To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will make a statement concerning progress towards the introduction of primary legislation based on the European Union's data protection directive; to what extent manual files are covered in the directive; and if he will make a statement. [5346]

We hope shortly to issue a consultation paper seeking views on the implications of the directive for United Kingdom law. The directive applies to automatically processed records, and to manual records held in "filing systems". The consultation paper is likely to invite views on the scope of this expression.