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 preparedness of small businesses for the ‘Making Tax Digital’ reforms, and whether additional support is needed before the reforms come into effect.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
Making Tax Digital (MTD) modernises the tax system, helps businesses to keep on top of their tax affairs and supports wider productivity.
Research measuring levels of understanding and readiness is underway and will be published once it is finalised. The Government is actively undertaking a range of activities to ensure that those needing to use MTD for Income Tax are ready and able to do so successfully from April 2026. A communications campaign is underway, raising customer awareness of MTD for Income Tax and encouraging agents and customers to sign up for testing.
HMRC are supporting customers and agents with a suite of guidance products, direct communications, webinars, live events and social media activity to help them to prepare.
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 report published on 9 February by the Association for UK Interactive Entertainment, Business case for an enhanced video games expenditure credit.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises the importance of the UK’s video games sector and the key role it plays in driving economic growth. As part of our modern Industrial Strategy, we are developing a creative industries sector plan with business, local leaders, and sector experts.
The Government supports the video games sector through the tax system and through funding. Video games companies already benefit from the Video Games Expenditure Credit (VGEC), which provides a generous tax credit of 34 per cent on UK video games development costs.
In addition, companies may benefit from the £5.5 million UK Games Fund for 2025/26, which helps high-potential start-ups scale-up.
When considering new tax reliefs, the Government has to balance a wide range of factors, including the fiscal position and complexity of the tax system. The Government keeps the tax system under review.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of artificial intelligence technology being trained on real patient data, and whether they intend to introduce regulation around the use of health records in training artificial intelligence
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
There are strict safeguards in place throughout the National Health Service to protect data. All providers of services which handle patient data must protect that data in line with the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR), and the Data Protection Act 2018, and every health organisation is required to appoint a Caldicott Guardian to advise on the protection of people’s health and care data, and ensure it is used properly. This includes where artificial intelligence (AI) is used in relation to patient records.
The NHS AI Lab and Sciencewise, part of UK Research and Innovation, held a public dialogue on how the public feels decisions should be made about access to their personal health data for AI purposes. The AI Lab conducted a discovery exercise to design approaches based on insights from the public, which is now informing broader data stewardship initiatives, for example, as part of the Secure Data Environments.
To mitigate the likelihood and severity of any potential harm to individuals arising from the use of data in AI, the Information Commissioners Office has developed detailed AI guidance which provides an overarching view of data protection, including Data Protection Impact Assessments and UK GDPR. They have also produced an AI toolkit to support organisations auditing compliance of their AI-based technologies. NHS bodies are expected to make use of this guidance and toolkit.
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 is their response to the recommendation by the Children's Commissioner for England to ban 'nudification' apps that enable users to generate sexually explicit images of real people.
Answered by Baroness Jones of Whitchurch - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Government refuses to tolerate violence against women and girls. Sexually explicit deepfakes are degrading and harmful.
We are legislating to ban their creation in the Data (Use and Access) Bill and have introduced a further offence in the Crime and Policing Bill to criminalise the possession, creation or distribution of AI tools designed to generate child sexual abuse material.
Government is also actively looking at options to address ‘nudification’ tools themselves.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Education:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the use of video games in education; and whether they have plans to incorporate the use of video games as a learning tool into the curriculum.
Answered by Baroness Smith of Malvern - Minister of State (Minister for Women and Equalities)
Schools and colleges are free to make their own choices about the most suitable use of technology in their settings, as long as they comply with their wider statutory obligations, such as ‘Keeping children safe in education’. The department has not conducted specific research into the use of video games in education.
In July 2024, the government launched an independent Curriculum and Assessment Review, covering ages 5 to 18, chaired by Professor Becky Francis CBE. The Review wants to ensure a rich, broad, inclusive and innovative curriculum that readies young people for life and work. The Terms of Reference of the Review have been published and are accessible at: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/curriculum-and-assessment-review#terms-of-reference.
The Review published its interim findings recently, and these can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/curriculum-and-assessment-review-interim-report.
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 impact of the regulation of the development of artificial intelligence technologies on investment in those technologies.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
In response to the AI Opportunities Action Plan, the Government is prioritising investment into the AI sector and creating the right conditions to ensure global AI companies want to call the UK home.
The Action Plan sets out a number of recommendations on how the Government can proactively work with regulators to support our ambitions for AI and growth, which the Government will be taking forward.
The Government is also developing legislative proposals which will allow us to safely realise the enormous benefits of the most powerful AI systems. We will be launching a public consultation in due course to ensure our proposals are proportionate and support innovation.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Energy Security & Net Zero:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to encourage investment in artificial intelligence technologies by ensuring that there is sufficient infrastructure to support the power grid.
Answered by Lord Hunt of Kings Heath - Minister of State (Department for Energy Security and Net Zero)
The Government has invited expressions of interest from local authorities and other interested parties to identify locations for AI growth zones that can facilitate the rapid development of projects.
Additionally, the Government is collaborating with Ofgem and NESO to implement major reforms in the grid connections process. This initiative could unlock up to 500GW of capacity from the connection queue, thereby speeding up connections for AI data centres.
Furthermore, the Government is establishing the AI Energy Council, which will bring together senior representatives from both the energy and AI industries to determine optimal locations for AI data centres and proactively manage their energy needs.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the use of artificial intelligence technologies in supporting (1) the diagnosis of stroke in patients, and (2) the prescription of drugs to stroke patients.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
Artificial intelligence (AI) is being used to analyse and interpret acute stroke brain scans to support doctors when diagnosing and making treatment decisions in 100% of stroke units in England. Early data has shown a reduction in the average amount of time taken to assess and treat patients, from 140 to 79 minutes, tripling the chance of independent living following a stroke, when these tools are employed.
Clinical Decision Support (CDS) systems are tools which use AI to assess patient data and suggest medication that could be prescribed, though the final decision is always made by a clinician. CDS systems are in use across the United Kingdom and can be used to support clinicians prescribing medication to stroke patients.
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 report by the Federation of Small Businesses, Taking a toll: small businesses and the cost of tax compliance, published on 22 April, particularly in regard to the (1) time spent, and (2) cost, for small business to remain tax compliant.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government is committed to simplifying the tax system for all taxpayers including small businesses and is taking this forward as part of its three priorities for HMRC.
HMRC is investing in its customer services, greater use of data and improving its digital services which will improve overall customer experience and reduce the time and therefore cost to comply.
HMRC welcomes the FSB’s report and officials are currently reviewing its detail. HMRC will be engaging with the FSB to understand the underlying methodology used to assess the average time and cost to comply.
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 there is appropriate distribution of workers with skills in artificial intelligence across the UK.
Answered by Lord Vallance of Balham - Minister of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Lifelong learning and adaptability are key to ensuring everyone can prosper in an increasingly technology-driven world. The Government is committed to ensuring a balanced distribution of AI-skilled workers across the UK. The AI Opportunities Action Plan outlines steps to build a strong, diverse talent pipeline.
Working with DSIT and the Industrial Strategy Council, Skills England will bring together businesses, training partners, and unions with national and local government to assess the country’s skills need – including AI and digital skills – and map pathways to fill them.