At last... compensation for Hep C blood victims
Finally after 5 decades Haemophiliac victims of the contaminted Hepatitisis C blood scandal are due to receive compensation as a result of the recommendation of the Langstaff Enquiry ...although not their familes.
Something that successive governments of all parties have failed to do.
It reminds me that TWENTY YEARS AGO when I was the Lib Dem Health Spokesperson in the Lords we were arging for an enquiry and compensation from the Blair Government. Only now 2 decades later has it become a reality.
This is what I said at the time in a debate in April 2001 initiated by the late Lord Alf Morris, that great campaigner for the disabled, asking the government : "What further help they are considering for people who were infected with hepatitis C by contaminated National Health Service blood products and the dependants of those who have since died in consequence of their infection."
My Lords, I believe that the House should heartily thank the noble Lord, Lord Morris, for raising this issue yet again. It is unfortunate that I should have to congratulate the noble Lord on his dogged persistence in raising this issue time and time again. I can remember at least two previous debates this time last year and another in 1998. I remember innumerable Starred Questions on the subject, and yet the noble Lord must reiterate the same issues and points time and time again in debate. It is extremely disappointing that tonight we hold yet another debate to point out the problems faced by the haemophilia community as a result of the infected blood products with which the noble Lord has so cogently dealt tonight.
Many of us are only too well acquainted with the consequences of infected blood products which have affected over 4,000 people with haemophilia. We know that as a consequence up to 80 per cent of those infected will develop chronic liver disease; 25 per cent risk developing cirrhosis of the liver; and that between one and five per cent risk developing liver cancer. Those are appalling consequences.
Those who have hepatitis C have difficulty in obtaining life assurance. We know that they have reduced incomes as a result of giving up work, wholly or partially, and that they incur costs due to special dietary regimes that they must follow. We also know that the education of many young people who have been infected by these blood products has been adversely affected. The noble Lord, Lord Morris, was very eloquent in describing the discrimination faced by some of them at work, in school and in society, and their fears for the future. He referred to the lack of counselling support and the general inadequacy of support services for members of the haemophilia community who have been infected in this way.
There are three major, yet reasonable, demands made by the haemophilia community in its campaign for just treatment by the Government. To date, the
Department of Health appears to have resisted stoically all three demands. First, there is the lack of availability on a general basis of recombinant genetically-engineered blood products. Currently, they are available for all adults in Scotland and Wales but not in England and Northern Ireland. Do we have to see the emergence of a black market or cross-border trade in these recombinant products? Should not the Government make a positive commitment to provide these recombinant factor products for all adults in the United Kingdom wherever they live? Quite apart from that, what are the Government doing to ensure that the serious shortage of these products is overcome? In many ways that is as serious as the lack of universal availability. Those who are entitled to them find it difficult to get hold of them in the first place.
The second reasonable demand of the campaign is for adequate compensation. The contrast with the HIV/AIDS situation could not be more stark. The noble Lord, Lord Morris, referred to the setting up of the Macfarlane Trust which was given £90 million as a result of his campaigning in 1989. The trust has provided compensation to people with haemophilia who contracted HIV through contaminated blood products. But there is no equivalent provision for those who have contracted hepatitis C. The Government, in complete contrast to their stance on AIDS/HIV, have continued to reiterate that compensation will not be forthcoming. The Minister of State for Health, Mr Denham, said some time ago that at the end of the day the Government had concluded that haemophiliacs infected with hepatitis C should not receive special payments. On 29th March of this year the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, in response to a Starred Question tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Morris, said:
"The position is clear and has been stated policy by successive governments. It is that, in general, compensation is paid only where legal liability can be established. Compensation is therefore paid when it can be shown that a duty of care is owed by the NHS body; that there has been negligence; that there has been harm; and that the harm was caused by the negligence".—[Oficial Report, 29/3/01; col. 410.]
The Minister said something very similar on 26th March. This means that the Government have refused to regard a hepatitis C infection as a special case despite the way in which they have treated AIDS/HIV sufferers who, after all, were adjudged to be a special circumstance. These are very similar situations.
In our previous debate on this, noble Lords referred to the similarity between the viral infections. They are transmitted to haemophiliacs in exactly the same manner; they lead to debilitating illness, often followed by a lingering, painful death. I could consider at length the similarities between the two viral infections and the side effects; for example, those affected falling into the poverty trap. We have raised those matters in debate before and the Government are wholly aware of the similarities between the two infections.
The essence of the debate, and the reason for the anger in the haemophilia community, is the disparity in the treatment of haemophiliacs infected with HIV
and those who, in a sense, are even more unfortunate and have contracted hepatitis C. We now have the contrast with those who have a legal remedy, which was available as demonstrated in the case to which the noble Lord, Lord Morris, referred, and are covered by the Consumer Protection Act 1987. This latter case was in response to an action brought by 114 people who were infected with hepatitis by contaminated blood. The only difference between the cases that we are discussing today and the circumstances of those 114 people is the timing. Is it not serendipity that the Consumer Protection Act 1987 covers those 114 people but not those with haemophilia who are the subject of today's debate?
It is extraordinary that the Government—I have already quoted the noble Lord, Lord Hunt—take the view that it all depends on the strict legal position. Quite frankly, the issue is still a moral one, as we have debated in the past. In fact, the moral pressure should be increased when one is faced with the comparison with both that case and the HIV/AIDS compensation scheme. People with haemophilia live constantly with risk. We now have the risk of transmission of CJD/BSE. What will be the Government's attitude to that? Will they learn the lessons of the past? I hope that the Minister will give us a clear answer in that respect.
I turn to the third key demand of the campaign by the haemophilia community. Without even having had an inquiry, the NHS is asserting that no legal responsibility to people with haemophilia exists. The Government's position—that they will not provide compensation where the NHS is not at fault—falls down because that is precisely what the previous administration did in the case of those infected with HIV. An inquiry into how those with hepatitis C were infected would perhaps establish very similar circumstances.
Other countries such as France and Canada have held official inquiries. Why cannot we do the same in this country? The Government's refusal to instigate a public inquiry surely fails the morality test. Surely the sequence of events which led up to what has been widely referred to as one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the NHS needs to be examined with the utmost scrutiny. Why do the Government still refuse to set up an inquiry? Is it because they believe that if the inquiry reported it would demonstrate that the Government—the department—were at fault?
Doctors predict that the number of hepatitis C cases among both haemophiliacs and the general population is set to rise considerably over the next decade. The Department of Health should stop ignoring the plight of this group. They should start to treat it fairly and accede to its reasonable demands. The Government's attitude to date has been disappointing to say the least. This debate is another opportunity for them to redeem themselves.
Creating the best framework for AI in the UK
This is a short piece I wrote earlier in the year for the Foundation of Science & Technology about the future of AI regulation in the UK which has now appeared in the FST Journal
A little over five years ago, the Lord's AI select committee began its first inquiry. The resulting report was titled: AI in the UK: ready, willing and able? About the same time, the independent review Growing the Artificial Intelligence Industry in the UK set a baseline from which to work.
