AI: International Co-operation

Debate between Baroness Lloyd of Effra and Baroness Teather

Wednesday 22nd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

AI can indeed be a powerful force for growth, scientific progress, better public services and sustainable development. We believe we can unlock this potential, working together with other countries, to build trust, to manage the risks and to ensure that the benefits of AI are shared widely. That is why the UK co-ordinates the international network of AISIs, which delivered the International AI Safety Report. We also fund practical partnerships with the OECD, the African Union and south-east Asia to support responsible AI adoption and drive growth worldwide.

[Baroness Teather (LD)]

My Lords, in the light of the news today that one of OpenAI’s agents went rogue in an experiment and attacked another AI start-up, does the Minister agree that this indicates an urgent need for global co-operation to agree safeguards and accountability frameworks? It seems that companies cannot be trusted to control the technology they are developing without this. Furthermore, does this not also indicate the need for us to develop a sovereign AI capability strategy so that we have the influence and expertise to shape these critical global conversations?

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

With the AI Security Institute, we have a world-leading, world-class institution that is able to test frontier models and provide advice, including with the National Cyber Security Centre, in order to equip companies against the risks that are prevalent with the advances in these technologies. That is exactly what happened earlier, and we encourage all firms and other organisations to take the mitigations that are necessary to reduce vulnerabilities and increase resilience. On the question of AI sovereignty and technological developments, we are absolutely taking an approach to build out AI capabilities. That is why we have the AI hardware plan to support development in that area, as well as the sovereign AI fund.

Online Hate Speech

Debate between Baroness Lloyd of Effra and Baroness Teather

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

My noble friend is right to emphasise that there can be no justification for violence and disorder; there is no place for anti- semitism, either online or offline. As she also rightly noted, Ofcom launched a compliance programme to assess whether the biggest platforms have robust systems and processes to deal with illegal hate and terrorist material under the OSA. As she also pointed out, Ofcom also announced it had secured commitments from X on how quickly it will remove content.

Following the disorder in Belfast, Ofcom wrote to services to remind them of the duties, and the Secretary of State asked it to engage with those companies to understand what action they are taking. We will also take further action; shortly, we will be laying updates in Parliament to bring into effect Ofcom’s strengthened code of practice for crises. We will continue to monitor this, and have said to Ofcom many times that it has our backing to use its powers to enforce the duties that it is responsible for.

[Baroness Teather (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that AI-driven recommender algorithms are not neutral channels but active amplifiers of hateful content? What assessment has been made of the systemic risk duties in the Online Safety Act to address algorithmic amplification specifically, rather than individual pieces of content?

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The noble Baroness raises important questions about how platforms operate in practice and the interaction between the online and offline worlds. The Government’s document Protecting What Matters looks across many different government departments and sets out what we can do to support cohesive communities. We have said that we need to explore further how to tackle the spread of hateful content online and that we will look at the way in which algorithms can increase the spread of harmful content. We will set out what we will do as a result of those considerations.