Data Protection

Lord West of Spithead Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord and am always very much in favour of easy questions. As the Bill progresses through Parliament, we will indeed be engaging with the EU, as he suggests. I share his view that this is something we have to take extremely seriously and have proper preparation and engagement throughout.

[Lord West of Spithead (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister to the Front Bench and his new role. In this new role, particularly its AI aspects, can he go across government—particularly into the MoD—to look at the use of AI and weapon systems and how that is moving forward, because there are some worrying areas?

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I thank the Lord for his welcome. I should declare that I was previously a member of the Committee on AI and Weapon Systems before taking up my ministerial post. As for the niceties of the machinery of government, I must confess that I do not yet understand them, but I am very happy to write to the noble Lord once I understand more.