The UK’s Demographic Future

Lord Sarfraz Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sarfraz (Con)]

My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend on this report, on the debate and on a lifetime of public service. The report makes it absolutely clear that we will continue to need high-quality, highly skilled individuals who, above all, can contribute directly to economic growth, but every country in the world is now aggressively competing for that same group of global talent. Some are doing so with golden visas, others with citizenship by investment, and today we have heard about the launch of the “Trump card” in the US. Yet contributing to Britain’s economy no longer requires you to be physically present in this country. In fact, many highly productive people could easily live somewhere else while still contributing meaningfully to our economy.

The Government should therefore perhaps consider establishing a British digital residency programme. A digital resident would not need to come to the UK physically but could incorporate a British company, open a British bank account, benefit from British commercial courts, bid on British contracts, hire local professional service providers, transact in pounds and pay tax on UK-based income without placing any strain whatever on our public services. This is not a silver bullet for immigration policy, but it allows us to think differently about immigration. Other nations have experimented with digital residency, Estonia being the clearest example. Estonian digital residents have built some amazing companies without ever stepping foot in Estonia. The UK could offer a far more powerful, globally attractive version and the highest-performing digital residents could even be offered pathways to physical residency.

Alongside this, we should recognise the value of short-term digital nomads. Many countries now offer one-year visas that allow people to live and work temporarily without being eligible for any public services, and those countries are attracting talent and entrepreneurship. We do not offer this visa category at all; we are leaving the opportunity on the table, whereas Portugal, Spain and Germany are embracing it.

Finally, as robotics accelerates, it is absolutely true and a very good thing that we will see robots deployed at scale in industries across the country, including in agriculture and manufacturing. Sooner or later, harvesting robots will be picking strawberries in Kent and robots will be making cars in the West Midlands. We are witnessing a wave of inward investment into manufacturing across Europe and the US, much of which is possible only because factories are now highly automated. This shows that robotics does not kill manufacturing; it saves it, and it attracts global capital even in high-wage countries.

I urge noble Lords not to be suspicious of robots. Robots are nice. They do not require GP appointments. They do not need housing. They do not need visas for dependants and, so far, they have not willingly committed any crimes, yet they will unquestionably create local jobs, local industries and new opportunities for British entrepreneurs. Maintaining these machines, operating them and renting them out are all components of hyper local economic growth.

This report is called Don’t Stop Thinking About Tomorrow. In doing so, we must recognise that tomorrow’s economic contribution will come in new and exciting forms—some human, some digital and some robotic. In thinking about tomorrow, we must be ready for what is inevitably coming.

Online Communication Offence Arrests

Lord Sarfraz Excerpts

Thursday 17th July 2025 Grand Committee

[Lord Sarfraz (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Lebedev, on securing this timely debate. I know that he has been a great champion of the media and free speech for many years.

At the heart of this debate lies the matter of ensuring that the police have the resources, tools and training to arrest the right people, without compromising freedom of speech or privacy online. We cannot expect the 45 territorial police forces in this country suddenly to get it right. There are more than 33 social platforms with over 100 million monthly active users. Each is very different, with different interfaces, community rules and approaches to content monitoring. To expect police officers to do their offline jobs while monitoring online non-threatening communication is very difficult. To meet the challenges of the future, the police need the tools of the future. I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say about that.

What might it look like? First, we need to get the basic tech right. The police national database has not been upgraded since 2019. That is a lifetime in tech; their systems are pretty much obsolete. That is the database that records data on arrests that have not led to conviction, which goes to the very heart of the Question from the noble Lord, Lord Lebedev. If the police are not able to efficiently collect and manage data, they can hardly use it in a useful way.

One promising area is predictive policing. A number of trials are happening around the country, and the focus is on crime prevention—for example, trying to predict where a discussion in a group is heading before it escalates. Like all tech, it has great potential but must be deployed ethically to avoid overpolicing. Like all these things, the platforms have and will continue to have an important role to play.

Let us take, for example, basic content filtering. If you turn on Google’s SafeSearch, there is a pretty decent chance that you will not receive harmful content when you do a search, but that is really difficult to do on a messaging platform, for example. There is no setting on WhatsApp to block explicit unwanted photographs from coming in. The tech exists and is being trialled on a number of platforms, but these tools are still optional and require users to opt in. Perhaps they should be the defaults, requiring users to opt out instead of using opt-in filters.

