Artificial Intelligence Opportunities Action Plan
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts(2 weeks, 1 day ago)
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Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord very much. I will not add to his comments about the 14 years of endless initiatives, but it is crucial that when we do something such as this, we do it properly. Obviously, my experience was in setting up the Vaccine Taskforce to do just that, and this is the same sort of problem. We have to get everybody across government working on this; there is a big delivery task. Delivery should be our focus and we should keep holding ourselves to account for timelines and deliverables.
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, Monday’s Statement on the AI Opportunities Action Plan highlighted the Government’s ambitious vision on AI adoption across the UK, and I welcome it. While the plan outlines significant investment and initiatives to boost AI infrastructure and capabilities, there are concerns about how SMEs will fare in this rapidly evolving landscape, which is largely dominated by the big tech companies. Recent data shows that only 25% of SMEs are currently using AI, despite 42% of them wishing to use it to increase their productivity. However, these small companies often lack the resources and the expertise to fully benefit from AI adoption. What specific measures will be implemented to protect SMEs from being squeezed out by the larger AI companies, and how will the Government facilitate meaningful collaborations between SMEs and the AI giants to foster the innovations and maintain a diverse, competitive AI infrastructure?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
I thank my noble friend. There are two different aspects to his SME question—the SME use of AI, and the AI SMEs—and both are dealt with in the report, I think. Many of the recommendations indicate what would be done, but I will outline some of the points on SMEs for AI. There is an important join-up task to be undertaken, which is part of what this plan does: the things we fund at the beginning of the process, such as grants from Innovate UK to get companies off the ground, to supporting that funding through BBB and beyond, linking to regulation to make it as simple as we can to enable innovation, and linking in turn to procurement to ensure that there are procurement signals to allow these companies to get the investment to grow and to scale into the companies they could be.
On the adoption side, there is a specific group working on adoption of AI technologies across the UK and a report is due out by the Government Chief Scientific Adviser and the National Technology Adviser on adoption of technologies more broadly, which is about ensuring that we get uptake of new technologies in companies. We know that we have a long tail of companies that do not do that in the UK, and it will be an important part of making sure that the entire economy benefits.
King’s Speech (4th Day)
Lord McNicol of West Kilbride Excerpts(6 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord McNicol of West Kilbride (Lab)
My Lords, I will focus the short time I have on one of the starkest areas of contrast between the priorities of this new Labour Government as set out in the gracious Speech and those of the previous 14 years.
Contained within the first few lines of the King’s Speech briefing notes were the words:
“we will create a new industrial strategy”.
This industrial strategy has the opportunity to help our country to grow, flourish and deliver. On 4 July, the country faced a crossroads. The British people chose economic stability, with a plan for growth and a Government that look to the future. Over the course of the King’s Speech a series of ambitious plans to improve every aspect of the country were laid out—from energy to education and skills, from transport to the NHS. However, all these plans rest entirely on economic reform and growth. Breaking down the barriers to opportunity does not rest on education alone. The causes of crime cannot be tackled without economic recovery that creates jobs and opportunities. Put simply, our country’s future rests on economic stability and security, and a long-term industrial strategy will be the backbone that runs through that stability and security.
Greg Clark’s industrial strategy of 2017 was inherently decent; it was his Government and the then Prime Minister’s failure to deliver on that strategy that truly let the country down. We now have an opportunity to reverse that: to deliver an industrial strategy that not only stabilises and grows our economy but directly improves the lives of working people. The damaging churn of instability that came with the last Government’s short-term economic decision-making allowed our economy to enter a downward spiral of insecurity, as was ably outlined by my noble friend Lord Wood of Anfield. Yes, there were headwinds, but the Government did little to subvert them, and in a number of cases made them worse.
With a long-term industrial strategy underpinned by a council of experts, growth can begin to support and develop Britain’s economy. Our excellent university and research institutions, often let down by underfunding, will now have the opportunity to push our country forward. Our professional services, often long-suffering from a stop-start, chop-change approach, will now have the stability to underpin their planning. Our manufacturing sector can at last grow beyond the short-term economic failures that often let it down. Our creative industries, as was touched on earlier, can thrive—driving innovation and investment across our country.
We must be proactive and invest highly in our national infrastructure. That was clear from the King’s Speech. Labour will merge the NIC and the IPA to create NISTA—the national infrastructure and service transformation authority—a powerful body to promote a more co-ordinated infrastructure decision-making system. Labour will kick-start this large-scale vision and solidify our maximum potential with these institutions.
After austerity, the UK’s productivity flatlined at little more than 100 GDP per hour—a rate that has hardly increased in the last 14 years, as my noble friend Lord Vallance of Balham noted in his maiden speech when opening the debate. If productivity had increased at the same rate as under the previous Labour Government, it would be 25% higher. Now that change has finally come, we have an opportunity to build a better and fairer Britain that works for all citizens, with Labour working in partnership with business and trade unions. Was it not refreshing to hear in my noble friend’s opening speech the talk about potential, ambition and hope, in stark contrast to the mean-spirited speech of the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, from the Opposition Benches? It appears he has learned little from the election or the electorate.