There will always be something of a debate about the definition of artificial intelligence. It is clear though that the availability of quality data is at the heart of AI applications. In the overall AI policy ecosystem, some of the institutions were newly established by Government, some of them recommended by the Hall review. There is the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, the AI Council and the Office for AI. Standards development has been led by the Alan Turing Institute, the Open Data Institute, the Ada Lovelace Institute, the British Standards Institution and the Oxford Internet Institute, to name just a few.
Regulators include the Information Commissioner’s Office, Ofcom, the Financial Conduct Authority and the Competition & Markets Authority, which have come together under a new digital regulators’ cooperation forum to pool expertise. The Court of Appeal has also been grappling with issues relating to IP created by AI. Now regulation is not necessarily the enemy of innovation. In fact, it can be a stimulus and is the key to gaining and retaining public trust around AI, so that we can realise the benefits and minimise the risks. Algorithms have got a bad name over the past few years.
I believe that AI will actually lead to greater productivity and more efficient use of resources generally. However, technology is not neutral. We should be clear about the purpose and implications of new technology when we adopt it. Inevitably, there are major societal issues about the potential benefit from new technologies. Will AI better connect and empower our citizens improve working life?
In the UK, there is general recognition of the need for an ethics-based regulatory framework: this is what the forthcoming AI Governance white paper is expected to contain. The National Strategy also highlights the importance of public trust and the need for trustworthy AI.
We should be clear about the purpose and implications of new technology when we adopt it. Will AI better connect and empower our citizens?
The legal situation
The Government has produced a set of transparency standards for AI in the public sector (and, notably, GCHQ has produced a set of AI ethics for its operations). On the other hand, it has also been consulting on major changes to the GDPR post-Brexit, in particular a proposal to get rid of Article 22, the so-called ‘right to explanation’ where there is automated decision making (if anything, we need to extend this to decisions where there is already a human involved). There are no proposals to clarify data protection for behavioural or so-called inferred data, which are the bedrock of current social media business models, and will be even more important in what has been described as the metaverse. There is also a suggestion that firms may no longer be required to have a Data Protection Officer or undertake data protection impact assessments.
We have in fact no settled regulation, or legal framework, for intrusive AI technologies such as live facial recognition. This continues to be deployed by the police, despite the best efforts of a number of campaigning organisations and even successive biometrics and surveillance camera commissioners who have argued for a full legal framework. There are no robust compliance or redress mechanisms for ensuring ethical, transparent, automated decision-making in our public sector either.
It is not yet even clear whether the Government is still wedded to sectoral (rather than horizontal) regulation. The case is now irrefutable for a risk-based form of horizontal regulation, which puts into practice common ethical values, such as the OECD principles.
There has been a great deal of work internationally by the Council of Europe, OECD, UNESCO, the global partnership on AI, and especially the EU. The UK, therefore, needs a considerable degree of convergence between ourselves, the EU and members of the Council of Europe, for the benefit of our developers and cross-border businesses, to allow them to trade freely. Above all, this means agreeing on common standards for risk and impact assessments alongside tools for audit and continuous monitoring for higher-risk applications. In that way it may be possible to draw the USA into the fold as well. That is not to mention the whole defence and lethal autonomous systems space: we still await the promised defence AI strategy.
We have no settled regulation, or legal framework, for intrusive AI technologies such as live facial recognition.
AI skills
AI is becoming embedded in everything we do. A huge amount is happening on supporting AI specialist skills development and the Treasury is providing financial backing. But as the roadmap produced by the AI Council itself points out, the Government needs to take further steps to ensure that the general digital skills and digital literacy of the UK are brought up to speed.
I do not believe that the adoption of AI will necessarily make huge numbers of people redundant. But as the pandemic recedes, the nature of work will change, and there will be a need for different jobs and skills. This will be complemented by opportunities for AI, so the Government and industry must ensure that training and retraining opportunities take account of this. The Lords AI Select Committee also shared the priority of the AI Council roadmap for diversity and inclusion in the AI workforce and wanted to see much more progress on this.
But we need however, to ensure that people have the opportunity to retrain in order to be able to adapt to the evolving labour market caused by AI. The Skills and Post-16 Education Bill with the introduction of a lifelong loan entitlement is welcome but is not ambitious enough.
A recent estimate suggests that 90% of UK jobs within 20 years will require digital skills. That is not just about STEM skills such as maths and coding. Social and creative skills as well as critical thinking will be needed. The humanities will be as important as the sciences, and the top skills currently being sought by tech companies, as the University of Kingston's future league table has shown, include many creative skills: problem solving, communication, critical thinking, and so on. Careers advice and Adult Education likewise need a total rethink.
We need to learn how to live and work alongside AI. The AI Council roadmap recommends an online academy for understanding AI. Every child leaving school should have a basic sense of how AI works. Finally, given the disruption in the job market, we need to modernise employment rights to make them fit for the age of the AI- driven gig economy, in particular by establishing a new dependent contractor employment status, which fits between employment and self-employment.
Government must ensure the regulation of election dis-and misinformation
Earlier this year during the Elections Bill process we debated the regulation of digital campaigning and how we needed to add new provisions to allow the Elections Commission to control misinformation and disinformation
This is what I said
Digital campaigning is of growing importance. It accounted for 42.8% of reported spend on advertising in the UK at the 2017 general election. That figure rose in 2019; academic research has estimated that political parties’ spending on platforms is likely to have increased by over 50% in 2019 compared to 2017. As the Committee on Standards in Public Life said in its report in July last year, Regulating Election Finance:
“Research conducted by the Electoral Commission following the 2019 General Election revealed that concerns about transparency are having an impact on public trust and confidence in campaigns.”
In that light, the introduction of digital imprints for political electronic material is an overdue but welcome part of the Elections Bill.
The proposed regime as it stands covers all types of digital material and all types of appropriate promoter. However, a significant weakness of the Bill may exist in the detail of where an imprint must appear. In its current form, the Bill allows promoters of electronic material to avoid placing an imprint on the material itself if it is not reasonably practicable to do so. Instead, campaigners could include the imprint somewhere else that is directly accessible from the electronic material, such as a linked webpage or social media profile or bio. The evidence from Scotland’s recent parliamentary elections is that this will lead in practice to almost all imprints appearing on a promoter’s website or homepage or on their social media profile, rather than on the actual material itself. Perhaps that was encouraged by the rather permissive Electoral Commission guidance for those elections.
Can this really be classed as an imprint? For most observers of the material, there will be no discernible change from the situation that we have now—that is, they will not see the promoter’s details. The Electoral Commission also says that this approach could reduce transparency for voters if it is harder to find the imprint for some digital campaign material. It seems that
“if it is not reasonably practicable to comply”
will award promoters with too much leeway to hide an imprint. Replacing that with
“if it is not possible to comply”
would ensure that the majority of electronic material is within the scope of the Bill’s intentions. What happened to the original statement in the Cabinet Office summary of the final policy in its response to the consultation document Transparency in Digital Campaigning in June last year? That says:
“Under the new regime, all paid-for electronic material will require an imprint, regardless of who it is promoted by.”
There is no mention of exemptions.
The commission says it is important that the meanings of the terms in the Bill are clear and unambiguous, and that it needs to know what the Government’s intent is in this area. In what circumstances do the Government really believe it reasonable not to have an imprint but to have it on a website or on a social media profile? We need a clear statement from them.
