Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]: progress of the bill

The Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL] was introduced in the House of Commons on 6 February 2025.

What are the bill’s policy objectives?

The government has said the bill has three core objectives:

• growing the economy
• improving UK public services
• making people’s lives easier

What would the bill do?

The bill has seven parts:

• Part 1 covers access to customer and business data and aims to enable “smart data” to be used in sectors other than its current use in open banking in the finance sector
• Part 2 would regulate the provision of digital verification services through the creation of a trust framework, a register of providers, an information sharing gateway, and a trust mark
• Part 3 would put the national underground asset register on a statutory footing
• Part 4 would update the way births and deaths are registered, moving from a paper-based system to an electronic register used by officials
• Part 5 would make changes to the UK’s data protection regime
• Part 6 would abolish the Information Commissioner’s Office and transfer its functions to a new body, the Information Commission
• Part 7 would, among other things, make further provision about the use of, or access to, data in the following areas:
  • health and social care
  • smart meter communication services
  • public service delivery
  • online safety

The bill in the House of Lords

The bill [HL Bill 40] (PDF) was originally introduced in the House of Lords on 23 October 2024. It had its second reading in the Lords on 19 November 2024. The bill was considered in committee over four sittings between 3 December and 18 December 2024.

Report stage took place on 21 and 28 January 2025. The government was defeated on amendments relating to:

• digital verification services
• the national underground asset register
• the meaning of research and statistical purposes
• copyright, web crawlers and artificial intelligence
• adding a data dictionary to the bill

The bill had its third reading in the Lords on 5 February 2025. A government amendment was agreed that would protect children’s personal data and ensure that online services likely to be accessed by children would be designed with their safety and privacy in mind. 

Also at third reading, the Lords considered another government amendment to introduce an offence of creating ‘deepfake’ intimate images without consent. It was agreed, but only after it had been amended (through amendments moved by Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge) to include an offence of soliciting creation, remove a defence of reasonable excuse, and allow for a custodial sentence as well as a fine.

The bill in the House of Commons

The bill [bill 179] (PDF) had its first reading in the House of Commons on 6 February 2025. Second reading took place on 12 February 2025. A library briefing – Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL] (PDF) – was published for the second reading debate.

The bill was considered by a public bill committee over four sittings between 4 and 11 March 2025. The non-government amendments made to the bill at report stage in the Lords were overturned.

On deepfake images, most of the non-government amendments made to the bill in the Lords were overturned. However, the committee accepted the principle of some (but not all) of the non-government amendments (moved by Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge at Lords third reading) that the Lords had made to clause 135. Clause 135 would create new offences of creating or requesting the creation of purported intimate images. Baroness Owen’s amendment to allow for a custodial sentence (as well as a fine) was left in place, and her amendment to include an offence of “soliciting” the creation of an image was accepted in spirit but re-drafted as an offence of “requesting” the creation of an image.

The bill [bill 199] (PDF), as amended in committee, has been published.

Report stage is scheduled for 7 May 2025.