EU Technological Sovereignty Package

Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee Excerpts

Monday 20th July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

Developments in AI are incredible in many respects. That only reinforces our belief that we need to invest in the UK, not just in digital infrastructure and hardware—for example, supporting UK businesses that have unique chip capabilities—but in upskilling people in the UK to adopt AI, so that we as a country can benefit from the productivity gains and that small and large businesses can adopt AI safely and securely.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I very much welcome that AI growth zones have been designated across the UK, although not in Northern Ireland. I am sure that the Minister agrees that that is disappointing. If His Majesty’s Government are looking at backing British capability, surely there should be resilience in Northern Ireland as well.

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

Northern Ireland is an incredibly important region for us. It has, as the noble Baroness knows, very high levels of digital connectivity, which puts it in a great place. I know that it also benefits from a thriving and growing cyber security sector and is thus able to tap into many of the adjacent industries that are part of the AI economy as it grows. We are backing cyber businesses in Northern Ireland and supporting them to export and scale.

European Framework Programme 10

Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee Excerpts

Thursday 4th September 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in relation to industry, in the Minister’s first substantive Answer, he said that industry did not have the same percentage as academia. How can Government work with both industry and academia to forge closer collaborations so that they can partake of this investment, particularly when it is industry that usually identifies the difficulties that have to be solved and academia then comes up with the solutions?

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

I wrote to vice-chancellors to encourage them to make sure they apply to get into all of the scheme, and that had an effect on applications. I am doing the same with trade bodies and other parts of industry to get them linked. The general point about links between academia and industry is crucial; we need much closer collaboration. The noble Baroness will see, as we go through our next REF exercise to assess universities, that the links to industry are going to be a very important part of that.

AI: Cross-sector Legislation

Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee Excerpts

Tuesday 29th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords—

[Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)]

My Lords—

AI: “Nudify” Apps

Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee Excerpts

Tuesday 13th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

As the noble Lord said, it is a fast-moving space, and that requires an adaptive, agile response in legislating for it. That is the approach that we are taking. As to the argument that we can now see that it is not working, I am not sure that that is the case. The intimate image abuse offences commenced on 31 January—two weeks ago. I am pleased to see that, yesterday, we had our first cyberflashing conviction under those provisions. Using an evidence base, looking forward, we will have to consider carefully what is working before we go ahead and implement further bans.

[Baroness Foster of Aghadrumsee (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, during the last Assembly election in Northern Ireland, two female candidates from either side of the community in Northern Ireland were targeted with deepfake porn, which was solely designed to damage their chances in that election. We know the number of people who will be going to the polls in the next year. Surely the Minister and the Government need to work with the Electoral Commission to raise this issue, because it is a very important issue in democracy for female candidates.

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I absolutely agree, and the instance that the noble Baroness described is deplorable. I am pleased to say two things very briefly. First, the sharing she describes now carries, as a base offence, up to six months in prison; if, as in the case the noble Baroness put forward, the sharing is designed for the purposes of malice or gaining sexual gratification, that sentence goes up to two years. That regime is now live. On elections, we have set up the Defending Democracy Taskforce, with a new unit implemented last year specifically dedicated to safeguarding the election against such threats.