As my noble friend Lord Wallace said, Amendments 194A and 196A really should be included in the “missed opportunity” box, given the massive threat of misinformation and disinformation during election campaigns, particularly by foreign actors, highlighted in a series of reports by the Electoral Commission, the Intelligence and Security Committee and the Committee on Standards in Public Life, as well as by the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill, on which I sat. It is vital that we have much greater regulation over this and full transparency over what has been paid for and what content has been paid for. As the CSPL report last July said,
“digital communication allows for a more granular level of targeting and at a greater volume – meaning more messages are targeted, more precisely and more often.”
The report says:
“The evidence we have heard, combined with the conclusions reached by a range of expert reports on digital campaigning in recent years, has led us to conclude that urgent action is needed to require more information to be made available about how money is spent on digital campaigning.”
It continues in paragraph 6.26:
“We consider that social media companies that permit campaign adverts in the UK should be obliged to create advert libraries. As a minimum they should include adverts that fit the legal definition of election material in UK law.”
The report recommends that:
“The government should change the law to require parties and campaigners to provide the Electoral Commission with more detailed invoices from their digital suppliers … subdivide their spending returns to record what medium was used for each activity”
and
“legislate to require social media platforms that permit election adverts in the UK to create advert libraries that include specified information.”
All those recommendations are also contained in the Electoral Commission report, Digital Campaigning: Increasing Transparency for Voters from as long ago as June 2018, and reflect what the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation set out in its February 2020 report on online targeting in specifying what it considered should be included in any such advert library. The implementation of these recommendations, which are included in Amendment 196A, would serve to greatly increase the financial transparency of digital campaigning operations.
In their response to the CSPL report, the Government said:
“The Government is committed to increasing transparency in digital campaigning to empower voters to make decisions. As part of this, we take these recommendations on digital campaigning seriously. As with all of the recommendations made by the CSPL, the Government will look in detail at the recommendations and consider the implications and practicalities.”
The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee report last December followed that up, saying at paragraph 216:
“The Government’s response to the CSPL report on electoral finance regulation provides no indication of which of its recommendations (not already included in the Bill) the Government is likely to adopt … prioritise for consultation or when or how the Government proposes to give legislative effect to recommendations that will not be included in the Bill. The Government should give clarity on its next steps in this regard.”
So the time has come for the Government to say what their intentions are. They have had over six months to do this, and I hope they have come to the conclusion that fully safeguards our democracy. I hope the Government will now see the merits and importance of those amendments.
The CSPL also recommended changes to electoral law regarding foreign actors. The CSPL says at paragraph 6.29 of its report:
“As we discuss in chapter 4, the rules on permissible donations were based on the principle that there should be no foreign interference in UK elections. However, the rules do not explicitly ban spending on campaign advertising by foreign individuals or organisations.”
It specifically refers to the Electoral Commission’s Digital Campaigning report, which said:
“A specific ban on any campaign spending from abroad would … strengthen the UK’s election and referendum rules.”
It quoted the DCMS committee’s February 2019 report, Disinformation and “Fake News”, which said that
“the UK is clearly vulnerable to covert digital influence campaigns”,
and the Intelligence and Security Committee report, which stated that if the commission
“is to tackle foreign interference, then it must be given the necessary legislative powers.”
These are powerful testimonies and recommendations from some very well respected committees. As a result, the CSPL recommended:
“In line with the principle of no foreign interference in UK elections, the government should legislate to ban foreign organisations or individuals from buying campaign advertising in the UK.”
This is very similar to a recommendation in the Electoral Commission’s Digital Campaigning: Increasing Transparency for Voters report of 2018, which I referred to earlier. In response, the Government said: “We are extending this”—the prohibition of foreign money—
“even further as part of the Elections Bill, to cover all third-party spending above £700 during a regulated period.”
However, the current proposals in the Bill have loopholes that foreign organisations can readily use, for instance through setting up multiple channels. A foreign actor could set up dozens of entities and spend £699 on each one—something very easy for online expenditure.
Amendment 194B would ensure that foreign entities were completely banned from participating at all and would make absolutely certain that the Government’s intentions were fulfilled. Again, I hope that the Minister will readily accept this amendment as strengthening the Bill against foreign interference.
Tackling societal harms caused by misinformation and disinformation is not straightforward, as our Joint Committee on the Online Safety Bill found. However, consistent with the report of the Lords Select Committee on Democracy and Digital Technologies, Digital Technology and the Resurrection of Trust, chaired by the much-missed Lord Puttnam, we said:
“Disinformation and Misinformation surrounding elections are a risk to democracy. Disinformation which aims to disrupt elections must be addressed by legislation. If the Government decides that the Online Safety Bill is not the appropriate place to do so, then it should use the Elections Bill which is currently making its way through Parliament.”
There is, of course, always a tension with freedom of expression, and as we emphasised in our Joint Committee, so we must prioritise tackling specific harmful activity over restricting content. Apart from the digital imprint provisions, however, the Bill fails to take any account of mounting evidence and concerns about the impact on our democracy of misinformation and disinformation. The long delayed report of the Intelligence and Security Committee on Russian interference of July 2020 was highly relevant in this context, stating:
“The UK is clearly a target for Russia’s disinformation campaigns and political influence operations and must therefore equip itself to counter such efforts.”
Protecting our democratic discourse and processes from hostile foreign interference is a central responsibility of the Government. The committee went on, very topically, to say:
“The links of the Russian elite to the UK—especially where this involves business and investment—provide access to UK companies and political figures, and thereby a means for broad Russian influence in the UK.”
It continued:
“We note—and, again, agree with the DCMS Select Committee—that ‘the UK is clearly vulnerable to covert digital influence campaigns.’”
The online harms White Paper published in April 2019 recognised the dangers that digital technology could pose to democracy and proposed measures to tackle them. Given the extensive regulatory framework being put in place for individual online harms in the Online Safety Bill, newly published last week, why are the Government reluctant to reaffirm the White Paper approach to elections and include it in this Bill? The Government responded to our Joint Committee report on this issue last week by saying that they agreed that misinformation and disinformation surrounding elections are a risk to democracy. However, they went on to say:
“The Government has robust systems in place that bring together governmental, civil society and private sector organisations to monitor and respond to interference in whatever form it takes to ensure that our democracy stays open, vibrant and transparent”
—fine words. They cite the Defending Democracy programme, saying:
“Ahead of major democratic events, the Defending Democracy programme stands up the Election Cell. This is a strategic coordination and risk reporting structure that works with relevant organisations to identify and respond to emerging issues”.
So far, so vague. They continue:
“The Counter Disinformation Unit based in DCMS is an integral part of this structure and undertakes work to understand the extent, scope and the reach of misinformation and disinformation.”
The Government, however, seem remarkably reluctant to tell us through parliamentary Questions or FoI requests what this Counter Disinformation Unit within the DCMS is. What does it actually do? Does it have a role during elections? Given that government response, it seems clear that the net result is that the Elections Bill has, and will have, no provisions relating to misinformation and disinformation.
