Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 14th September 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the (1) economic, and (2) environmental, benefits arising from the Electronic Trade Documents Act 2023; and what plans they have to communicate those benefits to relevant stakeholders, including small and medium-sized enterprises.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper. In doing so, I declare my financial services and technology interests as set out in the register.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Business and Trade and Scotland Office (Lord Offord of Garvel) (Con)]

The Electronic Trade Documents Act will provide an economic boost estimated at just over £1 billion over a decade, substantially reducing paper use. We are the first G7 country to put digital and paper trade documents on an equal footing. Given the international prominence of English law, this will kick-start digitalisation globally. We advocate similar change by trading partners. We will support businesses through international trade advisers, trade and investment hubs and initiatives promoting digitalisation, including the Centre for Digital Trade and Innovation.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that the Electronic Trade Documents Act offers us the potential of combining our common-law tradition with our expertise in new technologies such as blockchain and our excellent financial services ecosystem? Does he agree that we must work to ensure that everybody in the business department communicates through every channel—particularly to SMEs in the UK—the opportunity that exists through this Act and, similarly, that all our missions overseas communicate to companies and politicians around the world to enable them to see the benefits of passing similar legislation? As my noble friend the Minister knows, it takes two to trade.

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for those comments and questions. This is a quite remarkable Act. In fact, it is the only Act of Parliament that I have read from beginning to end. It is only four pages long and 1,500 words; I recommend it for its brevity and its conciseness. It simply does one thing, which is to take the architecture of 300-plus years of mercantile trading which has been done in paper form and translate that into digital to have the same legal impact. The onus is now on the Department for Business and Trade to communicate this to our SMEs, as my noble friend indicated. To that end, we are using international trade advisers and the International Chamber of Commerce, and we have set up the Centre for Digital Trade and Innovation at Teesside University. A lot of work will now be done to raise awareness of this, which will be for the great benefit of our trade.

Digital Economy Agreements

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

To ask His Majesty’s Government how many digital economy agreements the United Kingdom has made and with which countries; and how many are expected by 31 December.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper, and declare my technology interests as set out in the register.

[The Minister of State, Department for Business and Trade (The Earl of Minto) (Con)]

My Lords, under the UK’s G7 presidency we brokered the G7’s digital trade principles. Further digital agreements sit at the heart of our agreements with Japan, Australia, New Zealand, EEA/EFTA and CPTPP. Our digital agreements with Singapore and Ukraine are the most innovative trade deals signed. We continue to push our digital objectives at the WTO e-commerce joint initiative and via the digital trade commitments in our suite of upcoming free trade agreements.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that digital economy agreements represent the very future of trade? We must ensure particularly that small and medium-sized enterprises are fully aware of this opportunity. Does he further agree that when we put DEAs together with the recently passed Electronic Trade Documents Act, we can really believe that we are on the brink of a new golden age for international trade?

[The Earl of Minto (Con)]

I entirely agree with my noble friend. Our vision is for the UK to be a global leader in digital trade, with an entire network of international agreements that drive economic growth, create jobs and improve productivity throughout the UK.

Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 19th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this Second Reading debate. I declare my technology interests as set out in the register. I congratulate the Boltonians in this House and another place on bringing this important Bill to Parliament. Similarly, I congratulate Kevin Hollinrake, the officials and all the team who have worked so hard to get it to this stage. I support the Bill. It does precisely what a Private Member’s Bill should do: it is simple, straightforward, clear, concise and will have such a positive benefit once it comes swiftly into statute.

We have over a million vacancies in the labour market, and well over 500,000 people who left work during Covid have not returned. The question for us this morning is, quite simply: flexible working—why would you not? Covid was something which very few generations will ever live through. It was a once-in-a-century—if that—cataclysmic set of circumstances, and for work it was similarly so. Coming out of that, we must take all of that experience into how we think about work and structure it, and how we fundamentally underline the essential truth of work and employment: that it is a relationship. It should never be seen as simply transactional; it is relational. That is why there is a lot of writing, understandably, around hybrid working and lots for all of us to think about. One thing must be clear to all of us, coming out of Covid: work or employment cannot mean five days a week, 8 am until 6 pm, in the office—but nor can it mean five days a week at home on Teams, on your tod. That is not what work is about. It is about relationships.

