Data Strategy Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
Lord Desai
Main Page: Lord Desai (Crossbench - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Desai's debates with the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport
(4 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Barran
There is obviously a lot of debate already in the public domain about the use of data. We have a number of examples, driven, sadly, by the Covid-19 pandemic, where data has been used to great effect and which I think the public are aware of. The Government have no plans beyond those I have mentioned to reopen the debate formally before the strategy is published.
Lord Desai (Lab) [V]
My Lords, data is supposed to be the new source of wealth—the new oil. Last time around, we wasted the North Sea oil money on propping up the unemployment created by Mrs Thatcher. Do the Government have any plan to harness the wealth creation capacity of the data? Will they set up a proper sovereign wealth fund, which could harness the money raised by the data under the nation’s control?
Baroness Barran
Our plans for our data strategy are extremely ambitious. We see it as a crucial part of driving economic prosperity and social good. We believe that we have laid the foundations for that already and will announce more detail in due course.