Amendment 194B is a start and is designed to prevent one strand of disinformation, akin to the 640,000 Facebook posts that led to the Capitol riots of 6 January last year, which not only has immediate impact but erodes trust in future elections. The Government should pick this amendment up with enthusiasm but then introduce something much more comprehensive that meets the concerns of the ISC’s Russia report and tackles online misinformation and disinformation in election campaigns.
I would of course be very happy to discuss all these amendments and all the relevant issues with Ministers between Committee and Report stages.
Lord C-J introduces new Public Authority Algorithm Bill
I recently introduced a private members bill in the House of Lords designed to ensure that decisions made by public authorities-local and national -are fully transparent and propoerly assessed for the the impact they have on the rights of the individual citizen .
It mandates the government to draw up a framework for an impact assessment which follows a set of principles laid out in the Bill so that (a) decisions made in and by a public authority are responsible and comply with procedural fairness and due process requirements, and its duties under the Equality Act, (b) impacts of algorithms on administrative decisions are assessed and negative outcomes are minimized, and (c) data and information on the use of automated decision systems in public authorities are made available to the public. It will apply in general to to any automated decision system developed or procured by a public authority other than the security services
Lord C-J calls for review of Policy Lethal Autonomous Weapons
The Debate on limitation of Lethal Autonomous weapons has hotted up, especially in the the light of the Government's new Defence AI sttategy.
This is what I said prior to the report being published last when the Armed Forces Bill went thnrough the House of Lords
We eagerly await the defence AI strategy coming down the track but, as the noble Lord said, the very real fear is that autonomous weapons will undermine the international laws of war, and the noble and gallant Lord made clear the dangers of that. In consequence, a great number of questions arise about liability and accountability, particularly in criminal law. Such questions are important enough in civil society, and we have an AI governance White Paper coming down the track, but in military operations it will be crucial that they are answered.
From the recent exchange that the Minister had with the House on 1 November during an Oral Question that I asked about the Government’s position on the control of lethal autonomous weapons, I believe that the amendment is required more than ever. The Minister, having said:
“The UK and our partners are unconvinced by the calls for a further binding instrument”
to limit lethal autonomous weapons, said further:
“At this time, the UK believes that it is actually more important to understand the characteristics of systems with autonomy that would or would not enable them to be used in compliance with”
international human rights law,
“using this to set our potential norms of use and positive obligations.”
That seems to me to be a direct invitation to pass this amendment. Any review of this kind should be conducted in the light of day, as we suggest in the amendment, in a fully accountable manner.
However, later in the same short debate, as noted by the noble Lord, Lord Browne, the Minister reassured us, as my noble friend Lady Smith of Newnham noted in Committee, that:
“UK Armed Forces do not use systems that employ lethal force without context-appropriate human involvement.”
Later, the Minister said:
“It is not possible to transfer accountability to a machine. Human responsibility for the use of a system to achieve an effect cannot be removed, irrespective of the level of autonomy in that system or the use of enabling technologies such as AI.”—[Official Report, 1/11/21; col. 994-95.]
The question is there. Does that mean that there will always be a human in the loop and there will never be a fully autonomous weapon deployed? If the legal duties are to remain the same for our Armed Forces, these weapons must surely at all times remain under human control and there will never be autonomous deployment.
However, that has recently directly been contradicted. The noble Lord, Lord Browne has described the rather chilling Times podcast interview with General Sir Richard Barrons, the former Commander Joint Forces Command. He contrasted the military role of what he called “soft-body humans”—I must admit, a phrase I had not encountered before—with that of autonomous weapons, and confirmed that weapons can now apply lethal force without any human intervention. He said that we cannot afford not to invest in these weapons. New technologies are changing how military operations are conducted. As we know, autonomous drone warfare is already a fact of life: Turkish autonomous drones have been deployed in Libya. Why are we not facing up to that in this Bill?
I sometimes get the feeling that the Minister believes that, if only we read our briefs from the MoD diligently enough and listened hard enough, we would accept what she is telling us about the Government’s position on lethal autonomous weapons. But there are fundamental questions at stake here which remain as yet unanswered. A review of the kind suggested in this amendment would be instrumental in answering them.
Coordination of Digital Regulation Crucial
The House of Lords recently debated the report of its Select Committee on Communications and Digital entitled "Digital regulation: joined-up and accountable"
This is what I said about the shape digital regulation should take and how it could best be coordinated
In their digital regulation plan, first published last July and updated last month, the Government acknowledged that
“Digital technologies … demand a distinct regulatory approach … because they have distinctive features which make digital businesses and applications unique and innovative, but may also challenge how we address risks to consumers and wider society.”
I entirely agree, but I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, and the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, that we need to do this
without the kind of delays in introducing regulation that we are already experiencing.
The plan for digital regulation committed to ensuring a forward-looking and coherent regulatory approach for digital technologies. The stress throughout the plan and the digital strategy is on a light-touch and pro-innovation regulatory regime, in the belief that this will stimulate innovation. The key principles stated are “Actively promote innovation”, achieve “forward-looking and coherent outcomes” and
“Exploit opportunities and address challenges in the international arena”.
This is all very laudable and reinforced by much of what the Select Committee said in its previous report, as mentioned by the noble Baroness. But one of the key reasons why the design of digital governance and regulation is important is to ensure that public trust is developed and retained in an area where there is often confusion and misunderstanding.
With the Online Safety Bill arriving in this House soon, we know only too well that the power of social media algorithms needs taming. Retention of public trust has not been helped by confusion over the use of algorithms to take over exam assessment during the pandemic and poor communication about the use of data on things like the Covid tracing app, the GP data opt-out and initiatives such as the Government’s single-ID identifier “One Login” project, which, together with the growth of automated decision-making, live facial recognition and use of biometric data, is a real cause for concern for many of us.
The fragility of trust in government use and sharing of personal data was demonstrated when Professor Ben Goldacre recently gave evidence to the Science and Technology Committee, explaining that, despite being the Government’s lead adviser on the use of health data, he had opted out of giving permission for his GP health data to be shared.
As an optimist, I believe that new technology can potentially lead to greater productivity and more efficient use of resources. But, as the title of Stephanie Hare’s new book puts it, Technology Is Not Neutral. We should be clear about the purpose and implications of new technology when we adopt it, which means regulation which has the public’s trust. For example, freedom from bias is essential in AI systems and in large part depends on the databases we use to train AI. The UK’s national AI strategy of last September does talk about public trust and the need for trustworthy AI, but this needs to be reflected in our regulatory landscape and how we regulate. In the face of the need to retain public trust, we need to be clear, above all, that regulation is not necessarily the enemy of innovation; in fact, it can be the stimulus and key to gaining and retaining public trust around digital technology and its adoption.
We may not need to go full fig as with the EU artificial intelligence Act, but the fact is that AI is a very different animal from previous technology. For instance, not everything is covered by existing equalities or data protection legislation, particularly in terms of accountability, transparency and explainability. A considerable degree of horizontality across government, business and society is needed to embed the OECD principles.
As the UK digital strategy published this month makes clear, there is a great deal of future regulation in the legislative pipeline, although, as the noble Baroness mentioned, we are lagging behind the EU. As a number of noble Lords mentioned, we are expecting a draft digital competition Bill in the autumn which will usher in the DMU in statutory form and a new pro-competition regime for digital markets. Just this week, we saw the publication of the new Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, with new powers for the ICO. We have also seen the publication of the national AI strategy, AI action plan and AI policy statement.
