Michelle Donelan is Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, and is MP for Chippenham.
GDPR: most people don’t know what the letters stand for, yet the ‘General Data Protection Regulations’ govern the majority of our daily interactions. Even to read this article, the chance is that you had to hastily click a button on a popup just to get to the ConservativeHome home page. It is a clunky, complex, one-size-fits-all system that irritates millions of us each day just as we go about our personal lives.
So if GDPR is onerous enough to put up barriers even to reading a ConHome article, imagine what it is doing to British businesses as we speak – the thousands of wasted work hours spent negotiating its rules, the millions of pounds lost in legal fees and fines, the endless paperwork and compliance documents it produces, the customers who were lost because of clumsy GDPR barriers erected between buyers and sellers of British products and services.
YouGov polling from last year found that 50 per cent of marketers report that GDPR affects their everyday work, and 70 per cent of respondents think that GDPR’s influence on them will only increase. One in five marketers report difficulty in finding tech solutions to allow them to be compliant with GDPR, and the same number reported knowing absolutely nothing about GDPR altogether.
The result in the wider business world has also been clear to see. GDPR has cost businesses an 8.1 per cent decline in profit and a 2.2 per cent drop in sales, according to an estimate by researchers at the Oxford Martin School. Shortly after GDPR came in, some estimates suggested that FTSE 350 businesses would need to sink an estimated $1.1 billion into their compliance efforts. The concerning statistics are plain to see – but it is my engagement with British businesses on this issue that has driven me so hard to fight their corner, and replace the EU’s GDPR with a system that works for us and our businesses.
Innovation and entrepreneurship is in our national character – it is the reason a nation with less than one per cent of the world’s population has the sixth largest economy. But for too long we have been restrained. With many commentators calling data ‘the new oil’, I would argue that we can no longer afford to allow ourselves to be restrained by one-size-fits-all red tape.
At long last, as an independent nation once again, we have the power to eliminate this one-size-fits-all hulk, and replace it with an agile, British, bespoke, common sense alternative that is tailored to the needs of our businesses and our culture. What’s more, this government is doing exactly that with the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, re-introduced to Parliament this week with sharper, more focused provisions that have been co-designed with British businesses.
The co-designed nature of the new Bill matters so much to me because of the experience that too many businesses have with legislation like this. One of the reasons that GDPR is so nonsensical at times is that it’s a classic top-down system, dictated by politicians and civil servants without meaningful input from business leaders. When I became the Minister responsible for this Bill, I vowed not to make the same mistake. From the very start, we have designed this Bill with a wide ranging group of business leaders feeding in at every stage – from multinational giants to small local businesses.
We now have a dynamic Bill that will replace GDPR in a way that helps rather than hinders businesses. Our system will be easier to understand and easier to comply with, and will takes advantage of the many opportunities of post-Brexit Britain. No longer will our businesses and citizens have to tangle themselves around barrier-based data laws. The changes I am making will directly reduce compliance costs and paperwork, allow easier-cross border data transfers, increase clarity and confidence in the UK’s data laws, and set us apart from the EU as a more competitive, agile place to do business.
By applying these sound, conservative principles in this Bill, we will reduce burdens on businesses (especially SMEs) across the UK, boosting the economy by £4.7 billion. Not only that, but we will make the UK a far more attractive place for international investors and global businesses. Britain does best when it leads – our new Data Bill ensures that we do just that, in a world where data is more important than ever.
This is not an isolated Bill, however. Applying common sense, conservative principles in legislation is what every Bill my new department produces will do – whether it is acting to protect free speech in the Online Safety Bill, or injecting free market competition into the Digital Markets Bill. That is how we deliver on the priorities set out by the Prime Minister – not only do we need to defend conservative principles on the floor of the House and on every TV and radio station we can, but we need to put conservatism at the heart of every piece of legislation in our power. Today’s Bill is part of that, but it is just the beginning.
