Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Lord Winston Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 19th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, I wonder, with regard to sexuality, whether the Minister has considered those children who are, unfortunately, born with perhaps an ovary and a testis, or with genitalia which are difficult to identify. How do those become categorised under this regulation?

The second thing is that the definition of science proposed in the Bill is not science; it is technology, and there is a big difference, as I explained in the last speech. Science involves knowledge, and we do not know that knowledge until we have the knowledge. We cannot act on that knowledge until we know what the knowledge is. That is hugely important and, as the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, who is not now in his place, said, this has the risk of holding up research which is really necessary.

Before I close, I mention just one example of this to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. He made a rather derogatory point about my comment on infection. I did not point out to him that, when I was seven, my father came home with a mild bronchial infection, which went on to be pneumonia. After six months with various inadequate antibiotics—because they did not understand the dosage—penicillin did not work and he died of a brain abscess when I was just eight. That is an example of where research is needed continuously, even when we do not know what we are doing. It is very important to understand that. This Bill and its wording do not fully define science satisfactorily, certainly to scientists.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, the first thing I would say about categorisation, as I hope I have stressed all along, is that data verification services will be required to provide accurate information. Normally, biological sex is not one of the things that most people need for their identity most of the time, but there are provisions under DVS for categorising to take account of those variations. I talked about biological sex, legal sex under the Gender Recognition Act and gender identity, for example. I hope that my noble friend has taken on board that point.

We have a fantastic scientific research community in this country, and it is our intention that it will thrive and grow. We absolutely intend to provide the proper underpinning of that, so that the scientific community does not feel that it is being undermined. I can reassure my noble friend that the provision in this Bill does not undermine the scientific research community, and it can remain confident that it will be protected going forward.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Lord Winston Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 12th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, I sat through the Committee stage and did not speak, because I was so clear that the amendment tabled by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, was really inappropriate. Indeed, it was the speech by my noble friend Lord Vallance that made me feel that speaking was unnecessary. I regret that, because I should have pointed out something very important.

First, to come back to what the noble Baroness has just said, the definitions in the Bill are flawed to start with. Devising new applications of available knowledge is not the work of scientists; it is essentially the work of technologists—and there is a big difference between technology and science. Technology has all sorts of downsides that we do not expect. Science is simply knowledge and, as such, it does not have an ethical dimension. That has been stated by many distinguished philosophers in the past.

I suggest to noble Lords that every invention and innovation that we make has a downside that we do not expect. I would challenge the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. I have sat on a scientific committee with him and we have enjoyed each other’s company, but I would argue that there is not a single case where he could argue that there has not been an unexpected downside—as there is with every scientific invention. That, essentially, is why this is a flawed problem.

There are three problems facing humanity and the world at the moment. One, clearly, is nuclear war; one, clearly, is climate change; and perhaps the most important one is the risk of antibiotic resistance. It turns out that all these risks were completely unseen when those technologies were started. Marie Curie, working on pitchblende and radium, had no idea that the X-rays she was producing would be dangerous to her and would, unfortunately, result in her death as a result of cancer. She certainly did not recognise that there might be such a thing as nuclear explosions.

When it comes to, for example, climate change, it is obvious that we would not want to avoid having had the Industrial Revolution and all the things we got from it, just as we would not want to avoid having X-rays. But we must understand that the control has to come later.

Lastly, the most important thing for me is the possibility that infection is one of the greatest problems that humanity faces on earth at the moment. The invention of antibiotics has actually made that worse, because we now have a rising number of infections that are due to resistance. Therefore, I beg the noble Viscount not to press his amendment. I believe that it is absolutely well-meaning, and I understand what he is trying to say, but I hope that the Opposition, when they listen to this, will consider at least abstaining from voting on it, because the risk is that it might bring the House of Lords into disrepute as it stands.

[Lord Tarassenko (CB)]

My Lords, I am authorised to speak on Motion 43A, as someone with regular day-to-day experience of scientific research. Since I started my PhD in 1981, I have had the privilege of spending more than half my working life doing scientific research in the UK—the last 20 years working with very sensitive patient data. Most of that research has been carried out in an academic setting, but some of it has been in collaboration with medtech, AI and pharmaceutical companies.

This research has required me to become familiar with many three-letter and four-letter acronyms. Noble Lords will know about DBS, but they might not know about RSO, TRO, HRA, LREC, MREC, CAG, and IRAS, to name just a few. I have spent hundreds of hours working with clinical colleagues to fill in integrated research application system—IRAS—forms. IRAS is used to apply for Health Research Authority—HRA—approval for research projects involving the NHS, social care or the criminal justice system. I have appeared before not only medical research ethics committees, or MRECs, which test whether a research protocol is scientifically valid and ethical, but local research ethics committees, or LRECs, which consider the suitability of individual researchers and local issues.