In the context of increased digital regulation and the need for co-ordination across regulators, the Select Committee welcomed the formation of the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum by the ICO, CMA, Ofcom and FCA, and so do I, alongside the work plan which the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, mentioned. I believe that this will make a considerable contribution to public trust in regulation. It has already made great strides in building a centre of excellence in AI and algorithm audit.
UK Digital Strategy elaborates on the creation of the DRCF:
“We are also taking steps to make sure the regulatory landscape is fully coherent, well-coordinated and that our regulators have the capabilities they need … Through the DRCF’s joint programme of work, it has a unique role to play in developing our pro-innovation approach to regulation.”
Like the Select Committee in one of its key recommendations, I believe we can go further in ensuring a co-ordinated approach to digital regulation, horizon scanning—which has been mentioned by all noble Lords—and adapting to future regulatory needs and oversight of fitness for purpose, particularly the desirability of a statutory duty to co-operate and consult with one another. It is a proposal which the Joint Committee on the Draft Online Safety Bill, of which I was a member, took up with enthusiasm. We also agreed with the Select Committee that it should be put on a statutory footing, with the power to resolve conflicts by directing its members. I was extremely interested to hear from noble Lords, particularly the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, and the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, about the circumstances in which those conflicts need to be resolved. It is notable that the Government think that that is a bridge too far.
This very week, the Alan Turing Institute published a very interesting report entitled Common Regulatory Capacity for AI. As it says, the use of artificial intelligence is increasing across all sectors of the economy, which raises important and pressing questions for regulators. Its very timely report presents the results of research into how regulators can meet the challenge of regulating activities transformed by AI and maximise the potential of AI for regulatory innovation.
It takes the arguments of the Select Committee a bit further and goes into some detail on the capabilities required for the regulation of AI. Regulators need to be able to ensure that regulatory regimes are fit for AI and that they are able to address AI-related risks and maintain an environment that encourages innovation. It stresses the need for certainty about regulatory expectations, public trust in AI technologies and the avoidance of undue regulatory obstacles.
Regulators also need to understand how to use AI for regulation. The institute also believes that there is an urgent need for an increased and sustainable form of co-ordination on AI-related questions across the regulatory landscape. It highlights the need for access to new sources of shared AI expertise, such as the proposed AI and regulation common capacity hub, which
“would have its home at a politically independent institution, established as a centre of excellence in AI, drawing on multidisciplinary knowledge and expertise from across the national and international research community.”
It sets out a number of different roles for the newly created hub.
To my mind, these recommendations emphasise the need for the DRCF to take statutory form in the way suggested by the Select Committee. But, like the Select Committee, I believe that it is important that other regulators can come on board the DRCF. Some of them are statutory, such as the Gambling Commission, the Electoral Commission and the IPO, and I think it would be extremely valuable to have them on board. However, some of them are non-statutory, such the BBFC and the ASA. They could have a place at the table and join in benefiting from the digital centre of excellence being created.
Our Joint Committee also thoroughly agreed with the Communications and Digital Committee that a new Joint Committee on digital regulation is needed in the context of the Online Safety Bill. Indeed the Secretary of State herself has expressed support. As the Select Committee recommended, this could cover the broader digital landscape to partly oversee the work of the DRCF and also importantly address other objectives such as scrutiny of the Secretary of State, looking across the digital regulation landscape and horizon scanning—looking at evolving challenges, which was considered very important by our Joint Committee and the Select Committee.
The Government are engaged in a great deal of activity. The question, as ever, is whether the objectives, such as achieving trustworthy AI, digital upskilling and powers for regulators, are going to be achieved through the actions being taken so far. I believe that the recommendations of the Select Committee set out in this report would make a major contribution to ensuring effective and trustworthy regulation and should be supported.
Broadband and 5G rollout strategy needs review
During the passage of the Product and Security Bill it has become clear that the Government's rollout strategy keeps being changed and is unlikely to achieve its objectives, especially in rural areas. This is what I said when supporting a review.
We all seem to be trapped in a time loop on telecoms, with continual consultations and changes to the ECC and continual retreat by the Government on their 1 gigabit per second broadband rollout pledge. In the Explanatory Notes, we were at 85% by 2025; this now seems to have shifted to 2026. There has been much government bravado in this area, but it is clear that the much-trumpeted £5 billion announced last year for project gigabit, to bring gigabit coverage to the hardest-to-reach areas, has not yet been fully allocated and that barely a penny has been spent.
Then, we have all the access and evaluation amendments to the Electronic Communications Code and the Digital Economy Act 2017. Changes to the ECC were meant to do the trick; then, the Electronic Communications and Wireless Telegraphy (Amendment) (European Electronic Communications Code and EU Exit) Regulations were heralded as enabling a stronger emphasis on incentivising investment in very high capacity networks, promoting the efficient use of spectrum, ensuring effective consumer protection and engagement and supporting the Government’s digital ambitions and plans to deliver nationwide gigabit-capable connectivity.
Then we had the Future Telecoms Infrastructure Review. We had the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Act—engraved on all our hearts, I am sure. We argued about the definition of tenants, rights of requiring installation and rights of entry, and had some success. Sadly, we were not able to insert a clause that would have required a review of the Government’s progress on rollout. Now we know why. Even while that Bill was going through in 2021, we had Access to Land: Consultation on Changes to the Electronic Communications Code. We knew then, from the representations made, that the operators were calling for other changes not included in the Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Act or the consultation. From the schedule the Minister has sent us, we know that he has been an extremely busy bee with yet further discussions and consultations.
I will quote from a couple of recent Financial Times pieces demonstrating that, with all these changes, the Government are still not achieving their objectives. The first is headed: “Broadband market inequalities test Westminster’s hopes of levelling up: Disparity in access to fast internet sets back rural and poorer areas, data analysis shows”. It starts:
“The UK has nearly 5mn houses with more than three choices of ultrafast fibre-optic broadband, while 10mn homes do not have a single option, according to analysis that points to the inequality in internet infrastructure across Britain.
While some parts of the country are benefiting from high internet speeds, others have been left behind, according to research conducted by data group Point Topic with the Financial Times, leading to disparities in people’s ability to work, communicate and play.”
A more recent FT piece from the same correspondent, Anna Gross, is headed: “UK ‘altnets’ risk digging themselves into a hole: Overbuilding poses threat to business model of fibre broadband groups challenging the big incumbents”. It starts:
“Underneath the UK’s streets, a billion-pound race is taking place. In many towns and cities, at least three companies are digging to lay broadband fibre cables all targeting the same households, with some areas predicted to have six or seven such lines by the end of the decade.
But only some of them will cross the finishing line … When the dust settles, will there be just two network operators—with Openreach and Virgin Media O2 dominating the landscape—or is there space for a sparky challenger with significant market share stolen from the incumbents?”
Are we now in a wild west for the laying of fibre-optic cable? Will this be like the energy market, with great numbers of companies going bust?