When we consider this whole question of flexible work, ultimately, what are we talking about? We are talking about talent. Would not any organisation want to try to secure the brightest, best talent for any role? Research shows that where flexible work is mentioned in job ads, 30% more applications come in. It makes sense. It is not about where work takes place; it is more about how we experience work, what it feels like, how it is structured and, fundamentally, how it is made human. That has to be one of the greatest things we can take from Covid: how to make work more human.

To my mind, the greatest champion of flexible working is probably still the great Dame Stephanie Shirley. At the time, she saw an opportunity in having female workers at home who would be able to contribute so fabulously to the technology business she was building while being able to run their family lives as well. That is still the most sensational example of the strength that flexible working can bring, both to the individual and to the business, if understood and gone about as part of a respectful conversation. The Bill talks about the consultation. Really, that is a respectful conversation between employer and employee, with no preconceptions being brought to bear before that conversation around the request takes place.

For disabled people, flexible working would make an immediate difference, because things change. Circumstances change. Many disabled people successfully manage fluctuating conditions, but flexible working would just be so helpful in the face of that. It would not mean that disabled people would be doing less or being given a free pass—not a bit of it. It is more about being able to fully contribute and give of their talents. Again, why would any business pay a 100% salary to somebody but have a workplace and practices, policies and procedures which enable that person to be only 70%, 60%, 50% or 40% themselves in that working environment? It just makes no economic, social or psychological sense.

In 2018, I was asked to undertake an investigation—a review—into public appointments and how we could make them more open for disabled talents. So many of the suggestions that came up in the sessions, conversations and round tables I had with disabled people up and down the country were about flexible working or a flexible approach. When I published the report in 2018, at times it was almost like I was speaking a strange language to some audiences. I hope that Covid has changed that for the better, and that flexible working is surely now more the norm.

When looking at other pieces of research out there—understandably, there is plenty of it—we see that where employees feel that they have more control, their stress is less and their feeling of connection to work and to their employer is increased. To that I say: flexible working. When people say that they feel they have a friend or a connection at work, productivity goes up, attrition goes down, and benefits for employee and employer alike are raised. Flexible working: why would you not?

While we have my noble friend the Minister on the subject of employment, it would be wrong of me not to give a slight note on unpaid internships, which are connected to this subject. As we are bringing a number of these small, discrete, specific pieces of employment relations legislation through, I ask my noble friend: is it not high time to bring forward a Bill to ban unpaid internships, particularly for our young people who are currently asked to give of their time for free for months? That cannot be right; it cannot be part of the society and economy that we want to build and be part of in this country.

Finally, the algorithmic elephant that is all too often in the room in so many of our discussions: AI, machine learning, LLM—whatever we choose to call it—is having a profound effect already, not least on work and employment. If we just look at this morning’s newspapers, we see the headlines screaming out: “Bloodbath of AI impact on employment”, with the BT decision yesterday. Should we accept that prophecy of doom: the sense that the bots are coming, our jobs are going, we are all off to hell and we are not even sure there is a handcart? I do not think so. We should be neither Panglossian nor terrified about the prospects, we should be evidence-based and rationally optimistic about what we as humans, individually and collectively, can do alongside AI and all the new technologies, which are in our human hands. They are incredibly powerful and certainly could do a lot of harm and damage, not least to the labour market, but we should conceive of them, in essence, as tools, incredibly powerful tools but tools in our human hands. If we do not make a success of AI and all the new technologies in our human hands, that will be a human failure on our part, not a failure of the technologies.

The opportunity is clear. If we get it right, we can have the augmented worker. The critical point for all of us to focus on is the transition—as some parts of the labour market get hollowed out, how we intervene to support and help to transition those individuals and communities to the new opportunities that I believe will come through. Transition, transition, transition is where government should be focused if we are to make a success of AI and all the other new technologies in our human hands.

I support this Private Member’s Bill: it is simple, straightforward, clear and concise. Flexible working is not for disabled people, although it is of great benefit to us; it is not for carers, although it is of great benefit to us. Flexible working is a benefit to all people at some stage.