Procurement Bill [HL]

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 13th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I rise very briefly and with great pleasure to follow the noble Lords, Lord Hendy and Lord Knight of Weymouth. I could not possibly repeat large amounts of what they said. I will just add a couple of points.

First, Amendment 186 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hendy, and signed by the noble Lords, Lord Hain and Lord Monks, looks at excluding suppliers for other improper behaviour, particularly the mistreatment of workers. This a change to the Bill that I think would be welcomed by many good employers, because it would help them to ensure that they can compete against cowboys and potential cowboys.

It raises a point that I raised in our earlier discussion about supporting small and medium-sized enterprises; there is continuing debate on this issue, which I am sure we will take to Report. In many cases, we have seen that small and medium-sized enterprises, although not all of them are angels, know their workers as individuals. They are very often better employers, whereas large multinational companies treat their employees like blocks of labour to be moved around on a chess board. I would assert that ensuring that bad labour practice is punished would be of benefit to small and medium-sized enterprises, which noble Lords all around the Committee agreed was a good idea.

Moving on to the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, particularly Amendment 54 and the linked Amendment 535, it is really useful to put this into context, so I will refer to a UNISON report entitled Outsourcing the Cuts: Pay and Employment Effects of Contracting Out. It focuses on some very detailed case studies and looks at what we have seen, particularly over the past decade: an increased work intensity forced on staff, with greater job insecurity and low or non-existent increases in pay. That has happened right across the UK economy, but it has particularly been the case with outsourced contracts of the kind we are talking about here. As the report says,

“outsourced public servants are at the sharp end of this pressure.”

Those are the circumstances we have been in.

I want to pick up on what the noble Lord, Lord Knight, alluded to: that the quality of life we have in the UK, and the quality of our economy, is acutely related to the nature of that work. Amendment 54 in particular says that the

“contracting authority must take into account the impacts … on local good work”.

We have low productivity; extremely poor public health, both physical and mental; and communities that have truly been hollowed out by low pay, where no one has any money to support local independent businesses. This is a spiral downwards, and we have to get out of that. These amendments are working towards putting in provision to change that. I point to the Government’s levelling-up agenda, which is regionally based, so I believe that they do indeed want to address this.

I will pick up on one practical point and an example of how this might be used. Let us imagine that we have two bids for a contract, one of which is from a company that is trialling—as many now are, and as many have fully implemented—a four-day working week as standard with no loss of pay. I suggest that this amendment says that the impact that could have on the local community must be taken into account. Think of all the extra time people would have for volunteering or for childcare, and the impact that would have on the quality of local life. This would build in things that the Government say are part of their agenda. Perhaps it was more Cameronian, but I think the idea of communities providing local services and volunteering is probably still part of the Government’s agenda. So these amendments would deliver things that the Government say they want to deliver, and I believe they would be truly impressive improvements to the Bill.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 54, 104 and 535 and will speak to Amendments 67 and 116, which I have signed, which were all so well introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Knight. I declare an interest as vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Future Of Work.

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.

Procurement Bill [HL]

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 11th July 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 44, 56 and 57. I too have gone back to the Green Paper and the Government’s response to that consultation and I remain extremely puzzled that this entire consultation process was undertaken, that the Government responded in their response document rather favourably to it, but that almost none of that is reflected in Part 2 of the Bill. Part 2 declares that it is about principles and objectives, but Clause 12 reserves the detailed definition of those objectives to the Minister—whoever he or she may be when it comes to it—to set out later in a policy statement. This is a skeleton Bill and, reading through several parts of it, and this section in particular, I am reminded that the DPRRC commented that leaving things to regulations often disguises the fact that Ministers have not yet quite made their minds up as to what their policy and intentions will be when it comes to it.

If Ministers continue to turn over as rapidly as they have under the current Government, we might anticipate that, every nine to 12 months, a new Secretary of State will wish to issue a new strategic statement. Clause 12 tells us that the statement will be presented to Parliament after carrying out

“such consultation as the Minister considers appropriate”

and making

“any changes to the statement that appear to the Minister to be necessary in view of responses to the consultation”.

