Ms Helen Dixon:

No, it would not be a process for our office. Our understanding is the reason for doubt about repealing the 1988 and 2003 Acts in total is the 1988 Act in particular transposed our Convention 108 obligations under the Council of Europe. They stray outside the areas of competence of the EU. For example, supervision in the area of national security will be required under Convention 108. In order to retain pieces of the 1988 and 2003 Acts, the Department must identify those pieces. In the course of doing that it seems it would be open to fully repeal and rewrite those small pieces, de novo, into a new Act.