Young People in Scotland: Employment Opportunities

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of the Employment Rights Act 2025 on employment opportunities for young people in Scotland.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade (Lord Sarwar) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government have published a comprehensive assessment of the Employment Rights Act in consultation with experts. The assessment shows that the Act could benefit 18 million workers across the UK and could increase employment. Our analysis further shows that young workers stand to be amongst the biggest beneficiaries of these reforms. Scotland is also expected to benefit more significantly, with around 55% of workers projected to gain from the Act.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

I begin by warmly welcoming the Minister to his first Question at the Dispatch Box. In the latest labour market trends published by the Scottish Government, the unemployment rate of those aged 16 and over in Scotland was estimated at 5.1%, up 1.4% over the year, and above the UK rate of 4.9%. We know that the Employment Rights Act will take effect over the coming months. The views of these Benches on the deficiencies in that legislation are well-known. What contingency measures are Ministers putting in place, should the Employment Rights Act lead to even higher levels of unemployment among young people in Scotland?

[Lord Sarwar (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for the question. He and I debated these issues in a very different Parliament not so long ago, and I am sure that neither of us imagined we would be debating in this Chamber today. As he knows, a lot of these responsibilities are devolved, so we have to make an assessment of the impact of the Employment Rights Act; but let us not forget that the Scottish Government are responsible for schools, high schools, colleges, universities, apprenticeships, the apprenticeship levy rates and so much more. Therefore, although we are confident that the Employment Rights Act will not have a detrimental impact on young workers, we need fundamental reform in Scotland in those other areas.

AI: Child Sexual Abuse Material

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes a really important point about media literacy. It is again an issue that my department is taking very seriously, and it is an issue that Ofcom also has a statutory responsibility for, but she is right that schools have an essential part to play in this. The curriculum review which is currently taking place is identifying the need to give children more resilience and to give them the tools to identify what is safe and what is unsafe behaviour and to scrutinise the posts that they see in a more informed way. That work is ongoing in the curriculum review and the interim report from the Department for Education has identified that it is a priority.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, the rapidly increasing number of AI-generated images in circulation that depict child sexual abuse is deeply disturbing. The creation of such imagery uses the faces or bodies of real children, and much of it falls into category A material, depicting abuse of the most extreme kind. Will the Minister explain what the Government’s plans are to crack down on those who share information specifically on how to use text-to-image-based generative AI tools, a practice which leads to the creation of this appalling material?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, we are already taking steps to deal with this. We are committed to making sure that our laws tackle child sexual abuse materials and keep pace with technological developments. In the Crime and Policing Bill, we have introduced an offence to criminalise AI models that have been optimised to create child sexual abuse material. We have introduced an offence to criminalise those who maintain or moderate websites that use such services and use shared child sexual abuse imagery—whether it is real or fake, as the noble Lord says. In the Data (Use and Access) Bill, we have updated existing law that criminalises paedophile manuals to cover artificially generated CSAM. So there are a number of steps that we are already taking within the current legislation programme to deal with these incidents.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Lord Cameron of Lochiel Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 10th December 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 74 from the noble Lords, Lord Scriven and Lord Clement-Jones, on excluding personal health data from being a recognised legitimate interest. I also support Amendment 78 on having a statement by the Secretary of State to recognise that legitimate interest and Amendments 83 and 90, which would remove powers from the Secretary of State to override primary legislation to modify data protection via an SI. There is not much to add to what I said on the previous group, so I will not repeat all the arguments made then. In simple terms, I repeat the necessity for trust—in health, particularly for patient trust. You do not gain trust simply by defining personal health data as a legitimate interest or by overriding primary legislation on the say-so of a Secretary of State, even if it is laid as a statutory instrument.

[Lord Cameron of Lochiel (Con)]

My Lords, I want to ask the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, in very general terms for their views on retrospectivity. Do they believe that the changes to data protection law in the Bill are intended to be applied to data already held at this time or will the new regime apply only to personal data collected going forwards from this point? I ask that specifically of data pertaining to children, from whom sensitive data has already been collected. Will the forthcoming changes to data protection law apply to such data that controllers and processors already hold, or will it apply only to data held going forward?

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I thank in particular the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, who has clearly had his Weetabix this morning. I will comment on some of the many amendments tabled.

On Amendments 73, 75, 76, 77, 83 and 90, I agree it is concerning that the Secretary of State can amend such important legislation via secondary legislation. However, these amendments are subject to the affirmative procedure and, therefore, to parliamentary scrutiny. Since the DPDI Bill proposed the same, I have not changed my views; I remain content that this is the right level of oversight and that these changes do not need to be made via primary legislation.

As for Amendment 74, preventing personal health data from being considered a legitimate interest seems wise. It is best to err on the side of caution when it comes to sharing personal health data.

Amendment 77 poses an interesting suggestion, allowing businesses affiliated by contract to be treated in the same way as large businesses that handle data from multiple companies in a group. This would certainly be beneficial for SMEs collaborating on a larger project. However, each such business may have different data protection structures and terms of use. Therefore, while this idea certainly has merit, I am a little concerned that it may benefit from some refining to ensure that the data flows between businesses in a way to which the data subject has consented.

On Amendment 78A and Schedule 4 standing part, there are many good, legitimate interest reasons why data must be quickly shared and processed, many of which are set out in Schedule 4: for example, national security, emergencies, crimes and safeguarding. This schedule should therefore be included in the Bill to set out the details on these important areas of legitimate interest processing. Amendment 84 feels rather like the central theme of all our deliberations thus far today, so I will listen with great interest, as ever, to the Minister’s response.

I have some concerns about Amendment 85, especially the use of the word “publicly”. The information that may be processed for the purposes of safeguarding vulnerable individuals is likely to be deeply sensitive and should not be publicly available. Following on from this point, I am curious to hear the Minister’s response to Amendment 86. It certainly seems logical that provisions should be in place so that individuals can regain control of their personal data should the reason for their vulnerability be resolved. As for the remaining stand part notices in this group, I do not feel that these schedules should be removed because they set out important detail on which we will come to rely.