Queen’s Speech

Baroness Rock Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

My Lords, this Queen’s Speech is our first and best chance to set out what kind of country we are going to be outside the European Union. It is our chance to remind investors, businesses, workers and trade partners that what is true now of Britain—open, innovative, creative and productive—will continue to be true. It is our chance to capitalise on what opportunities may come from our new-found freedoms.

Austerity was essential to restore investor confidence, but our fiscal position remains vulnerable. That means that if we are going to increase borrowing and add to our debt, it must be in areas that will increase productivity and boost growth. I am encouraged therefore by many of the measures in the gracious Speech.

I am fortunate to have been a member of this House’s Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence and I am currently a board member of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation. I say “fortunate” because I feel that I have glimpsed the future of what will drive our economy: AI and data. These opportunities transcend Brexit, this fiscal cycle and even this Government. We need to invest in our future if we are to capitalise and boost productivity, growth and prosperity.

There are many aspects to productivity, but those to which I want to draw attention are R&D, skills and infrastructure. We cannot go too far wrong if we increase our investment in research. I am proud that, in the midst of spending cuts in the past two Parliaments, the Conservative Government protected the science budget. Similarly, we have long had a tax regime that encourages investment in R&D, so I am pleased that the gracious Speech pledges to increase the threshold for R&D tax credits to 13%. This is an important signal. We also need to do more to build on the early work of the industrial strategy, which places AI and data at its heart.

We have all the assets in the UK to realise this opportunity. We have world-class universities, a thriving tech sector and a deep pools of venture capital, so I commend the work of initiatives such as Oxford Sciences Innovation which bring all these actors together to ensure that we convert university research into commercial opportunity. We need to see more like this, and more from the Government’s catapult centres which focus on technology transfer.

As important as research are skills. My main takeaway from my work on AI and data is that we need a stronger pipeline of talent domestically, starting in our schools, and through our migration system so that we attract top talent. We have an acute skills shortage in these emerging professions, especially among women, which is so important to address if we are to avoid gender bias in the way codes and algorithms are written, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, eloquently mentioned. The gracious Speech refers to the new £3 billion national skills fund, and the manifesto stresses that some of it will be set aside for “strategic investment in skills”. Perhaps the Minister will clarify that AI, data and other associated technology will be included in this strategic investment, essential as they are for our future productivity and prosperity. This needs to start in schools, but it should also look at retraining and continuous professional development.

The final piece of the productivity jigsaw is infrastructure. The gracious Speech promises a new national infrastructure strategy at the time of the next Budget, so we will have to wait and see what this entails, but I am pleased that what emphasis we have seen so far has been on digital—namely, broadband and digital infrastructure—as well as on the more prosaic targets for new housebuilding and what I am sure will be a strong pipeline of roads, bridges and new renewable energy capacity.

It is high time we addressed our flailing productivity, and if we have to borrow more to do so, then so be it. We have to provide reassurance to the markets of course, but we have also to provide something visionary. A UK that invests in infrastructure, research and human capital is a country that investors will continue to commit to, skilled workers will flock to and entrepreneurs will start companies in. This kind of borrowing might even pay for itself.

NHS: Healthcare Data

Baroness Rock Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Rock (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great honour to follow the excellent maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Bethell. I know that all noble Lords will join me in extending him a very warm welcome. As we have heard, he brings a rich family heritage as well as the experience of a veteran campaigner outside of Parliament. I am sure that we will benefit from that dedication, energy and commitment in this Chamber. We look forward to his future contributions.

I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, for the opportunity to speak in this important debate with esteemed colleagues. Healthcare data may seem dry to some but it is one of the great challenges and opportunities of the technological revolution. Before I move on to some specifics, we should bear in mind the backdrop against which the NHS currently operates—one of significant and sustained financial pressure. It should not be a question, therefore, of whether our healthcare system embraces technology, and opportunities in data within that; it must be a question of how. McKinsey published research on a “large OECD country”, which many have taken to refer to the UK, and a savings opportunity of up to 12% by simply implementing existing digital technologies, of which up to half could be data related. This is an opportunity the NHS cannot afford to miss. Let us keep that in mind when we consider the issue in the round. A financially sound, digitally enabled NHS is to the benefit of all, patients and staff.

That said, we have a way to go before we can consider the NHS well placed to capitalise. Last year, the DeepMind Health Independent Review Panel annual report reminded us that:

“The digital revolution has largely bypassed the NHS, which, in 2017, still retains the dubious honour of being the world’s largest purchaser of fax machines”.


However, I am hopeful that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health, given that he has recently departed the department that is home to all things digital, is well placed to redress this. Indeed, he has already confirmed that technology implementation is one of his priorities. This is an agenda worth pursuing.

I was fortunate enough to sit on the House of Lords Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence. We considered AI’s implications for healthcare. The Academy of Medical Sciences, in giving evidence, said that its impact on the healthcare system,

“is likely to be profound”,

because research and development will become more efficient. New methods of healthcare delivery will become possible, clinical decision-making will be more informed and patients will be more informed in managing their health. So we have administrative gains, particularly if data can be centralised so that different silos can communicate. I commend this Government’s investment in joining up the data to improve the patient experience as they move through the health and social care system, but the gains are broader still—for example, in diagnostics. Microsoft Research showed our Select Committee its InnerEye technology, which will assist oncologists in reading scans. At present, 2 million women are screened for breast cancer every year and these scans are read at a rate of 55 per hour. Technology will reduce this without compromising integrity or commercial outcomes, and at a significant saving to the NHS. This is but one example.

We also saw examples in genomics and personalised medicine, as well as processing data to detect and monitor pandemics. I am encouraged by the digital innovation hubs, which will securely use data to improve the way we are able to prevent, detect and diagnose diseases such as cancer, heart disease and asthma so that patients can benefit from scientific breakthroughs much faster. In short, there are huge clinical and financial benefits if the NHS can capitalise. The question is how we can build trust and bring the public with us. Certainly, the NHS dataset is unique, in size and in longitude, so it presents a unique opportunity, but with that opportunity comes responsibility.

We have all heard of DeepMind’s health engagement with the Royal Free Hospital, the study involving the sharing of 1 million anonymised eye scans under a research agreement that began in 2016. It cost the hospital nothing, which is great, but it might reap huge financial gains for DeepMind and its parent, Google. Many will be uncomfortable with the idea of businesses profiting from exploiting their health data, as has been mentioned, so the right balance must be struck. Benefits in kind is perhaps one way, since it avoids explicit monetisation. However, the AI Committee concluded that what we really need is a departure from local deals being struck piecemeal and a new framework for sharing NHS data, developed and published by the end of 2018. I would be grateful for the Minister’s comments on that. I do, though, commend the forthcoming code of conduct for AI and digital technology, which will provide added reassurance to patients.

The National Information Board summed up the task well in describing its mission as,

“developing the strategic priorities for data and technology in health and care to deliver the maximum benefits for all of us, as citizens and as patients”.

It is that mantra, “to the benefit of all of us”, that we must lead with.