Data Strategy

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 24th June 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to promote a wider public debate about their future data strategy.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, the national data strategy’s development has benefited from extensive engagement and input across government, wider stakeholders and the public. Through the summer and autumn of 2019, the Government completed a public-facing call for evidence and in-depth public engagement, with 20 round-table discussions held across the country with over 250 organisations. The Government remain committed to publishing the strategy in 2020 and will seek further input from business, civil society and the wider public. Further plans will be announced in due course.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD) [V]]

My Lords, I am glad to hear that the publication date for the White Paper has not slipped as far as some feared it might under these circumstances. I trust that the Government recognise the importance of carrying the wider public with them in going through their digital transformation, which ought to improve the efficiency of government and provide a better service for citizens. Given public unease about privacy and the security of data, would it not be better if the Government were to reopen a public debate before publishing the White Paper to ensure that the public are not taken by surprise by the proposals and that, as far as possible, the Daily Mail-type campaigns about how wicked and dreadful it is to take your data are not sparked off by having this sprung upon them?

[Baroness Barran]

There is obviously a lot of debate already in the public domain about the use of data. We have a number of examples, driven, sadly, by the Covid-19 pandemic, where data has been used to great effect and which I think the public are aware of. The Government have no plans beyond those I have mentioned to reopen the debate formally before the strategy is published.

Algorithms: Public Sector Decision-making

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, I first came into this whole area when I was a Lords Minister in the Cabinet Office seven years ago, when we were struggling with the beginnings of Whitehall going through the digital transformation. I am struck by just how much things have moved since then, mostly in a highly desirable direction, but we are all concerned that we continue to move with the right safeguards and regulations.

I am not an expert, but I have learned a lot from my son-in-law who is a financial quantitative analyst looking for when patterns do not hold as well as when they do, and from my son-in-law who is an systems biologist working on mutations in RNA and DNA, not that far away from the current Chinese virus. So I follow what the experts do without being an expert myself.

I am also struck by how very little the public are aware, and how little Parliament has been involved so far. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Keen, referred the other week to us returning to the “normal relationship” between Parliament and government, by which I think he meant Parliament shutting up more and allowing the Government to get on with things. I hope that is not what will happen in this area, because it is vital that the Government carry Parliament and then the public with them as they go forward.

A study for the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation by MORI showed very little public awareness of what is going on in the sector. As the public learned, so they got more sceptical; I think the word used was “shocked”. We know that there are major benefits in the public sector from the greater use of artificial intelligence, if introduced with appropriate safeguards and regulations. This is evidence-based policy-making, which is what we are all interested in, so we need to make sure that we get it right and carry the public with the expansion of artificial intelligence.

There is a real danger of provoking a tabloid press campaign against the expansion of AI. We have seen what happened with the campaign against the MMR vaccine and how much credibility that got among the popular media, so transparency, regulation, education and explanation are important.

We need a clear legal framework. In 2012, one of the problems was that different Whitehall departments had different legal frameworks for how they used their data and how far they could share it with other departments. We need a flexible legal framework because, as we manage to do more things with mass data and mass data sharing, we shall need to adapt the framework—another reason why Parliament needs to be actively engaged.

We need ethics training for those in the public sector—and in the private sector interacting with the public sector—using artificial intelligence, so that they are aware of the limitations and potential biases and aware also that human interaction with the data and the algorithms is essential. One of the things that worries me at present, as an avid reader of Dominic Cummings’ blog, is the extent to which he believes that scientists and mathematicians should be allowed to get on with things without anthropologists, sociologists and others saying, “Hang on a minute. It’s not always as simple as you think. Humans often react in illogical ways, and that has to be built into your system.”

My noble friend Lord Stunell talked about public/private interaction. I think we understand that, while we are concentrating here on the proper public sector, one cannot disentangle private contractors and data managers from what goes on in the public sector, so we also need to extend regulation and education to the many bright private suppliers. I had a young man come to see me this afternoon who works for one of these small companies, and I was extremely impressed by how well he understood the issues.

