Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Markham and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Committee stage
Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Markham (Con)]

I support that. I completely agree with all the points that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, made on the previous groupings, but the one that we all agree is absolutely vital is the one just brought up by my noble friend. Coming from the private sector, I am all in favour of a market—I think that it is the right way to go—but standards within that are equally vital.

I come at this issue having had the misfortune of having to manage the cyberattack that we all recall happening against our diagnostic services in hospitals last summer. We found that the weakest link there was through the private sector supplier to that system, and it became clear that the health service—or cybersecurity, or whoever it was—had not done enough to make sure that those standards were set, published and adhered to effectively.

With that in mind, and trying to learn the lessons from it, I think that this clause is vital in terms of its intent, but it will be valuable only if it is updated on a frequent basis. In terms of everything that we have spoken about today, and on this issue in particular, I feel that that point is probably the most important. Although everything that we are trying to do is a massive advance in terms of trying to get the data economy to work even better, I cannot emphasise enough how worrying that attack on our hospitals last summer was at the time.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thank both noble Lords for raising this; I absolutely concur with them on how important it is. In fact, I remember going to see the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, when he was in his other role, to talk about exactly this issue: whether the digital verification services were going to be robust enough against cyberattacks.

I pray in aid the noble Lord, Lord Arbuthnot, and the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones, who both felt that the new Cyber Security and Resilience Bill will provide some underpinning for all of this, because our Government take this issue very seriously. As the Committee can imagine, we get regular advice from the security services about what is going on and what we need to do to head it off. Yes, it is a difficult issue, but we are doing everything we can to make sure that our data is safe; that is fundamental.

Amendment 47 would require the Secretary of State to prepare and publish rules on cybersecurity for providers to follow. The existing trust framework includes rules on cybersecurity, against which organisations will be certified. Specifically, providers will be able to prove either that they meet the internationally recognised information security standards or that they have a security management system that matches the criteria set out in the trust framework.

I assure noble Lords that the Information Commissioner’s Office, the National Cyber Security Centre and other privacy stakeholders have contributed to the development of the trust framework. This includes meeting international best practice around encryption and cryptology techniques. I will happily write to noble Lords to reassure them further by detailing the range of protections already in place. Alternatively, if noble Lords here today would benefit from an official technical briefing on the trust framework, we would be delighted to set up such a meeting because it is important that we all feel content that this will be a robust system, for exactly the reasons that the noble Lord, Lord Markham, explained. We are absolutely on your Lordships’ side and on the case on all this; if it would be helpful to have a meeting, we will certainly do that.

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[Lord Markham (Con)]

I am not going to say much except to try to persuade my noble friend. I am absolutely with the intent of what the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, is trying to do here and I understand the massive benefits that can be gained from it.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Viscount for joining me in my enthusiasm for NUAR. He is right: having seen it in practice, I am a great enthusiast for it. If it is possible to demonstrate it to other people, I would be very happy to do so, because it is quite a compelling story when you see it in practice.

Amendment 56, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, would place a duty on the Secretary of State to consult relevant private sector organisations before implementing the NUAR provisions under the Bill. I want to make clear then that the Geospatial Commission, which oversees NUAR, has been engaging with stakeholders on NUAR since 2018. Since then, there have been extensive reviews of existing processes and data exchange services. That includes a call for evidence, a pilot project, public consultation and numerous workshops. A series of in-person focus groups were completed last week and officials have visited commercial companies with specific concerns, including LinesearchbeforeUdig, so there has been extensive consultation with them.

I suppose one can understand why they feel slightly put out about NUAR appearing on the scene, but NUAR is a huge public asset that we should celebrate. We can potentially use it in other ways for other services in the future, once it is established, and we should celebrate the fact that we have managed to create it as a public asset. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, that a further consultation on that basis would provide no additional benefit but would delay the realisation of the significant benefits that NUAR could deliver.

Moving on to the noble Lord’s other amendments, Amendments 193, 194, and 195, he is absolutely right about the need for data interoperability in the health service. We can all think of examples of where that would be of benefit to patients and citizens. It is also true that we absolutely need to ensure that our health and care system is supported by robust information standards. Again, we go back to the issue of trust: people need to know that those protections are there.

This is why we would ensure, through Clause 119 and Schedule 15, that suppliers of IT products and services used in the provision of health or adult social care in England are required to meet relevant information standards. In doing so, we can ensure that IT suppliers are held to account where information standards are not implemented. The application of information standards is independent of commercial organisations, and we would hold IT companies to them. Furthermore, the definition of healthcare as set out in the Health and Social Care Act 2012, as amended by the Health and Care Act 2022, already ensures that all forms of healthcare are within scope of information standards, which would include primary care. That was one of the other points that the noble Lord made.

As an add-on to this whole discussion, the noble Lord will know that the Government are preparing the idea of a national data library, which would encourage further interoperability between government departments to make sure that we use it to improve services. Health and social care is the obvious one, but the members of the Committee can all think of all sorts of other ways where government departments, if they collaborated on an interoperable basis, could drive up standards and make life easier for a whole lot of citizens in different ways. We are on the case and are absolutely determined to deliver it. I hope that, on that basis, the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.

Generative AI: Intellectual Property Rights

Debate between Lord Markham and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Monday 11th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

That is exactly what we are trying to achieve. Creatives need to be properly respected and rewarded for their activities. We need to make sure that when scraping and web-crawling takes place, there is transparency about that and the originators of the material are properly recognised and rewarded.

[Lord Markham (Con)]

My Lords, as the Minister knows, AI model training and associated copyright infringement can occur anywhere in the world, effectively offshoring copyright infringement. So while we welcome the Minister for AI’s statement that the Government will end uncertainty around the use of copyright content for AI, I am afraid I have another tricky question to add. How do we intend to do that in the space of protecting UK content from international offshoring?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

The noble Lord is quite right: not only is our material used internationally, but UK-based AI sites are using internationally created material. So this is an international problem—we cannot resolve it just within the UK. We are working closely with international partners, and it is a shared priority for Governments across the world. The Intellectual Property Office is engaging with international partners and other offices, including the World Intellectual Property Organization, to try to advance discussions on this issue. As the noble Lord said, it is an important international issue. We cannot resolve it on our own.