One other big area of potential is AI-powered content moderation. This is real-time monitoring of content, analysing text, images and videos to identify non-threatening but potentially very harmful content. Several platforms are trialling this but we do not yet have the standards for deployment around transparency, accuracy and bias mitigation. Just as we are putting technology at the heart of our defence and national security strategy, we must facilitate innovation across all forces, not just within specialist units. Only then will we have arrests that lead to conviction and only then can we do a better job of ensuring a free and open internet.

Vice-President of the European Commission

Lord Sarfraz Excerpts

Thursday 29th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I am always happy to meet Members of this House on EU exit and the practical issues that have emerged from it. On the broader point that the noble Baroness makes, the latest statistics published by the Office for National Statistics and HMRC show that trade in goods is close to previous levels and that companies are exporting successfully. There of course remain difficulties, which we are doing our very best to try to resolve.

[Lord Sarfraz (Con)]

My Lords, today, the European Commission held a press conference on what better regulation might look like, delivered by Mr Šefčovič. It just so happens that, also today, the City of London published its findings on the digital sandbox, an example of real-life better regulation in action. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that, post Brexit, the City of London will retain and enhance its position as one of the most competitive and innovative financial centres in the world?

[Lord Frost (Con)]

My Lords, I very much agree with my noble friend. One of the huge benefits of Brexit is that we can set regulations and rules for ourselves, for our own conditions and our own needs, rather than having to join a lowest common denominator that has been set for a wider group. We are committed to making the UK the most open and dynamic financial centre in the world, and we have every confidence that the City will prosper with our support in this new post-Brexit environment, with world-class regulation and a huge depth of expertise and entrepreneurialism.

Budget Statement

Lord Sarfraz Excerpts

Friday 12th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sarfraz (Con)]

My Lords, I join in congratulating the maiden speakers today. I refer noble Lords to my entry in the register.

Despite very difficult circumstances, this might actually be one of the most start-up friendly Budgets in years. The challenge and opportunity are in last-mile delivery. I will explain what I mean by that. Take, for example, the future fund for breakthrough technologies, which is very welcome and should result in many multiples of private sector co-investment but will depend on lead investors. Those lead investors will need to be encouraged to market directly to diverse founders, particularly female founders, those from ethnic minorities and those outside traditional investment geographies.

The recovery loan scheme will be distributed through banks. Those banks will also need to be encouraged to extend credit to pre-revenue businesses with little to no collateral and other existing layers of debt. Even with encouragement, this type of risk might lie outside most bank managers’ skill set and comfort zone. The same could be said about the mortgage guarantee scheme, which will also be delivered through commercial banks.

It is in last-mile delivery where we need to reduce friction and improve experiences. I hope that we can learn from the challenger bank playbook and improve design at the point of sale, where our policy interventions are ultimately consumed.

There are also several refreshing ideas around R&D tax relief, pension fund asset allocations, the EMI scheme and the crypto assets consultation, all of which could greatly benefit entrepreneurs in the United Kingdom. I congratulate the Government on delivering a Budget that gives entrepreneurs hope and optimism after such a difficult year.

Space Industry

Lord Sarfraz Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Sarfraz (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I too congratulate all the maiden speakers today and declare an interest as set out in the register. The United Kingdom can be the world leader in space technology. There are many spin-off technologies that originated from space research, including ear thermometers, artificial limbs, water purification and even enriched baby food, so this is not about space alone. Last year, we witnessed the SpaceX Crew Dragon transporting NASA astronauts to the international space station. This could never have happened without close co-operation between government and a young company; our success in space depends on that spirit of partnership.

While I congratulate the Government on their significant efforts, we need to think about strengthening our space situation awareness capability, developing financing for constellations and improving insurance for small satellites. Finally, we are currently in the middle of a recruitment drive for the next cohort of British astronauts. This is an opportunity for us to inspire kids in schools across the country by talking about space, letting them hear from British astronauts and helping them develop a love for the stars and the planets.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Garden of Frognal) (LD)]

I call the noble Lord, Lord Mountevans. We do not seem to have him. I will then go on to—oh, have we got you?