With the announcement by the Prime Minister, on 22 May, that the King had granted a request for dissolution of Parliament, and that a General Election will be held on 4 July, the thoughts of data protection professionals inevitably turned to the question of what would happen with the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill.
The Bill, which was approaching report stage in the House of Lords, had, prior to 22 May, seemed destined to pass, provided there was enough parliamentary time: it was largely unopposed by the main opposition, and was well advanced in its passage through Parliament.
However, it now appears that, with Parliament due to be dissolved no later than the 31 May, and no indication that there is any likelihood of the Bill being included in the "wash up" process, whereby some priority legislation is fast-tracked before dissolution, it has lapsed. Indeed – there has been strong indication from opposition peers that the Bill has now "failed".
It will now have to be seen whether the next administration – whatever its political colour – has any appetite to revive the Bill in something like its current form. Should Rishi Sunak be Prime Minister of the next government, with something like his current cabinet in place, it would seem quite likely the Bill would be relatively swiftly resurrected. Should, instead, a Labour government assume power, it is probably unlikely that an identical data protection bill would be high on its agenda, but legal news outlet Lexology has reported rumours that Labour might look to introduce a “digital bill in the autumn on entirely different lines” which would include legislation on Artificial Intelligence.