So we are asked to leave all that—the underlying principles of this Bill—to the Minister, whoever she or he may be by the time this becomes law. Much better to start with a parliamentary debate on what the agreed principles for procurement should be, from one Government to another, than to present Parliament with changing Ministers’ changing ideas after lengthy discussions with others outside.

On that topic, can the Minister tell us which Cabinet-level Minister is now responsible for this Bill, or which Commons Minister he is co-operating with in managing it as it moves through the two Houses? That would help the Committee understand how and whether it is likely to progress and what difficulties or changed circumstances the Minister is operating under. I appreciate and almost sympathise with some of the difficulties he may be going through in those circumstances, but if we intend this Bill to last, to provide some stability for non-governmental suppliers and the clients of public services, we need to put agreed principles and objectives in it.

There was much more about principles in the Government’s response to the Green Paper. Can the Minister explain why it is not here? Why did it not appear necessary, in view of the responses to the consultation? Amendments 43, 44 and others insert statements of principles largely drawn from government publications. They are central to the Bill. I hope the Minister will accept that it was a mistake not to include them and that it is not acceptable to Parliament to leave this to a future Minister—or perhaps Government—and that he will return on Report, after consultation, with a form of words on this that can command a cross-party consensus and which reflects the consultation already undertaken. Amendments 43 and 44 offer different, though overlapping, drafts of what it might be appropriate to include in the Bill.

I will speak also to Amendments 56 and 57. Amendment 56 is purely exploratory; we deserve an explanation in clear and simple language of the grounds on which some suppliers are to be treated differently from others. Amendment 57 inserts clearer language on the criteria by which procurement decisions should be judged: value for money, cost, quality and sustainability—as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, pointed out, it is the principles that matter most in setting the tone and culture under which the entire public procurement process will take place. These are important terms, not to be left to the policy statement when it comes but fundamental to the principles under which procurement decisions are taken. They must be in the Bill.

We are all aware of procurement contracts where the cheapest bid has produced unsatisfactory outcomes, where what has been promised has not been produced and where insufficient attention has been paid to quality or sustainability. The noble Lord, Lord Moylan, mentioned one, but there are many others. These need to be spelled out for future procurement, with the blessing and approval of Parliament. Parliament has been sidelined under the recent retiring Government; we hope that whoever succeeds our current Prime Minister will treat it with rather more respect and consideration.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 46, which comes from a slightly different angle. In our report AI in the UK: Ready, Willing and Able?, our AI Lords Select Committee, which I chair, 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.

[Lord Davies of Brixton (Lab)]

My Lords, I am speaking to my Amendments 128 and 130, although the issues raised there have already been addressed by earlier speakers. I fully support the amendments spoken to by the Front Bench and Amendment 57 tabled by the Liberal Democrats.

Elections Bill

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 25th April 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Clement-Jones]

58: Clause 40, page 50, line 33, leave out “reasonably practicable” and insert “possible”
Member’s explanatory statement
This amendment replaces “if it is not reasonably practicable to comply” with “if it is not possible to comply” to ensure that the majority of electronic material is within scope of the bill’s intentions.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to move Amendment 58 and speak to Amendments 60, 61, 62 and 65. The amendments in my name in this group closely resemble those I tabled in Committee and that I spoke to comprehensively then. They all relate to digital election campaign content, and I will not repeat the arguments I made for them at any length today. I am grateful to the noble Lords, Lord True and Lord Parkinson, the Bill team and officials from DCMS and DLUHC for meeting with me after Committee, and for what could perhaps be called a moderately enlightening discussion.

Through these amendments, I have been pursuing four aspects of digital campaigning. First, clear guidance on digital imprints is represented by Amendment 58. I have been assured that the Scottish provisions in law—and hence their guidance—are not nearly as prescriptive as those set out in the Bill. I hope that the Minister will give his assurance that the current interpretation of the Bill means that statutory guidance from the Electoral Commission—when it comes forward—will require the imprint in almost every circumstance to be on the image or post, unlike in Scotland. It is really only on platforms such as Twitter, where there is a character limit, that it can be considered not to be practicable to put the full imprint. In addition, I hope he will confirm there will be an expectation that the forwarding of posts will require either the full original imprint to be included or a new imprint to be placed on the material. There will also, I understand, be rules put in place for when and how long material must be retained for inspection.

