BASIC INTERPRETIVE PROVISIONS (Hansard, 2 July 1998)

§ The Parliamentary Secretary, Lord Chancellor's Department (Mr. Geoffrey Hoon)
I beg to move amendment No. 19, in page 2, line 43, leave out from beginning to end of line 4 on page 3.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst)
With this, it will be convenient to discuss Government amendment No. 48.

§ Mr. Hoon
The purpose of the amendments is to delete clause 1 (5) and (6) and the associated reference to the definition of "transfer" in the index of defined expressions in clause 71.
Subsections (5) and (6) were originally included in the Bill with the intention that they would help to clarify the somewhat opaque provisions relating to the international movement of personal data in articles 4 and 25 of the directive. In the Bill, we sought to clarify the relationship between those two rules by means of the partial definition of "transfer" in clause 1(5) and the provision in clause 1(6) setting out the application of the geographical scope of provisions in clause 5.
However, those provisions have not met with uniform approval and, on reflection and after listening carefully to further representations, the Government have concluded that there still remains a measure of difficulty about their purpose. Given that the sole reason for the inclusion of the provisions was to clarify the position, the fact that they do not appear to have that effect means that they are plainly unsatisfactory. We cannot immediately see a useful way in which the necessary clarity can be achieved by further amending these subsections, so we have concluded that the best thing would be simply to delete them.

§ Mr. John Greenway (Ryedale)
In Committee, I asked why the subsections were there at all. I made the point that I had been minded to table an amendment to delete them, but had decided that it might be seen as a wrecking amendment. We warmly welcome the Minister's decision. For the avoidance of doubt or confusion, it is better to remove clause 1 (5) and (6) altogether. It says much about the complexity of the legislation that all the best brains in the Home Office cannot find a way of putting on the face of the Bill what the two subsections intend. Imperfect though the legislation will be without them, it will be less imperfect than it would be with them.