We also need to engage civil society. Having spent a few weeks talking to university research centres, I am very impressed by how on top of this they are. There are some very impressive centres, which we also need to encourage. The richness of the developing expertise within the UK is something which the Government certainly need to encourage and lead.

My noble friend Lord Addington suggested that we may need to put the brakes on. We have to recognise that the pace of change is not going to slow, so we have to adapt and make sure that our regulatory framework adapts. I was pleased to listen to a talk by the director of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation hosted by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Data Analytics last week. It is a very good innovation, but it needs to expand and to have a statutory framework. Is the Minister able to tell us what progress is being made in providing the CDEI with a statutory framework?

There are alternative approaches for the Government to take. One, the Dominic Cummings approach, would be to use speed and impatience in pushing innovation through and dismissing criticism. The second would be to go at all deliberate speed, with careful explanation, clear rules and maximum transparency, carrying Parliament and the public with it. The young man who came to see me this afternoon talked about having digital liberalism or digital authoritarianism—that is the choice.

Sackler Trust: Donations

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I do not think that that was the only reason for the Renaissance, but I take the noble Lord’s point. It is worth putting on record that this country has been extremely well served by philanthropists, including with respect to our great museums. I remind noble Lords that a quarter of the most visited museums in the world are in this country—and four of the top 10—at least partially because of the philanthropic gifts that the noble Lord mentioned. I am happy to put that on record.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister recognise that it is easier for national museums to attract these large philanthropic donors than for local and regional museums? We are well aware now that a number of local and regional museums endowed 150 or 200 years ago are now in severe difficulties as a result of cuts in government funding to local authorities. Is the DCMS actively concerned about the plight of some of our town and city museums around the country?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

As I have said a couple of times in the last two or three weeks, the museum sector is not affected by local authority cuts, to the extent that museums have found other methods of funding themselves. I think we should nail this one. The Mendoza report said that the funding for museums across the whole sector had been broadly flat. I take the noble Lord’s point that it is easier for a large national portfolio organisation to attract large philanthropic donations. That is not surprising, but it is exactly why Arts Council England, which we support, has made a big effort to spread its funding outside London. Last year, 70% of Arts Council England funding was awarded outside London.

Data Protection, Privacy and Electronic Communications (Amendments etc) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 18th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

It is true that they may be required to have representatives in the EEA, and it is a reciprocal benefit. The impact assessment looks at the specific requirements of the SI, not at the requirements of leaving the EU. The long-term consequences for business—

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

I thought I was going to listen to a debate on a specific SI, but there are some very large principles here about the way in which this House should be handling the very large number of SIs which we are expected to get through in the next two to three weeks. If it is correct to say that the Treasury has now laid down that there should be no impact assessment because we can all rely on what the Government told us in general about the implications of leaving the EU, that seems to be close to being totally improper and at the very least to require a formal Statement to this House about how we are expected to deal with this very large number of statutory instruments.

In the circumstances, the most appropriate thing would be for the Minister to withdraw this statutory instrument and to come back in a few days after there has been some consultation on it among the Front Benches. If he is not able to do that, at the very least he should promise that tomorrow there will be a formal Statement to the House on how statutory instruments will be handled from now on. It seems that we are heading into an area where statutory instruments are not being properly scrutinised by this House.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I find it difficult to understand how the noble Lord can say that the SIs are not being properly scrutinised by this House, particularly in comparison with the scrutiny that this instrument received in the other place.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I understand that point, and the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, made it to me forcefully in the Moses Room. This SI has been laid for some time and there have been opportunities for noble Lords to talk to and engage with anyone from the DCMS. I take the point that it is sometimes difficult for Back-Benchers to get information if they do not ask the department. However, I think that the Front Benches have been fairly open in exchanging information on any SI—that is certainly the case in my department. I offered the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, opportunities to ask questions well before the debate, as I think he acknowledged.