Michelle Donelan is Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, and is MP for Chippenham.
GDPR: most people don’t know what the letters stand for, yet the ‘General Data Protection Regulations’ govern the majority of our daily interactions. Even to read this article, the chance is that you had to hastily click a button on a popup just to get to the ConservativeHome home page. It is a clunky, complex, one-size-fits-all system that irritates millions of us each day just as we go about our personal lives.
So if GDPR is onerous enough to put up barriers even to reading a ConHome article, imagine what it is doing to British businesses as we speak – the thousands of wasted work hours spent negotiating its rules, the millions of pounds lost in legal fees and fines, the endless paperwork and compliance documents it produces, the customers who were lost because of clumsy GDPR barriers erected between buyers and sellers of British products and services.
YouGov polling from last year found that 50 per cent of marketers report that GDPR affects their everyday work, and 70 per cent of respondents think that GDPR’s influence on them will only increase. One in five marketers report difficulty in finding tech solutions to allow them to be compliant with GDPR, and the same number reported knowing absolutely nothing about GDPR altogether.
The result in the wider business world has also been clear to see. GDPR has cost businesses an 8.1 per cent decline in profit and a 2.2 per cent drop in sales, according to an estimate by researchers at the Oxford Martin School. Shortly after GDPR came in, some estimates suggested that FTSE 350 businesses would need to sink an estimated $1.1 billion into their compliance efforts. The concerning statistics are plain to see – but it is my engagement with British businesses on this issue that has driven me so hard to fight their corner, and replace the EU’s GDPR with a system that works for us and our businesses.
Innovation and entrepreneurship is in our national character – it is the reason a nation with less than one per cent of the world’s population has the sixth largest economy. But for too long we have been restrained. With many commentators calling data ‘the new oil’, I would argue that we can no longer afford to allow ourselves to be restrained by one-size-fits-all red tape.
At long last, as an independent nation once again, we have the power to eliminate this one-size-fits-all hulk, and replace it with an agile, British, bespoke, common sense alternative that is tailored to the needs of our businesses and our culture. What’s more, this government is doing exactly that with the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, re-introduced to Parliament this week with sharper, more focused provisions that have been co-designed with British businesses.
The co-designed nature of the new Bill matters so much to me because of the experience that too many businesses have with legislation like this. One of the reasons that GDPR is so nonsensical at times is that it’s a classic top-down system, dictated by politicians and civil servants without meaningful input from business leaders. When I became the Minister responsible for this Bill, I vowed not to make the same mistake. From the very start, we have designed this Bill with a wide ranging group of business leaders feeding in at every stage – from multinational giants to small local businesses.
We now have a dynamic Bill that will replace GDPR in a way that helps rather than hinders businesses. Our system will be easier to understand and easier to comply with, and will takes advantage of the many opportunities of post-Brexit Britain. No longer will our businesses and citizens have to tangle themselves around barrier-based data laws. The changes I am making will directly reduce compliance costs and paperwork, allow easier-cross border data transfers, increase clarity and confidence in the UK’s data laws, and set us apart from the EU as a more competitive, agile place to do business.
By applying these sound, conservative principles in this Bill, we will reduce burdens on businesses (especially SMEs) across the UK, boosting the economy by £4.7 billion. Not only that, but we will make the UK a far more attractive place for international investors and global businesses. Britain does best when it leads – our new Data Bill ensures that we do just that, in a world where data is more important than ever.
This is not an isolated Bill, however. Applying common sense, conservative principles in legislation is what every Bill my new department produces will do – whether it is acting to protect free speech in the Online Safety Bill, or injecting free market competition into the Digital Markets Bill. That is how we deliver on the priorities set out by the Prime Minister – not only do we need to defend conservative principles on the floor of the House and on every TV and radio station we can, but we need to put conservatism at the heart of every piece of legislation in our power. Today’s Bill is part of that, but it is just the beginning.