Secondly, banning foreign actors is sought by Amendment 61. The noble Baroness, Lady Scott, and the noble Lord, Lord True, prayed in aid the new £700 limit and the imprint requirements at our meeting at Committee stage, but neither of them addressed the loopholes which will still exist where multiple identities can be created. This is where both Ministers’ statements were inadequate. The new amendment no longer covers British overseas electors, so I hope the Ministers come up with better assurances in this area. There is some consolation in the provision to review the operation of the Bill, but it is important at this stage—at this stage, not later—to take a view whether they are sufficiently watertight as regards foreign actors. This is an area where the Intelligence and Security Committee and the Committee on Standards in Public Life advocated much stronger controls.

Thirdly, Amendment 62 would require promoters to establish advert libraries for digital campaign adverts placed, while Amendment 60 would require detailed information about expenditure on digital campaign material. Here, the main government argument seems to be that the social media platforms that take political advertising—i.e. not Twitter—are keeping libraries already and are different in character, so it would be inappropriate to have a one-size-fits-all regulation. But at the same time, the noble Lord, Lord True, sought to assure me that several important recommendations of the Committee on Standards in Public Life and the Electoral Commission, including those relating to advert libraries and more detailed information on invoices, are still under consideration by the Government. Given the timing of the introduction of this Elections Bill, surely it is high time for the Government to have made a clear decision. What is the state of play here, in terms of a decision having been made on those recommendations?

The fourth area is that of misinformation and disinformation, starting with my Amendment 65 to criminalise false statements about election integrity, which is designed to see what direction the Government are planning to take. As I outlined in Committee, a whole host of Select Committees and the Committee on Standards in Public Life have made recommendations in this area. This has particular relevance in the context of the Ukraine invasion and Russian behaviour in the digital space for many years now. As former President Obama said in a recent interview with The Atlantic magazine,

“if you ask me what I’m most concerned about when I think back to towards the end of my presidency… that is the degree to which information, disinformation, misinformation was being weaponized. And we saw it. But I think I underestimated the degree to which democracies were as vulnerable to it as they were, including ours”.

And the director of GCHQ, Sir Jeremy Fleming, made a strong point about values in his recent speech in Australia. As he said,

“we must make sure that we stay true to our values, those that have made our systems and democracies so successful and will do so in the future too”.

A recent Ofcom study has revealed that 30% of UK adults who go online are unsure about or do not even consider the truthfulness of online information. A further 6%—around one in every 20 internet users—believe everything they see online.

There is, of course, crossover with the Online Safety Bill. I was grateful for the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, at our meeting, where he gave some assurance about the operation of the Bill and the powers of Ofcom regarding the design features of social media platforms and the way that their algorithms amplify misinformation and disinformation; about the adoption of the Law Commission proposals for a new offence of false communication; and about the workings of the counter-disinformation unit together with the Defending Democracy programme and the so-called Election Cell—which I was assured was not as opaque as it seems.

I do not expect the Minister to promise amendments ahead of the Online Safety Bill coming to this House, but I hope he will demonstrate a strong awareness of the importance of this aspect of digital campaigning. We will obviously return to this subject when the OSB comes into this House later in the year.

All that said, it is clear that in many of these areas the guidance and review of an independent Electoral Commission is going to be critical together with parliamentary oversight. Responsibility for elections has now transferred to DLUHC from the Cabinet Office but it is no more acceptable for the Secretary of State for Levelling Up to set the policy and priorities for the Electoral Commission than it is for the Cabinet Office.

Given the risk of skewing our political system in favour of the incumbent Government, it is all the more important we hold fast when the issue which we determined in the first group today comes back to this House. I beg to move.

[Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts (Con)]

My Lords, I have an amendment in this group—Amendment 59, previously tabled in Committee as Amendment 45B. The purpose of the amendment is very simple: it aims to increase transparency about third party campaigning by inserting this new clause, “Disclosure of status as a recognised third party”.