I was involved in a research project which reused data acquired from patients on a Covid isolation ward during the first two waves of the pandemic. That research project sought to understand how nurses interpreted continuous data from the clinical-grade wearables we used to monitor these high-risk patients during Covid. It took our research team more than 18 months to obtain the relevant permissions to reuse the data for our proposed analysis. Our application was reviewed by the Confidentiality Advisory Group—CAG—which provides independent expert advice on the use of confidential patient information without consent for research and non-research purposes. CAG already considers whether accessing the confidential data is justified by the public interest. Its advice is then used by the HRA and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to decide whether to grant access to the confidential data.

The existing provisions in this country to allow access to data for research purposes are stringent, and it is entirely right that they should be. The UK is respected the world over for the checks and balances of its research governance. The relevant safeguards already exist in the current legislation. Adding a further public interest test will only increase the amount of bureaucracy that will inevitably be introduced by the research services offices, or RSOs, and the translational research offices, or TROs, of our universities, which are very good at doing this.

The extra burden will fall on the researchers themselves, and some researchers may decide to concentrate their available time and energy elsewhere. This amendment, I am afraid, will have the unintended consequence of having a negative impact on research in this country, so I cannot support it.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, an onlooker might be forgiven for not perceiving a common theme in this group of amendments, but I thank the Minister for his introduction and the noble Viscounts for introducing their amendments so clearly.

I acknowledge that Motion 32A and Amendments 32B and 32C and Motion 52A and Amendments 52B and 52C from the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, are considerably less prescriptive than the Spencer amendment in the House of Commons to introduce new Clause 21, which seemed to require public authorities to comb through every record to rectify data, went significantly further than the findings of the Supreme Court judgment, and potentially failed to account for the privacy afforded to GRC holders under the Gender Recognition Act. However, the Liberal Democrats will abstain from votes on the noble Viscount’s amendments for several key reasons.

Our primary reason is the need to allow time for the EHRC’s guidance to be finalised. I thought the Minister made his case there. The EHRC is currently updating its code of practice, as we have heard, to reflect the implications of the Supreme Court judgment on the meaning of sex in the Equality Act, with the aim of providing it to the Government by the end of June. This guidance, as I understand it, is intended specifically to support service providers, public bodies and others in understanding their duties under the Equality Act and putting them into practice in the light of the judgment. The EHRC is undertaking a public consultation to understand how the practical implications can best be reflected. These amendments, in our view, are an attempt to jump the gun on, second-guess or at the least pre-empt the EHRC’s code of practice.

On these Benches, we believe that any necessary changes or clarifications regarding data standards should be informed by the official guidance and implemented consistently in a coherent and workable manner. We should allow time for the EHRC’s guidance to be finalised, ensuring that any necessary changes or clarifications regarding data standards are informed by its advice and implemented consistently across public authorities in a coherent and workable manner. We have concerns about workability and clarity. Although the amendments proposed by the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, are less prescriptive than previous similar proposals in the Commons tabled by Dr Spencer, we have concerns about their practical implementation. Questions arise about how public authorities would reliably ascertain biological sex if someone has a gender recognition certificate and has updated their birth certificate. I have long supported same-sex wards in the NHS, but I do not believe that these amendments are helpful in pursuing clarity following the Supreme Court judgment. We heard what the Minister had to say about passports.

I welcome the clarity provided by the Supreme Court judgment, but there are clearly implications, both practical and legal, to be worked out, such as those mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. I thought he put his finger on many of those issues. I trust that the EHRC will deliver the right result. I agree that data needs to be accurate, and I welcome the Sullivan report, as did my noble friend. In summary, we will be abstaining. We believe that the EHRC process needs to conclude and provide comprehensive guidance, while also reflecting concerns about the workability and appropriateness of specific legislative interventions on data standards at this time.

I move on to Amendment 43B, tabled by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville. This amendment may not reinstate the precise wording

“conducted in the public interest”

that we previously inserted in this House, but it would introduce safeguards that seek to address the same fundamental concerns articulated during our debate on Report. It does two important things.

First, it provides a definition of “scientific research”, clarifying it as

“creative and systematic work undertaken in order to increase the stock of knowledge”.

This directly addresses the concerns raised on Report that the line between product development and scientific research is often blurred, with developers sometimes positing efforts to increase model capabilities or study risks as scientific research. Having a clear definition helps to distinguish genuine research from purely commercial activity cloaked as such.

Secondly, and critically, Amendment 43B would require:

“To meet the reasonableness test”


already present in the Bill,

“the activity being described as scientific research must be conducted according to appropriate ethical, legal and professional frameworks, obligations and standards”.

This requirement seeks to embed within the reasonableness test the principles that underpinned our arguments for the public interest requirement on Report and is the same as the amendment put forward by the chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Select Committee, Chi Onwurah MP, which ties the definition to the definition in the OECD’s Frascati Manual: Guidelines for Collecting and Reporting Data on Research and Experimental Development:

“creative and systematic work undertaken in order to increase the stock of knowledge—including knowledge of humankind, culture and society—and to devise new applications of available knowledge”.