It is not for me to say how the House and its sifting committees behave and how the two committees have liaised with each other. However, I will take the noble Lord’s request back to the usual channels. I will not commit to there being a Statement tomorrow but I will certainly take back his point to make sure that the usual channels listen to what he has said. The making of Statements will be up to them—that is not for me; nor is it for me to comment on the work of the sifting committees of your Lordships’ House.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, this morning I read a new Commons briefing on the amount of legislation that needs to have been completed to enable us to leave the EU on 29 March in good order. The answer is eight Bills, as well as, still, several hundred SIs. The Government Front Bench keeps telling us that it is perfectly possible to manage that within the next six weeks but, in spite of the remarkably light business that we have this week, it seems that we are very much in Alice in Wonderland territory here. We cannot manage all that within that period, even if we are asked to skimp on the SIs. We know that part of the problem is that the Civil Service cannot manage the impact assessments for these SIs because it is so overloaded and this Chamber is unable to do its job appropriately. The Government have therefore left it too late to be able to leave the EU in good order constitutionally and legislatively on 29 March. I would like the Minister to take that back to the rest of the Government Front Bench, and a Statement to the House on how we should manage this from now on would, I think, be appropriate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I apologise for interrupting the Minister again. He said we are now undertaking “preliminary discussions” about how this would be handled if we leave without a deal, but that these discussions “may take some time”—I think I heard him say that. Is he suggesting that, if we leave without a deal on 29 March, there will be an unavoidable gap in mutual recognition of data protection law, which we—or rather businesses—will have to cope with somehow? That may have a significant adverse impact.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

Yes, because it is literally impossible to have an adequacy decision until you are a third country. Therefore, you cannot have an adequacy decision in advance. What you can do, and I should have said preliminarily that we have been discussing this—I raised it over a year ago—is start the discussions with the EU, but the decision itself cannot be made before exit day. It is impossible.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

There would be a significant adverse impact.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

There are mitigations which prevent that—standard contractual clauses and binding corporate rules. Plus, it depends a lot on the proportionate approach that the regulators in the EU take. There would be an impact; we would have to arrange mitigations, which would be a cost to business. That is what has been set out in the technical notice to business.

Television Licences: Over 75s

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

If that was the case, why did the director-general say:

“The government’s decision here to put the cost of the over-75s on us has been more than matched by the deal coming back for the BBC”?

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, following the principle of the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, that public service functions could be subsidised by advertising, are there thoughts within the Conservative Government that this principle could be extended further? Our police service has been quite sharply cut in recent years, for example. Does the Minister think that police cars could be encouraged to take advertising as well?

Armistice Day: Centenary

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Monday 5th November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords, 1 was the youngest child of a late family. My father reached 18 in 1917 and went out in a reinforcement draft to the Highland Division in March 1918, just as the last great German attack was launched. When at last, in his mid-80s, he began to talk about his experiences, he told me that at one point he was second in command of the remnants of his battalion as a sergeant, with only one officer left.

I want to focus on how well we have commemorated the centenary of the first global war, and what lessons we should take from this for the approach to future commemorations, including those for the centenary of the Second World War in 20 years’ time. Like the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup and the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, I have been on the Government’s advisory group for the commemoration of World War One. I saw the early exchanges in Whitehall about the approach to take and I was the first British Minister to talk to the German Foreign Office about how we might work with it to remember together.

As we all know, history is a constant battle over preferred narratives. As a nation, we British are deeply divided and confused about which historical narratives we prefer. I recall seeing an early memorandum to the then Prime Minister in 2012 which stated that, in our approach to the commemoration of World War I, we should ensure that we did not give support to the myth that European integration was the outcome of the two world wars. The Government’s stated purposes in their approach to the commemoration of the centenary were youth and education. We achieved that aim in engaging our younger generations to discover the histories of their local communities in war and the impact of the loss of life on families throughout Britain. We have done very well in symbolising reconciliation with Germany, from the shared events in St Symphorien cemetery, the shared concert with the Bundestag choir and the participation of President Steinmeier in the ceremonies of next weekend.