It is not concerned with the question of the imprints on electronic or printed material, which are, essentially, transitory—they come and go—and which are the target of the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, to which the Minister will reply in a minute. It is much simpler than that. It focuses solely on the homepage or the website, if it has one, of a registered third party campaigning organisation. If the amendment were accepted, the homepage of that registered organisation would be required to carry a statement along the lines of “XYZ”—the name of the campaigning organisation—“is a registered third party campaigner under Part 6 of PPERA 2000”, or similar wording.

The purpose behind the amendment is to ensure that individual members of the public viewing the website of a particular organisation are unequivocally, and at all times, made aware that the organisation is an active political campaigner. I have never suggested that this is going to bring about any radical change, but by increasing transparency about who is doing what to whom, it follows the direction of travel that the Government have said underlies the Bill.

In his reply in Committee, my noble friend the Minister was rather encouraging when he said:

“On the specific amendment of my noble friend, while the Government entirely agree with the principle that the public should clearly be able to identify recognised third parties, I can reassure the noble Lord that the current rules, supplemented by new rules in the Bill, will provide for that.”—[Official Report, 17/3/22; col. 477.]


He went on to say he wanted to go away to consider it further and asked whether I would withdraw my amendment, which I duly did.

At that point, my noble friend took the trouble to write to me. By this stage, I am afraid his remarks were rather less encouraging. He went on to say in his letter on 4 April:

“I … wanted to reiterate the Government’s position on your proposal to require registered third parties to disclose their registered status on a prominent place on their website, where they have a website … The Government entirely agrees it is right that third-party groups campaigning at elections should be transparent and clearly identifiable. Registered third party campaigners are already … listed on the Electoral Commission’s website, and the Elections Bill will introduce further requirements to ensure that any UK-based group spending over £10,000 registers with the regulator.”


If noble Lords read and consider that carefully, the outcome is quite different from that which would be achieved if my amendment were implemented. Yes, there will be rules about imprints on digital material, which might be strengthened by the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, if they were accepted, but unless a member of the public is visiting the organisation’s website because he or she has just received some imprinted material with a digital imprint on it, there will be no way of knowing whether or not the organisation in question is a registered third-party campaigner.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his response and for engaging rather more carefully with the arguments this time around than the noble Baroness, Lady Scott, did with her script in Committee. It was important to address some of these issues. The Minister’s reply was disappointing but expected. He used the word “disappointing” as well.

For a moment, I thought that his speech on the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, was going to have a “not invented here” quality. Actually, it was a game of two halves. Suddenly, the clouds seemed to part slightly. I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson, is used to being given assurances from the Front Bench. He will, no doubt, pursue them.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for his remarks. Of course, transparency is the essence of what the principle within digital campaigning should be. The Minister’s clarification on the imprint aspect was helpful. The position is different from that in Scotland. I hope that this will be followed up in the statutory guidance to which he referred.

I am disappointed that the Government seem to be torn between saying that the other transparency provisions for advert libraries and invoices are disproportionate yet, at the same time, they are still considering the proposals from the Electoral Commission and the Committee on Standards in Public Life. They are taking an awfully long time to consider these aspects. Obviously, we differ as to whether or not they would be an unreasonable burden on campaigners.

There is a clear difference between what the Minister and the Government seem to be saying about the practicalities of enforcing the strict limits on foreign expenditure and the concerns of the Intelligence and Security Committee. This is not the place to pursue either this or the aspect of electoral misinformation. I was trying to draw out the Minister’s intentions about misinformation and disinformation. It was helpful to have some indication that the Government see the Online Safety Bill as a way of dealing with some of the systemic aspects of misinformation on social media platforms. We will return to this when the Online Safety Bill comes before us in the autumn. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 58 withdrawn.

Standards in Public Life

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 9th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, it is a huge pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. I commend his Digital Technology and the Resurrection of Trust report to all noble Lords who have not had the opportunity to read it. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for initiating this debate.

Like the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, I will refer to a Select Committee report, going slightly off track in terms of today’s debate: last February’s Artificial Intelligence and Public Standards report by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, under the chairmanship of the noble Lord, Lord Evans of Weardale. This made a number of recommendations to strengthen the UK’s “ethical framework” around the deployment of AI in the public sector. Its clear message to the Government was that

“the UK’s regulatory and governance framework for AI in the public sector remains a work in progress and deficiencies are notable … on the issues of transparency and data bias in particular, there is an urgent need for … guidance and … regulation … Upholding public standards will also require action from public bodies using AI to deliver frontline services.”