By contrast, INCA, the Independent Networks Cooperative Association, reports in its latest update:
“The ‘AltNets’ have more than doubled their footprint year on year since 2019”—
I think my noble friend Lord Fox quoted these figures—
“now reaching 5.5m premises and expected to reach 11.5m premises by the end of this year. Investment remains buoyant with an additional £5.7bn committed during 2021 bringing total estimated investment in the independent sector to £17.7bn for the period to 2025.”
We have two very different stories there. What contingencies have the Government made? Who will pick up the tab if the former scenario is correct—the poor old consumer? In any event, will rural communities get any service in the end?
What of rural broadband rollout? It appears that DCMS is currently assessing policy options on the means of best addressing the shortfall. I was interested to hear the very pointed question that the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, asked about what working groups were examining some of these issues, following a call for evidence on improving broadband for very hard-to-reach areas. What is the department actually doing? Can we expect more changes to the ECC?
The policy justification for the 2017 reforms was that rent savings by operators would be reinvested in networks, with the then Minister saying that the Government would hold operators’ feet to the fire to ensure that they delivered, noting that to
“have real impact, savings must be invested in expanding network infrastructure”.—[Official Report, 31/1/17; col. 1157.]
and saying that the revised code secured real investment. This was supported by confirmation, in the impact assessment accompanying the reforms to the ECC in 2017, that the Government would review the impact of the policy by June 2022. But this has not been met, despite the Government’s future infrastructure review confirming that they were already considering undertaking a formal review of the code reforms to assess their impact in 2019. The Government’s decision to introduce new legislation proves that the 2017 reforms have not actually achieved their aims.
Instead of leading to faster and easier deployment, as we have heard today, changes to the rights given to operators under the code have stopped the market working as it should and led to delays in digital rollout, as well as eroding private property rights. This has resulted in small businesses facing demands for rent reductions of over 90%; a spike in mobile network operators bringing protracted litigation; failure by mobile operators to reinvest their savings in mobile infrastructure; and delayed 5G access for up to 9 million people, at a cost of over £6 billion to the UK economy. The Government’s legislation and their subsidies now show they know the reforms have failed. That is why they are passing new legislation to revise the code, as well as announcing £500 million in new subsidies for operators through the shared rural network.
In Committee in the other place, the Minister, Julia Lopez, claimed:
“If a review takes place, stakeholders will likely delay entering into agreements to enable the deployment of infrastructure. Only when the review has concluded and it is clear whether further changes are to be made to the code will parties be prepared to make investment or financial commitments”.—[Official Report, Commons, Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill Committee, 22/3/22; col. 122.]
In addition to there being no evidence for this claim, this extraordinary line of reasoning would allow the Government to escape scrutiny and commitments in a wide variety of policy areas, were it applied more broadly. To maintain public faith in policy-making, it is vital that there is an accessible evidence base on which decisions are made. The Government’s decisions in this Bill do not meet the standard.
Moreover, I know that Ministers are sceptical about the Centre for Economics and Business Research’s report. The noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, has said that it oversimplifies the issue, but I do not believe that the Government have properly addressed some of the issues raised in it. The CEBR is an extremely reputable organisation and although the research was commissioned by Protect and Connect, the Government need to engage in that respect.
Our amendment would insert a new clause obliging the Government to commission an independent review of the impact of the legislation and prior reforms within 18 months. The review would assess the legislation’s impact on the rate of additional investment in mobile networks and infrastructure deployment, the costs borne by property owners and the wider benefit or costs of the legislation. It would also oblige the Government to publish a response to the review within 12 weeks of its publication and lay that before Parliament, to ensure parliamentary accountability for the Government’s action and to allow debate.
Another amendment would insert a new clause placing obligations on operators to report certain information to Ofcom each year. Operators would have to report on such information as their overall investment in mobile networks, the rent paid to site providers, the number of new mobile sites built within the UK, and upgrades and renewals.
It is the final group in Committee, so where in all this—as my noble friend Lord Fox and I have been asking each time we debate these issues—are the interests of the consumer, especially the rural consumer? How are they being promoted, especially now that market review is only once every five years? That is why we need these reviews in these amendments. We tried in the last Bill to make the Government justify their strategy. Now it is clear that changes to the ECC are not fit for purpose and we will try again to make the Government come clean on their strategy.
Government AI Procurement needs ethical and data compliance obligation
The Procurement Bill lacks any kinds of obligation on Government to ensure that AI systems procred comply with ethical and data protection principles despite numerous guidelines bering issed. This is what I said when proposing a new clause designed to ensure this.
In our report AI in the UK: Ready, Willing and Able?, our AI Lords Select Committee, which I chaired, expressed its strong belief in the value of procurement by the public sector of AI applications. However, as a recent research post put it:
“Public sector bodies in several countries are using algorithms, AI, and similar methods in their administrative functions that have sometimes led to bad outcomes that could have been avoided.”
The solution is:
“In most parliamentary democracies, a variety of laws and standards for public administration combine to set enough rules to guide their proper use in the public sector.”
The challenge is to work out what is lawful, safe and effective to use.
The Government clearly understand this, yet one of the baffling and disappointing aspects of the Bill is the lack of connection to the many government guidelines applying to the procurement and use of tech, such as artificial intelligence and the use and sharing of data by those contracting with government. It is unbelievable, but it is almost as if the Government wanted to be able to issue guidance on the ethical aspects of AI and data without at the same time being accountable if those guidelines are breached and without any duty to ensure compliance.
There is no shortage of guidance available. In June 2020, the UK Government published guidelines for artificial intelligence procurement, which were developed by the UK Government’s Office for Artificial Intelligence in collaboration with the World Economic Forum, the Government Digital Service, the Government Commercial Function and the Crown Commercial Service. The UK was trumpeted as the first Government to pilot these procurement guidelines. Their purpose is to provide central government departments and other public sector bodies with a set of guiding principles for purchasing AI technology. They also cover guidance on tackling challenges that may occur during the procurement process. In connection with this project, the Office for AI also co-created the AI procurement toolkit, which provides a guide for the public sector globally to rethink the procurement of AI.
As the Government said on launch,
“Public procurement can be an enabler for the adoption of AI and could be used to improve public service delivery. Government’s purchasing power can drive this innovation and spur growth in AI technologies development in the UK.
As AI is an emerging technology, it can be more difficult to establish the best route to market for your requirements, to engage effectively with innovative suppliers or to develop the right AI-specific criteria and terms and conditions that allow effective and ethical deployment of AI technologies.”
The guidelines set out a number of AI-specific considerations within the procurement process:
“Include your procurement within a strategy for AI adoption … Conduct a data assessment before starting your procurement process … Develop a plan for governance and information assurance … Avoid Black Box algorithms and vendor lock in”,
to name just a few. The considerations in the guidelines and the toolkit are extremely useful and reassuring, although not as comprehensive or risk-based as some of us would like, but where does any duty to adhere to the principles reflecting them appear in the Bill?
There are many other sets of guidance applicable to the deployment of data and AI in the public sector, including the Technology Code of Practice, the Data Ethics Framework, the guide to using artificial intelligence in the public sector, the data open standards and the algorithmic transparency standard. There is the Ethics, Transparency and Accountability Framework, and this year we have the Digital, Data and Technology Playbook, which is the government guidance on sourcing and contracting for digital, data and technology projects and programmes. There are others in the health and defence sectors. It seems that all these are meant to be informed by the OECD’s and the G20’s ethical principles, but where is the duty to adhere to them?
