AI Opportunities Action Plan

Lord St John of Bletso Excerpts

Thursday 5th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

There are three approaches to making sure that we get consistency and appropriate regulation and support, as the noble Lord suggested. The first is that the regulators look after AI in the domains which they already look after. We are making sure that they are properly supported to do that and can join up—for example, in the Digital Regulation Cooperation Forum—to learn lessons across different areas as they apply AI in their domains. The second is the approach of assurance: to develop an assurance industry in the UK which can assure people that, when they use AI, it performs what they expect it to and in the way they expect. That is true both for the Government—the Artificial Intelligence Playbook for the UK Government addresses some of the wider issues—and in developing the assurance industry overall and looking at areas such as bias in systems. The third, as he alluded to, is the question of what happens as artificial general intelligence, artificial superintelligence and the latest models come along. We remain committed to bringing forward AI legislation so that we can realise the enormous benefits and opportunities of this technology in a safe and secure way. We continue to refine our proposals and hope to launch a public consultation before the end of the year.

[Lord St John of Bletso (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister elaborate on what steps are being taken to promote more co-operation and collaboration between the public and private sectors in AI development and utilisation?

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

The interaction between the public and private sectors is crucial in this, as it is in many other areas. UKRI is leading a number of public programmes which support universities and the ability to get spin-outs and developments from them, so there is considerable interaction at the beginning of the process. There is also interaction throughout the process; for example, the AI Security Institute is working with some of the largest companies and looking at their models to ensure that, as they are developed, issues that could come up are foreseen and, we hope, mitigated in advance. Collaboration between the public and private sectors is crucial in AI, as in many areas of technology development.

Science and Technology: Economy

Lord St John of Bletso Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord St John of Bletso (CB)]

My Lords, I join in thanking the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, for introducing this debate in such a comprehensive and impressive fashion, and in congratulating my noble friend Lady Freeman on an outstanding maiden speech.

There is no doubt that the United Kingdom stands at a pivotal moment in its scientific and technological development. While I welcome the Chancellor’s commitment in her Budget speech to drive innovation to protect

“record funding for research and development to harness the full potential of the UK’s science base”,—[Official Report, Commons, 30/10/24; cols. 814-15.]

the reality is that the UK and Europe tech sector is massively underpowered and underfunded compared to the United States. What are the equivalents of Meta, Alphabet, Tesla, Apple and Microsoft in Europe? While we have much to be proud of in our achievements in science and technology in the UK, the reality is, sadly, that we are failing to fully commercialise our advantages in research excellence in our top global universities, as well as the growth in fintech and health tech companies.

I wish to focus my brief remarks on the life sciences sector, where the advances in technology have huge potential both to cut costs and to promote patient care, especially in imaging, diagnostics, and predictive analytics, as well as in administration. In this regard, AI and quantum computing have played, and will continue to play, a major contribution in harnessing more efficiencies and breakthroughs in new treatments and pharmaceuticals.

The United Kingdom is well recognised as a world innovation hub, but we have to retain that. To grow its true potential, we need to retain our talent pool. We have some of the highest costs of visa applications compared to other European nations, which has sadly resulted in the loss of a lot of talent. We certainly need to be a lot more proactive in promoting and retaining highly skilled talent. We have hugely successful science parks, particularly in Oxford and Cambridge, which have driven commercialisation, despite the infrastructure challenges of the lack of lab space.

Time restricts me from elaborating on the challenges of IP commercialisation. Many spin-outs have lost substantial equity to foreign interest, with UK universities retaining only 20% equity, which has led to substantial IP leakages in company commercialisation abroad. Can the Minister elaborate on the scope for setting up a cross-departmental implementation taskforce for streamlining funding mechanisms for scaling SMEs in the tech sector? We need to create specialised regulatory pathways for emerging technologies and develop incentives for preventive healthcare. A lot more could, and should, be done to fund longevity research initiatives—particularly for this House.

In conclusion, I say that there is no one lever to pull, but making the UK tech sector more attractive to global capital is key. The integration of science, technology and healthcare offers significant potential for economic returns and improved population health outcomes. Without immediate action, Britain risks falling behind in the global race for technological supremacy. The time for decisions is now.