It said that these were needed to

“implement clear, risk-based governance for their use of AI.”

It recommended that a mandatory public AI “impact assessment” be established

“to evaluate the potential effects of AI on public standards”

right at the project-design stage.

The Government’s response, over a year later—in May this year—demonstrated some progress. They agreed that

“the number and variety of principles on AI may lead to confusion when AI solutions are implemented in the public sector”.

They said that they had published an “online resource”—the “data ethics and AI guidance landscape”—with a list of “data ethics-related resources” for use by public servants. They said that they had signed up to the OECD principles on AI and were committed to implementing these through their involvement as a

“founding member of the Global Partnership on AI”.

There is now an AI procurement guide for public bodies. The Government stated that

“the Equality and Human Rights Commission … will be developing guidance for public authorities, on how to ensure any artificial intelligence work complies with the public sector equality duty”.

In the wake of controversy over the use of algorithms in education, housing and immigration, we have now seen the publication of the Government’s new “Ethics, Transparency and Accountability Framework for Automated Decision-Making” for use in the public sector. In the meantime, Big Brother Watch’s Poverty Panopticon report has shown the widespread issues in algorithmic decision-making increasingly arising at local-government level. As decisions by, or with the aid of, algorithms become increasingly prevalent in central and local government, the issues raised by the CSPL report and the Government’s response are rapidly becoming a mainstream aspect of adherence to the Nolan principles.

Recently, the Ada Lovelace Institute, the AI Now Institute and Open Government Partnership have published their comprehensive report, Algorithmic Accountability for the Public Sector: Learning from the First Wave of Policy Implementation, which gives a yardstick by which to measure the Government’s progress. The position regarding the deployment of specific AI systems by government is still extremely unsatisfactory. The key areas where the Government are falling down are not the adoption and promulgation of principles and guidelines but the lack of risk-based impact assessment to ensure that appropriate safeguards and accountability mechanisms are designed so that the need for prohibitions and moratoria for the use of particular types of high-risk algorithmic systems can be recognised and assessed before implementation. I note the lack of compliance mechanisms, such as regular technical, regulatory audit, regulatory inspection and independent oversight mechanisms via the CDDO and/or the Cabinet Office, to ensure that the principles are adhered to. I also note the lack of transparency mechanisms, such as a public register of algorithms in operation, and the lack of systems for individual redress in the case of a biased or erroneous decision.

I recognise that the Government are on a journey here, but it is vital that the Nolan principles are upheld in the use of AI and algorithms by the public sector to make decisions. Where have the Government got to so far, and what is the current destination of their policy in this respect?

Spyware

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 21st July 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Clement-Jones]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the reports of spyware sold by NSO Group to Governments around the world and the uses to which such software has been put.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con) [V]]

My Lords, the UK Government are aware of companies selling high-end, state-like cyber capabilities to Governments. We believe that the use of cyberespionage tools against civil society and political groups is unacceptable. It is essential that nation states and other cyber actors use capabilities in a way that is legal, responsible and proportionate.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, the leaked target list of 50,000 people includes UK politicians and journalists. Clearly, all our mobile devices are at risk of being hacked—a huge danger to press freedom and democracy. What is the NCSC doing to counter this, particularly since the whole Civil Service has now moved over to the iPhone? Why has the Home Office given the NSO Group a marketing platform at events such as a security and policing trade fair last year?

[Lord True (Con) [V]]

My Lords, Her Majesty’s Government are committed to defending the UK from online threats and boosting national resilience to cyberattacks, which the noble Lord rightly asks about. In the past five years, the national cybersecurity strategy has begun to transform the UK’s fight against cyber threats. We do not comment on individual cases or intelligence matters, as noble Lords will know, but while we cannot comment on the specifics, for operational reasons, I underline to your Lordships that we very strongly condemn the targeting of UK individuals.

SolarWinds Cyberattack

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Monday 25th January 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Clement-Jones]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the SolarWinds cyberattack, first reported on 13 December 2020; and what action they are taking in response.

