Brendan Ryan (Labour)

On the grounds of good humour and goodwill, my party will not object strongly. However, this should not be taken as a precedent. Report Stage should be taken separately because it would not be the first occasion on which an omission arose and was only spotted later.

I ask the Leader first to find out what is happening and, second, organise a debate in the House regarding the extraordinary decision by the European Commission to capitulate to the United States and supply as much personal data in advance about everybody travelling to the US as the authorities there request. There are two issues at stake here, both of which deserve to be discussed in detail. The first is the demand of the United States that we break our data protection legislation and that data which should have nothing to do the airlines will now be sought by them from passengers. That an airline would record data and then supply it to a third party is a fundamental breach of data protection legislation.

The second issue, which is almost more important, is that of jurisdiction. This was not agreed by the governments of Europe, but by the Commission. Many of us spent 12 to 18 months between the two Nice referenda telling the people that the idea of an all-powerful Brussels was an exaggeration. Suddenly, however, we have been presented with something as fundamental as this agreement, which, to my knowledge, was apparently negotiated without input from any government. The people of Europe are being informed that if they wish to travel to the United States, they must let the authorities there know everything they wish to know about them, including their dietary preferences, which, in my opinion, is close to religious typecasting in advance. This is a serious matter. A Minister should explain to the House the Government's position on it and indicate whether it believes its stance is consistent with the philosophy and thrust of our data protection legislation.