges, Independent expert and member of the FREE Group

Prof Andy Phippen, University of Plymouth

Dr Reuben Binns, Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford

Dr Robin Callender Smith, Professor of Media Law, QMUL Information Rights Judge and former Immigration Judge

Dr Paul Bernal, Senior Lecturer in IT, IP and Media Law, University of East Anglia Law School Milena Popova, Digital Cultures Research Centre, UWE Bristol

Dr. Maureen O. Mapp, Lecturer and Module leader for Cyberlaw, University of Birmingham Law School

Dr Duncan Campbell, Visiting Senior Fellow (Law and Sociology), University of Sussex

Dr. Nicholas J. Gervassis, Lecturer in Law, University of Plymouth

Damian Tambini, Associate Professor, London School of Economics

Dr Sally Broughton Micova, Lecturer in Communications Policy and Politics, University of East Anglia

Vian Bakir, Professor in Political Community and Journalism, Bangor University

Ray Corrigan, Senior Lecturer, Science Technology Engineering & Mathematics Faculty, The Open University

Lilian Edwards, Professor of E-Governance, Law School, Strathclyde University Marian Petre, Professor of Computing, The Open University

Blaine Price, Professor of Computing, The Open University

Andrew McStay, Professor of Digital Life, Bangor University

Marian Petre, Professor of Computing, The Open University

Milena Popova, Digital Cultures Research Centre, UWE Bristol

Note: This letter was sent in copy to Guy Verhofstadt, chief Brexit representative of the European Parliament, and the European Data Protection Supervisor 

Update: In the quickest response I have ever had from an MP, Layla Moran says:

Dear Ray Corrigan,

Thank you for taking the time to email me. In short, I absolutely share your concerns and I am planning on speaking out against them when the Data Protection Bill comes before MPs in a fortnight’s time. I know my Lib Dem colleagues are also in favour of removing this clause.

With best wishes, Layla

Layla Moran MP
Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Oxford West and Abingdon