[The Minister of State, Cabinet Office (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, this is a complex and global cyber incident. There is an ongoing, cross-government response and we are working with international partners to fully understand its scale and any UK impact.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister has pretty much repeated what the NCSC said back in December. This was one of the largest and most sophisticated cloud and software cyberattacks ever. SolarWinds’ customers included the Home Office, the MoD, the NHS, the Royal Navy, the Cabinet Office and several local authorities. Surely there has been time to evaluate and at least start countering the impact, identify the source and communicate with those potentially affected? Microsoft has been very transparent in its communications. Is it not time that the Government did likewise?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord will understand the sensitivities of these questions. I beg him to understand that work is ongoing and will take some time. However, we are already well placed to respond, thanks to our national cybersecurity strategy. Simply having SolarWinds does not automatically make an organisation vulnerable. The National Cyber Security Centre is working to mitigate any potential risk and guidance has been published on its website.

Essential Services: Large-scale Technology

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 12th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, the training challenge and broader apprenticeship challenge is ongoing, immense and growing, and I agree with the importance which the noble Baroness attaches to it. The Government are helping to promote cyber skills among young people to fill the shortages in that capacity.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD) [V]]

My Lords, controversial algorithms are increasingly being used by central and local government to make decisions. Does the Minister agree that to build and retain public trust we need strong oversight and governance of public sector use of algorithms? What response are the Government giving to the recommendations in the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation’s recent review of bias in algorithmic decision-making, and what plans for regulation do they have?

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, again, that is a very broad question, but the issues that the noble Lord addresses are extremely important and I take the sense in which he has offered it. Human judgment is, in the end, irreplaceable—your Lordships’ House could never be replaced by an algorithm.

European Union (Future Relationship) Bill

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

3rd reading & 2nd reading & Committee negatived & 2nd reading (Hansard) & 2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & 3rd reading (Hansard) & 3rd reading (Hansard): House of Lords & Committee negatived (Hansard) & Committee negatived (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 30th December 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Prime Minister and his colleagues have a nasty habit of telling us to sing “Land of Hope and Glory” while selling key sectors and interests down the river. Last year it was Northern Ireland, now it is Gibraltar and the fishing industry, and it has become clear that our creative industries too are being sacrificed on the altar of so-called sovereignty.

We have been assured by Ministers countless times of the value they place on the arts, but they have now abandoned one of our most successful sectors, already heavily battered by Covid lockdowns, to its own devices. The noble Baronesses, Lady Bull and Lady Bakewell, are absolutely right. In the trade and co-operation agreement, our hugely successful audio-visual sector is specifically excluded. They represent 30% of all channels in the EU, but if they are not to be subject to the regulators of every single country, they will need to establish a new hub in a member state.

We can look in vain for anything that helps our touring artists, particularly musicians, actors and sports professionals, with the ending of freedom of movement for UK citizens. From January, when freedom of movement ends, anyone from the UK seeking to perform in an EU country will need to apply for a costly visa for that country, carnets for their musical instruments and necessary CITES permits, and even, perhaps, provide proof of savings and a certificate of sponsorship from an event organiser. No wonder a petition seeking the UK Government to negotiate an EU-wide touring work permit and a carnet exception has gained over 200,000 signatures in record time, and no wonder UK Music and the ISM have expressed their dismay.

On top of this, quite apart from its dramatic impact on the creative industries, there are huge gaps in the agreement. Services are barely covered, despite making up 42% of our trade with the EU. There is no deal on recognition of professional qualifications, no deal on data adequacy, no membership of the Erasmus scheme for our students, as we have heard, and very limited recognition of the needs of the tourism, travel and hospitality industry, especially given the catastrophic impact on jobs that Covid is forecast to have on the sector. This is a failure of negotiation on a grand scale.

Our architects and engineers, who have made a huge impact on the built environment on the continent over the past 40 years, will have no right to work in the EU. Service industries, global business and tech companies who depend on data exchange with the EU will have no assurance that data flows can continue after six months. Our UK students, 15,000 of whom have taken advantage of the Erasmus scheme each year for exchanges and work placements, will no longer take part.

