Data Protection and Digital Information Bill

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Viscount Camrose

Committee stage
Wednesday 17th April 2024 Grand Committee

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

Yes, indeed.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who participated in the excellent debate on this set of amendments. I also thank my noble friend the Minister for part of his response; he furiously agreed with at least a substantial part of my amendments, even though he may not have appreciated it at the time. I look forward to some fruitful and positive discussions on some of those elements between Committee and Report.

When a Bill passes into statute, a Minister and the Government may wish for a number of things in terms of how it is seen and described. One thing that I do not imagine is on the list is for it to be said that this statute generates significant gaps—those words were put perfectly by the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate. That it generates significant gaps is certainly the current position. I hope that we have conversations between Committee and Report to address at least some of those gaps and restate some of the positions that exist, before the Bill passes. That would be positive for individuals, citizens and the whole of the country. For the moment, I beg leave to withdraw my amendment and look forward to those subsequent conversations.

Artificial Intelligence: Regulation

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Viscount Camrose

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question and recognise her concern. In order to be sure that I answer the question properly, I undertake to write to her with a full description of where we are and to meet her to discuss further.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my technology interests as in the register. Does my noble friend agree that it is at least worth regulating at this stage to require all those developing and training AI to publish all the data and all the IP they use to train that AI on, not least for the point around ensuring that all IP obligations are complied with? If this approach were taken, it would enable quite a distance to be travelled in terms of people being able to understand and gain explainability of how the AI is working.

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I am pleased to tell my noble friend that, following a request from the Secretary of State, the safety policies of Amazon, Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Inflection, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and others have been published and will go into what we might call a race to the top—a competitive approach to boosting AI safety. As for enshrining those practices in regulation, that is something we continue to look at.

Artificial Intelligence: Regulation

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Viscount Camrose

Tuesday 24th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

The Independent Review of the Future of Compute, which we accepted in its entirety, guided us to commit £900 million initially to buying compute. We have confirmed the purchase of an exascale system in Edinburgh as well as the UK’s soon-to-be most powerful supercomputer, in Bristol. There will be further announcements on this as part of the summit next week. The use of NHS data is subject to not only stringent contractual requirements but, already, stringent regulations about data privacy.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that we need far greater public engagement and public discourse around AI? Is he aware of the alignment assemblies used in Taiwan to such good effect? Will he consider taking a similar approach to such benefits in the UK?

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I very much agree with my noble friend that we need maximum public acceptance of AI. However, that must be based on its trustworthiness. That is why we are pursuing, among other things, the global AI Safety Summit next week. I am not familiar with the Taiwanese approach but will look into it, and look forward to discussing it in due course.

Electronic Trade Documents Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Viscount Camrose

Consideration of Commons amendments
Wednesday 19th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support the amendments as set out. In doing so, I declare my technology interests as set out in the register.

This is the most important Bill that no one has ever heard of. It demonstrates what we can do when we combine the potential of these new technologies with the great good fortune of common law that we have in this country. I particularly support the comments made by the noble Lords, Lord Bassam and Lord Clement-Jones, about the Government’s plan for implementation. Although it is obviously critical that we get Royal Assent to this Bill as soon as possible, that is really where the work begins. As my noble friend the Minister knows, the Bill is rightly permissive in nature; it cannot be that, having done all the work through both Houses of Parliament, the Bill is then just left on the shelf. There needs to be an active plan for implementation, communicating to all the sectors and all the organisations, institutions and brilliant businesses in this space to seize the opportunity that comes from electronic trade documents. Does my noble friend the Minister agree— and will he fill out some more detail on what that implementation plan is?

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I thank all three noble Lords who have commented. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and others have rightly raised the issue of how we implement the provision, and I could not agree more strongly that the prospect of such a brilliant and transformational Bill gathering dust on a shelf is rather depressing; it would be a great waste.

Industry is very keen to implement this itself, but it is on us to track how that is going and ensure that it does. On how exactly industry goes about it, I would like to write to noble Lords to explain that, because I very much recognise the importance of the question.

With respect to any actions envisaged in Clause 5, nothing is currently envisaged.

Data Protection

Debate between Lord Holmes of Richmond and Viscount Camrose

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome my noble friend to the Front Bench and declare my technology interest. Does he agree that data is completely pervasive and all around us, that data literacy is critical and should be taught from the kindergarten right through life, and that data privacy is a key element of such data literacy teaching?

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for his question and pay tribute to his well-known expertise in the area. Public confidence in the huge mass of data and in the changing systems and tools that use it is absolutely key. This goes into AI, cybersecurity and a range of other areas. That is why education for public confidence will be a key part of the Government’s strategy.