Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to develop workforce and education strategies in response to the growth of AI-native businesses with minimal staff.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
The government is taking steps to prepare the workforce for the future through its Industrial Strategy. We are ensuring that skills and employment support are aligned with key economic priorities, including transformative technologies like artificial intelligence (AI).
The Post-16 Education and Skills Strategy will set out plans to build a system that provides the skills that learners need to thrive in work and life and supports delivery of the Plan for Change.
Digital skills are embedded across occupational standards, influencing T-Levels, Higher Technical Qualifications, and apprenticeships. From April 2026, new short courses will be introduced in England in areas such as digital and AI, funded by the Growth and Skills Levy.
Skills England has released three data-driven reports to support decision-making and development of targeted training solutions. These will ensure that skills provision meets economic needs, including in sectors most affected by AI, and will shape sector-specific packages responding to future workforce demands.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure energy and planning infrastructure can support large-scale AI compute deployments without undermining commitments to clean energy and lowering energy costs.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
To meet the UK’s AI ambitions, we are committed to ensuring our energy system is equipped to support this growing demand in a clean, sustainable, and scalable way.
Through the AI Energy Council, we bring together leaders from both the AI and energy sectors, to discuss how to prepare the UK’s energy system to manage the growing energy demand of AI and aligning AI energy demand with Clean Power 2030 goals. The council will explore bold, clean energy solutions to ensure our AI ambitions align with the UK’s net zero goals.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to strengthen employment opportunities in sectors experiencing the sharpest decline in job opportunities.
Answered by Baroness Sherlock - Minister of State (Department for Work and Pensions)
Following a peak during the pandemic, vacancies are returning to their long-term average. There are currently 728k vacancies, slightly above the long-term series average of 696k.
We recognise the need to provide working-age adults with the support they need to pursue opportunities in the workforce, which is essential for economic growth.
We are already delivering the biggest overhaul of jobcentres in a generation, backed by £240 million investment to boost employment.
By bringing apprenticeships, adult further education, skills training, careers guidance, and Skills England under DWP’s remit, we’re creating strong pathways to support the millions of people across the country.
This will mean a greater focus on adult skills and career outcomes, getting people into skilled work in sectors that need labour – like construction.
Part of our approach is the use of DWP’s Sector-based Work Academy Programmes (SWAPs) that help employers with immediate and future employment needs by upskilling benefit claimants to fill local job vacancies.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure that the AI Growth Zone in north-east England delivers over 5,000 skilled jobs and attracts the forecasted £30 billion in private investment.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government is establishing AI Growth Zones (AIGZs) to deliver the infrastructure needed for the UK to develop and deploy advanced AI at scale.
Following the announcement of the North East Growth Zone, we have established a taskforce which DSIT SoS will co-chair with the regional mayor (Kim McGuinness), including the region’s leading universities, businesses and skills providers. Alongside our existing engagement with partners, this taskforce will ensure we bring all the force of national government to work with regional and local government. We will lay the physical foundations and build data centres to launch careers in AI, ensuring this Growth Zone is about creating real opportunities for people across the region.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the contribution of multinational companies to the UK's artificial intelligence capacity, and what steps they are taking to balance the role of those companies with the development of UK-owned artificial intelligence capacity.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The government's sovereignty strategy is pragmatic and focusses on building resilience and strategic advantage, rather than simply self-reliance. We want to ensure that the UK can use the best models in the world while protecting UK interests.
To achieve this, we are establishing strategic partnerships with the leading frontier model developers, for example our Memoranda of Understanding with Anthropic, OpenAI and Cohere, to ensure resilient access to and influence the development of their capabilities. We are also developing sovereign capabilities where it matters most by scaling onshore infrastructure, supporting the emergence of new national champions and increasing the talent pipeline in the UK.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of job losses as a result of artificial intelligence replacing content moderation and safety roles at tech firms in the UK.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
Under the Online Safety Act, in-scope services must protect all users from illegal content, and children from age-inappropriate content. The Act’s illegal content duties have been in force since March 2025, and the child safety duties since July 2025. Platforms are required to take steps to mitigate risks to users, including through implementing effective content moderation processes.
AI Adoption across businesses, including tech or non-tech firms, is a key priority for this government, and this technology can play an important role in content moderation.
DSIT is working across government to plan for different scenarios, and is monitoring data to track and prepare for these. The Get Britain Working White Paper sets out how we will address key challenges and that includes giving people the skills to get those jobs and spread opportunity across the UK to fix the foundations of our economy to seize AI’s potential.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Business and Trade:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the use of employee monitoring tools.
Answered by Lord Leong - Lord in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Workplace monitoring technology has the potential to increase business productivity and improve efficiency, but it can also pose risks to workers’ when used disproportionately or without consideration of data protection, equality and employment rights.
The Plan to Make Work Pay makes clear workers’ interests will need to inform the digital transformation taking place in the workplace. We therefore committed to making the introduction of workplace monitoring technologies subject to consultation and negotiation.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of abolishing 5-per-cent value added tax on domestic energy bills, in particular on the cost of living for households.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government is supporting households with energy bills now whilst we transition to clean power by 2030. Gas and electricity are subject to a reduced rate of VAT at five per cent, rather than the standard 20 per cent.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with the Bank of England regarding slowing the Bank of England's bond-selling plan to help reduce UK government borrowing costs.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Bank of England has operational independence from the government to carry out its statutory responsibilities for monetary policy and financial stability. Monetary policy, including quantitative easing, is the responsibility of the independent Monetary Policy Committee at the Bank of England.
The separation of fiscal and monetary policy is a key feature of the UK’s economic framework, it is in line with international standards and essential for the effective delivery of monetary policy, so the government does not comment on the conduct or effectiveness of monetary policy.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions they have had with the Bank of England regarding proposals to cap individual holdings of stablecoins at £10,000–£20,000 and £10 million for businesses.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The government recognises that facilitating stablecoin innovation is important for UK competitiveness, and continues to engage with the regulators, including the Bank of England, to ensure a coherent regulatory framework.
The government will bring forward legislation later this year to create a financial services regulatory regime for cryptoassets in the UK, including stablecoins.