To describe this as a thin deal does not quite cut it; the Bill implementing it hugely erodes parliamentary sovereignty. “Negligent” and “ignorant” are words that describe it most aptly.

Verify: Digital Identity System

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Monday 26th November 2018 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Clement-Jones]

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of their plans for Verify, the Government Digital Service's digital identity system.

[Lord Young of Cookham (Con)]

My Lords, over 3 million people have used GOV.UK Verify to perform over 8 million secure transactions. My honourable friend the Minister for Implementation made a Written Ministerial Statement on GOV.UK Verify on 9 October. The Government have an immediate and growing need for a secure digital identity service.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, this is a very sorry tale. The Government Digital Service started with high hopes for its flagship Verify digital identity system, aiming for 25 million users by 2020. Now, with constant changes in leadership, the imminent cutting of the entire project budget and the refusal by departments such as HMRC to adopt it, the Government are now, after £130 million of investment, simply handing it over to the private sector. Is it not extraordinary, when the need for a trusted universal UK-wide secure identity system has never been higher, that the Government are abdicating all responsibility in that way? Where does that leave Verify’s 2020 target? Is this not an admission of total failure?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

I would not describe the service in quite the terms that the noble Lord has just used. Progress is being made towards the target of 25 million users by 2020. It is not the case that HMRC is not using Verify. Noble Lords who want to can upload their self-assessment tax return using Verify, and if they so wish they can check their income tax account using Verify. More and more government services are now subscribing to Verify; the MoD recently added an additional service, and some 18 services are now available. It is not the case that we are abdicating the whole thing to the private sector. Verify, which is a government service, will continue to provide a digital identity service to the public sector, and it is talking to the NHS and to local government in order to continue to broaden the base.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Young of Cookham]

His name is Oliver Dowden and he is a Minister in the Cabinet Office. Noble Lords will find his responsibilities set out in the list of ministerial responsibilities.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, can the Minister explain why he has the misfortune to be answering this Question today, given that responsibility for digital identity policy has transferred to DCMS?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

Well, it is a question that I may have asked myself a few days ago as I find myself answering questions on a whole range of responsibilities that I never knew were mine. The answer is that although overall responsibility has been transferred to DCMS, the Government Digital Service remains within the Cabinet Office, for which I have responsibility as a spokesman.

European Union Referendum: Alleged Russian Interference

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 19th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The noble Lord makes a very good point in that, obviously, it makes sense for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, not the Electoral Commission, to have overall responsibility for our relationship with Russia. It makes sense for the DCMS to have overall responsibility for “fake news” and for the Information Commissioner. It makes sense for the Cabinet Office to have overall responsibility for electoral law and a dialogue with the Electoral Commission. Where all these things come together, which I think is the noble Lord’s point, clearly, we need a collective view. It makes sense to await the outcome of the ISC inquiry that I mentioned a few moments ago, the DCMS inquiry into fake news that is currently under way, and the Electoral Commission inquiries into the referendum campaigns. When we have all that, we can stand back and see whether we have the right resources and the right information in the right place and come up with a collective view on the serious issue raised in the original Question.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Davies of Stamford (Lab)]

My Lords—

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Defence (Earl Howe) (Con)]

My Lords, it is the turn of the Liberal Democrats.

[Lord Clement-Jones]

My Lords, Cambridge Analytica was using so-called online political microtargeting, which involves collecting, often illicitly, huge amounts of personal data, creating personal profiles for voters and delivering specifically tailored, often false messages. Irrespective of the question of expenses—and I have no doubt that this could form part of the many inquiries that the Minister has mentioned—is this not exactly the kind of secret online targeting which is a threat to our democracy? Should it not be made transparent and be highly regulated under our electoral law?

[Lord Young of Cookham]

The specific case that the noble Lord mentions—the alleged misuse of data provided by Facebook to Cambridge Analytica—is currently being investigated by the Information Commissioner. So far as the impact of social media is concerned, research shows that social media consistently ranks as one of the least trustworthy sources of information—along with politicians. By contrast, the public continue to see national and regional television, news websites and broadsheets as the most reliable sources of news. This may help put in context the concern just expressed by the noble Lord.