It is instructive to read the recent government response to Technology Rules?, the excellent report from the Justice and Home Affairs Committee, chaired by my noble friend Lady Hamwee. That response, despite some fine-sounding phrases about responsible, ethical, legitimate, necessary, proportionate and safe Al, displays a marked reluctance to be subject to specific regulation in this area. Procurement and contract guidelines are practical instruments to ensure that public sector authorities deploy AI-enabled systems that comply with fundamental rights and democratic values, but without any legal duty backing up the various guidelines, how will they add up to a row of beans beyond fine aspirations? It is quite clear that the missing link in the chain is the lack of a legal duty to adhere to these guidelines.
My amendment is formulated in general terms to allow for guidance to change from time to time, but the intention is clear: to make sure that the Government turn aspiration into action and to prompt them to adopt a legal duty and a compliance mechanism, whether centrally via the CDDO, or otherwise.
Debate on AI in the UK: No Room For Complacency report
Recently the House of Lords belatedly debated the follow Report to the the original House of Lords AI Committee Report AI Report No Room for Complacency . This is how I introduced it:
My Lords, the Liaison Committee report No Room for Complacency was published in December 2020, as a follow-up to our AI Select Committee report, AI in the UK: Ready, Willing and Able?, published in April 2018. Throughout both inquiries and right up until today, the pace of development here and abroad in AI technology, and the discussion of AI governance and regulation, has been extremely fast moving. Today, just as then, I know that I am attempting to hit a moving target. Just take, for instance, the announcement a couple of weeks ago about the new Gato—the multipurpose AI which can do 604 functions —or perhaps less optimistically, the Clearview fine. Both have relevance to what we have to say today.
First, however, I say a big thank you to the then Liaison Committee for the new procedure which allowed our follow-up report and to the current Lord Speaker, Lord McFall, in particular and those members of our original committee who took part. I give special thanks to the Liaison Committee team of Philippa Tudor, Michael Collon, Lucy Molloy and Heather Fuller, and to Luke Hussey and Hannah Murdoch from our original committee team who more than helped bring the band, and our messages, back together.
So what were the main conclusions of our follow-up report? What was the government response, and where are we now? I shall tackle this under five main headings. The first is trust and understanding. The adoption of AI has made huge strides since we started our first report, but the trust issue still looms large. Nearly all our witnesses in the follow-up inquiry said that engagement continued to be essential across business and society in particular to ensure that there is greater understanding of how data is used in AI and that government must lead the way. We said that the development of data trusts must speed up. They were the brainchild of the Hall-Pesenti report back in 2017 as a mechanism for giving assurance about the use and sharing of personal data, but we now needed to focus on developing the legal and ethical frameworks. The Government acknowledged that the AI Council’s roadmap took the same view and pointed to the ODI work and the national data strategy. However, there has been too little recent progress on data trusts. The ODI has done some good work, together with the Ada Lovelace Institute, but this needs taking forward as a matter of urgency, particularly guidance on the legal structures. If anything, the proposals in Data: A New Direction, presaging a new data reform Bill in the autumn, which propose watering down data protection, are a backward step.
More needs to be done generally on digital understanding. The digital literacy strategy needs to be much broader than digital media, and a strong digital competition framework has yet to be put in place. Public trust has not been helped by confusion and poor communication about the use of data during the pandemic, and initiatives such as the Government’s single identifier project, together with automated decision-making and live facial recognition, are a real cause for concern that we are approaching an all-seeing state.
My second heading is ethics and regulation. One of the main areas of focus of our committee throughout has been the need to develop an appropriate ethical framework for the development and application of AI, and we were early advocates for international agreement on the principles to be adopted. Back in 2018, the committee took the view that blanket regulation would be inappropriate, and we recommended an approach to identify gaps in the regulatory framework where existing regulation might not be adequate. We also placed emphasis on the importance of regulators having the necessary expertise.
In our follow-up report, we took the view that it was now high time to move on to agreement on the mechanisms on how to instil what are now commonly accepted ethical principles—I pay tribute to the right reverend Prelate for coming up with the idea in the first place—and to establish national standards for AI development and AI use and application. We referred to the work that was being undertaken by the EU and the Council of Europe, with their risk-based approaches, and also made recommendations focused on development of expertise and better understanding of risk of AI systems by regulators. We highlighted an important advisory role for the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation and urged that it be placed on a statutory footing.
We welcomed the formation of the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum. It is clear that all the regulators involved—I apologise for the initials in advance—the ICO, CMA, Ofcom and the FCA, have made great strides in building a centre of excellence in AI and algorithm audit and making this public. However, despite the publication of the National AI Strategy and its commitment to trustworthy AI, we still await the Government’s proposals on AI governance in the forthcoming White Paper.
It seems that the debate within government about whether to have a horizontal or vertical sectoral framework for regulation still continues. However, it seems clear to me, particularly for accountability and transparency, that some horizontality across government, business and society is needed to embed the OECD principles. At the very least, we need to be mindful that the extraterritoriality of the EU AI Act means a level of regulatory conformity will be required and that there is a strong need for standards of impact, as well as risk assessment, audit and monitoring, to be enshrined in regulation to ensure, as techUK urges, that we consider the entire AI lifecycle.
We need to consider particularly what regulation is appropriate for those applications which are genuinely high risk and high impact. I hope that, through the recently created AI standards hub, the Alan Turing Institute will take this forward at pace. All this has been emphasised by the debate on the deployment of live facial recognition technology, the use of biometrics in policing and schools, and the use of AI in criminal justice, recently examined by our own Justice and Home Affairs Committee.
My third heading is government co-ordination and strategy. Throughout our reports we have stressed the need for co-ordination between a very wide range of bodies, including the Office for Artificial Intelligence, the AI Council, the CDEI and the Alan Turing Institute. On our follow-up inquiry, we still believed that more should be done to ensure that this was effective, so we recommended a Cabinet committee which would commission and approve a five-year national AI strategy, as did the AI road map.
In response, the Government did not agree to create a committee but they did commit to the publication of a cross-government national AI strategy. I pay tribute to the Office for AI, in particular its outgoing director Sana Khareghani, for its work on this. The objectives of the strategy are absolutely spot on, and I look forward to seeing the national AI strategy action plan, which it seems will show how cross-government engagement is fostered. However, the Committee on Standards in Public Life—I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Evans, will speak today—report on AI and public standards made the deficiencies in common standards in the public sector clear.
Subsequently, we now have an ethics, transparency and accountability framework for automated decision-making in the public sector, and more recently the CDDO-CDEI public sector algorithmic transparency standard, but there appears to be no central and local government compliance mechanism and little transparency in the form of a public register, and the Home Office appears to be still a law unto itself. We have AI procurement guidelines based on the World Economic Forum model but nothing relevant to them in the Procurement Bill, which is being debated as we speak. I believe we still need a government mechanism for co-ordination and compliance at the highest level.