However, we have failed in educating our younger generation about the wider context of the war and the extent to which British forces depended on the contribution of allies and imperial troops. We have not embarked on the exercise which the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, so eloquently called for. I recall entering a book shop in the Yorkshire Dales two or three years ago—as well stocked with volumes on the two world wars as on steam trains and Yorkshire traditions—to find the owner arguing with a visitor about Brexit. He was saying: “After all, we beat the Germans in two world wars and now they are telling us what to do”. That echoes one of the widely held myths of British history, propounded by Margaret Thatcher among others, that Britain stood alone in two world wars to defend freedom against tyranny when others had given up the fight. I tentatively suggested that we had had a lot of help from others in both wars, most of all from the Americans. I was told that, so far as he knew, the Americans had not taken part in World War 1.

It is not that surprising that few Britons appreciate the importance of the American contribution. In spite of proposals that we should make a major event of the US entry into the war, the only significant commemorative event took place on the Scottish island of Islay earlier this year, beyond the reach of major news programmes. It marked the wreck of two US transports as they approached the Clyde: important, but not helping our younger generation to understand just how vital the USA was to the achievement of victory after four exhausting years of a war of attrition.

In contrast to the welcome gestures of reconciliation to our former German enemies, we have neglected the contributions of our allies and imperial forces. We held a small ceremony by the statue of Marshal Foch in London last April, to mark the point at which British forces came under his overall command, with a Guards band and the participation of two French soldiers from Foch’s former regiment. We have not recalled that elements of the Belgian army held part of the Ypres salient throughout the First World War, using England as their support and supply base. As several other noble Lords have said, we have done far too little to inform most of our younger generation of the importance of the Indian army. Less has been said of the West Indies Regiment in the Palestine campaign. I recall the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Scotland, remarking that her grandfather was a sergeant in one of its battalions. We have missed a great opportunity to contribute to national integration and to encourage more from our Asian and other ethnic minorities to enlist in our forces today. We have failed to explain how closely our history is linked to our continental neighbours.

The French commemoration has been much more generous to its partners and allies, as well as to its former enemies. An open-air exhibition along the Champs Elysées, in 2014 to 2015, carried pictures of allied troops in all their diversity: Scots, English, Indian, Moroccan and Algerian as well as French. British troops have marched in their 14 July parade. A special ceremony in Paris marked the American entry into the war, impressing President Trump so much that he wanted to initiate regular military parades in Washington on his return. The British, in contrast, have focused on our own war and our own forces, leaving the Americans, French, Belgians, Indians, even the Australians and Canadians, too much in the background.

The remembrance ceremony at the Cenotaph is, in effect, the annual symbolic representation of British history and identity. In 1919, the first parade past the Cenotaph included troops from 12 empire and allied forces—the French, Americans and others—as well as from Britain. Since then, however, it has shrunk to an entirely British ceremony, unchanged for over half a century and almost entirely white, with only the Commonwealth high commissioners from outside the UK. I welcome the participation of the German president in this year’s event as a welcome sign of openness to change.

Should we not in future years follow the French example in their 14 July ceremonies and invite contingents from other countries, with whom we have shared—and still share—common dangers and threats, to take part? This could include contingents from India and Pakistan, to mark how much Britain depended on their predecessors in past conflicts; Polish troops and airmen, to explain to our young people the crucial contributions that they made in the Second World War—in intelligence, in the Battle of Britain, at Arnhem and Monte Cassino; and Belgian forces, to make our right-wing politicians recognise that many Belgians fought on, from British bases, in both world wars. When in Government, I recall a Conservative Minister remarking that the Belgians never fight, to be sharply corrected by an official who reminded him that Belgian and British planes were flying joint missions over Libya at that time. The French, our most vital ally in World War I, whose resistance to occupation we supported in World War II and, with the Americans, our closest ally today, should of course also be included.

Britain did not stand alone, in either world war. The myth that we did—that we not only invented freedom but saved it from continental tyranny—is embedded in our most widespread national narrative, and in the way we have approached commemoration of the sacrifices in the two wars. As we reflect on the efforts we have made to educate our younger generations on the national experience of World War I, I hope that we will learn lessons for a more inclusive approach in the future: a recognition that Britain’s security has been maintained with the support of others, and will be maintained in the future only if we continue to co-operate with others within an institutionalised European and international order.