That’s the view of Jon Nott, deputy chair of the Police Federation National Detectives’ Forum (PFNDF) and West Midlands Police Federation’s personnel and student officer lead.

An amendment to the Data Protection and Data Information (No 2) Bill, which seeks to adjust the Data Protection Act 2018, has been tabled by Conservative MPs Jane Hunt and Peter Aldous.

Under the proposed changes, police officers and the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) would be exempt from certain data protection principles so they can share un-redacted data with each other when making charging decisions.

Jon said the amendment, if it was voted through in Parliament, would make a huge difference to police officers and to victims of crime.

He said: “It would simplify the whole process and make officers’ work easier as there wouldn’t be the need to do a lot of extra work before sharing everything with the CPS.

“This would mean that officers were able to spend more time investigating other matters and it would speed up the process for victims of crime.”

The Federation launched its #SimplifyDG6 campaign almost a year ago and Jon said that with the backing of MPs at Westminster it feels like it’s gathering momentum.

Jon said: “Now that we have support from MPs who have been able to table a bill, it feels like this is moving to the next stage.

“Rather than conversations and trying to raise awareness of the issue, we now have support in the House of Commons to try to make a change.”

He added: “The first year of the campaign has been a learning curve to find the best way to raise detectives’ concerns to try to make the process simpler and save time, so they can concentrate on helping the public and investigate other matters they have.”

Jon is encouraging members to raise the campaign with their local MP to help put it in the spotlight when the House of Commons returns from its summer recess on Monday 4 September.

“Members can support the campaign by speaking to their local MPs,” He said, “Raise the issue, share your concerns so that it gets debated in Parliament and we can build support for the motion.”

Ben Hudson, PFNDF chair, said there was “a glimmer of hope” now the amendments have been tabled.

He said: “The amendment would result in cutting thousands of hours from police officer workloads and save valuable resources where we have officers spending incredulous amounts of time meticulously reviewing and redacting material, even before the CPS makes a charging decision, thereby allowing them to focus on other policing priorities and being visible within their communities.”

Labour recently proposed that it would force police to recruit detectives direct from business if it won the next General Election because of a shortage of investigators.

But Ben said the amendment to data protection legislation would help to ease some of the problems resulting from a shortage of investigators without turning to the private sector to directly recruit detectives.

He added: “Unnecessary and problematic red tape must be cut when addressing matters of public safety, and both police officers and the public await the Government to exhibit its commitment by endorsing the amendment to the Bill and see it through the due legislative process when Parliament resumes business on 4 September after the summer recess.”

Read how the disclosure rules have been having a huge impact on detectives and their morale.