The fourth heading is impact on jobs and skills. Opinions differ over the potential impact of AI but, whatever the chosen prognosis, we said there was little evidence that the Government had taken a really strategic view about this issue and the pressing need for digital upskilling and reskilling. Although the Government agreed that this was critical and cited a number of initiatives, I am not convinced that the pace, scale and ambition of government action really matches the challenge facing many people working in the UK.
The Skills and Post-16 Education Act, with its introduction of a lifelong loan entitlement, is a step in the right direction and I welcome the renewed emphasis on further education and the new institutes of technology. The Government refer to AI apprenticeships, but apprentice levy reform is long overdue. The work of local digital skills partnerships and digital boot camps is welcome, but they are greatly underresourced and only a patchwork. The recent Youth Unemployment Select Committee report Skills for Every Young Person noted the severe lack of digital skills and the need to embed digital education in the curriculum, as did the AI road map. Alongside this, we shared the priority of the AI Council road map for more diversity and inclusion in the AI workforce and wanted to see more progress.
At the less rarefied end, although there are many useful initiatives on foot, not least from techUK and Global Tech Advocates, it is imperative that the Government move much more swiftly and strategically. The All-Party Parliamentary Group on Diversity and Inclusion in STEM recommended in a recent report a STEM diversity decade of action. As mentioned earlier, broader digital literacy is crucial too. We need to learn how to live and work alongside AI.
The fifth heading is the UK as a world leader. It was clear to us that the UK needs to remain attractive to international research talent, and we welcomed the Global Partnership on AI initiative. The Government in response cited the new fast-track visa, but there are still strong concerns about the availability of research visas for entrance to university research programmes. The failure to agree and lack of access to EU Horizon research funding could have a huge impact on our ability to punch our weight internationally.
How the national AI strategy is delivered in terms of increased R&D and innovation funding will be highly significant. Of course, who knows what ARIA may deliver? In my view, key weaknesses remain in the commercialisation and translation of AI R&D. The recent debate on the Science and Technology Committee’s report on catapults reminded us that this aspect is still a work in progress.
Recent Cambridge round tables have confirmed to me that we have a strong R&D base and a growing number of potentially successful spin-outs from universities, with the help of their dedicated investment funds, but when it comes to broader venture capital culture and investment in the later rounds of funding, we are not yet on a par with Silicon Valley in terms of risk appetite. For AI investment, we should now consider something akin to the dedicated film tax credit which has been so successful to date.
Finally, we had, and have, the vexed question of lethal autonomous weapons, which we raised in the original Select Committee report and in the follow-up, particularly in the light of the announcement at the time of the creation of the autonomy development centre in the MoD. Professor Stuart Russell, who has long campaigned on this subject, cogently raised the limitation of these weapons in his second Reith Lecture. In both our reports we said that one of the big disappointments was the lack of definition of “autonomous weapons”. That position subsequently changed, and we were told in the Government’s response to the follow-up report that NATO had agreed a definition of “autonomous” and “automated”, but there is still no comprehensive definition of lethal autonomous weapons, despite evidence that they have clearly already been deployed in theatres such as Libya, and the UK has firmly set its face against laws limitation in international fora such as the CCW.
For a short report, our follow-up report covered a great deal of ground, which I have tried to cover at some speed today. AI lies at the intersection of computer science, moral philosophy, industrial education and regulatory policy, which makes how we approach the risks and opportunities inherent in this technology vital and difficult. The Government are engaged in a great deal of activity. The question, as ever, is whether it is focused enough and whether the objectives, such as achieving trustworthy AI and digital upskilling, are going to be achieved through the actions taken so far. The evidence of success is clearly mixed. Certainly there is still no room for complacency. I very much look forward to hearing the debate today and to what the Minister has to say in response. I beg to move.
Government should use procurement process to secure good work
Recently in the context of its duties under the Procurement Bill I argued for an obligation on Government to ensure that it had regard to the need to secure good work for those carrying out contracts under its procurement activities. This is what I said:
My own interests, and indeed concerns, in this area go back to the House of Lords Select Committee on AI. I chaired this ad hoc inquiry, which produced two reports: AI in the UK: Ready, Willing and Able? and a follow-up report via the Liaison Committee, AI in the UK: No Room for Complacency, which I mentioned in the debate on a previous group.
The issue of the adoption of AI and its relationship to the augmentation of human employment or substitution is key. We were very mindful of the Frey and Osborne predictions in 2013, which estimated that 47% of US jobs are at risk of automation—since watered down—relating to the sheer potential scale of automation over the next few years through the adoption of new technology. The IPPR in 2017 was equally pessimistic. Others, such as the OECD, have been more optimistic about the job-creation potential of these new technologies, but it is notable that the former chief economist of the Bank of England, Andrew Haldane, entered the prediction game not long ago with a rather pessimistic outlook.
Whatever the actual outcome, we said in our report that we need to prepare for major disruption in the workplace. We emphasised that public procurement has a major role in terms of the consequences of AI adoption on jobs and that risk and impact assessments need to be embedded in the tender process.
The noble Lord, Lord Knight, mentioned the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Future of Work, which, alongside the Institute for the Future of Work, has produced some valuable reports and recommendations in the whole area of the impact of new technology on the workplace. In their reports—the APPG’s The New Frontier and the institute’s Mind the Gap—they recommend that public authorities be obliged to conduct algorithmic impact assessments as a systematic approach to and framework for accountability and as a regulatory tool to enhance the accountability and transparency of algorithmic systems. I tried to introduce in the last Session a Private Member’s Bill that would have obliged public authorities to complete an algorithmic impact assessment where they procure or develop an automated
decision-making system, based on the Canadian directive on artificial intelligence’s impact assessments and the 2022 US Algorithmic Accountability Act.
In particular, we need to consider the consequences for work and working people, as well as the impact of AI on the quality of employment. We also need to ensure that people have the opportunity to reskill and retrain so that they can adapt to the evolving labour market caused by AI. The all-party group said:
“The principles of Good Work should be recognised as fundamental values … to guide development and application of a human-centred AI Strategy. This will ensure that the AI Strategy works to serve the public interest in vision and practice, and that its remit extends to consider the automation of work.”
The Institute for the Future of Work’s Good Work Charter is a useful checklist of AI impacts for risk and impact assessments—for instance, in a workplace context, issues relating to
“access … fair pay … fair conditions … equality … dignity … autonomy … wellbeing … support”
and participation. The noble Lord, Lord Knight, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, have said that these amendments would ensure that impacts on the creation of good, local jobs and other impacts in terms of access to, terms of and quality of work are taken into account in the course of undertaking public procurement.
As the Work Foundation put it in a recent report,
“In many senses, insecure work has become an accepted part of the UK’s labour market over the last 20 years. Successive governments have prioritised raising employment and lowering unemployment, while paying far less attention to the quality and security of the jobs available.”
The Taylor review of modern working practices, Good Work—an independent report commissioned by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy that remains largely unimplemented—concluded that there is a need to provide a framework that better reflects the realities of the modern economy and the spectrum of work carried out.
The Government have failed to legislate to ensure that we do not move even further down the track towards a preponderantly gig economy. It is crucial that they use their procurement muscle to ensure, as in Good Work, that these measures are taken on every major public procurement involving AI and automated decision-making.