The Frascati framework is used worldwide by Governments, universities and research institutions to report R&D statistics, inform science policy and underpin R&D tax credit regimes, and it serves as a common language and reference point for international comparisons and policy decisions related to scientific research and innovation. These frameworks, obligations and standards are important because they serve the very purposes we previously identified for the public interest test: ensuring societal benefit, building public trust, preventing misuse for commercial ends, addressing harmful applications, and alignment with standards.

Amendment 43B in the name of the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, is a thoughtful and necessary counter-proposal. It is Parliament’s opportunity to insist that the principles of public benefit, trust and responsible conduct, rooted in established frameworks, must remain central to the definition of scientific research that benefits from data re-use exceptions.

I heard what the noble Lord, Lord Winston, had to say in his very powerful speech, but I cannot see how the amendment from the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, cuts across all the things that he wants to see in the outcomes of research.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

As the noble Lord has mentioned my name, I simply ask him this question: does he recall the situation only some 45 years ago when there was massive public outcry about in vitro fertilisation, when there were overwhelming votes against in vitro fertilisation in both Houses of Parliament on two occasions, and when, finally, a Private Member’s Bill was brought, which would have abolished IVF in this country? Had that happened, of course, an amendment such as this would have prevented the research happening in England and would have made a colossal difference not only to our knowledge of embryo growth, but our knowledge of development, ageing, the development of cancer and a whole range of things that we never expected from human embryology. I beg the noble Lord to consider that.

Lithium-ion Battery Safety Bill [HL]

Lord Winston Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 6th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, in principle I completely support the Bill. We must, however, look at the detail more closely. For example, we have to recognise that there are large numbers of different chemistries used to make batteries—the lithium battery is only one such. I was interested to see how we label them so I went outside for a magnifying glass to look at my hearing aid batteries, to see what the chemistry was. It turns out that the label does not tell me. It tells me that they may catch fire if I throw them on to a fire. On the other hand, these might be silver zinc batteries, in which case they are completely safe and unlikely to overheat or cause fires spontaneously.

The problem with lithium is that it is the lightest metal, one of the lightest elements, and is highly volatile. It burns very easily and there is pure lithium in batteries. What happens, as the noble Lord has mentioned, is a kind of chain reaction—the thermal continuation that feeds itself. All batteries will produce heat as part of the energy that they produce, and so produce the seeds of their own eventual destruction if they get overheated.

Clearly, therefore, labelling must be considered very carefully in the Bill. How you keep your batteries might be important. There is no question, for example, that charging a bike with a lithium battery overnight without supervision might be more serious than one realises, but it might be completely safe with many other different technologies and chemistries. One of the issues, therefore, is that the chemistry has to be labelled.

I do not want to add difficulty. Every time we table an amendment to a Bill we make it more difficult to pass, and I do not want to see that happen—this is a good idea and it is important. However, we must recognise, as the noble Lord, Lord Howell, said, that there might be technologies that change things. In the lithium battery you have lithium cobalt on one side, for example—incidentally, the cobalt is there for concatenation, which is interesting given the previous debate—and on the other side at the anode you have carbon, or graphite. The ions pass across and when they reach the anode they oxidise and you get power—and that is a rechargeable battery. There is of course a separator in the middle to prevent that, although at the moment these separators are permeable, not solid, and perhaps, with better technology, one solution would be that if the separator responds to heat and becomes completely solid the battery could not continue in that sort of way. Those sorts of technologies might make a difference. We should not condemn these batteries out of hand whatever happens, because that is something that we might feel important.

There is clearly more need for education about the subject. I will not go on at great length but I want to suggest a few points. I do not know whether my hearing aids have lithium in them; they might be lithium-air, but they have not so far caused my ears to burn while I am sitting by the fire—that happens only when people talk about me.

We have not dealt with something important in the Bill. Lithium is a rare resource. It is difficult to mine and there are not many places in the world where you can mine it. There are many of these technologies, such as silver, and zinc too to some extent—all of these things are precious and we cannot renew them. The noble Lord pointed out in his speech—nobody else has properly pointed it out—that when you come to recycling it is difficult to separate the elements. The problem is that if you take, for example, a hearing aid—it is tiny and one could ask whether worth recycling, but a deaf person using a hearing aid for five years will build up quite a lot of batteries—there are no instructions as to whether we should preserve that material and find some ways of better recycling it. There is more to be done to separate the various metals, and there are large numbers of different metals in batteries that we need to consider. The chemistry needs to be thought about in the future.

I do not think it is part of the Bill, but the labelling is relevant in terms of public consciousness. Above all, we must recognise that if we continue to overuse the world’s resources, such as lithium, we will run out of what could be a valuable element in other ways. That is one of the important points in this issue.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

I just want to draw attention to the very point that the noble Lord has made about the waste of these materials. If we look at the disposal just of disposable vapes in this country alone, it is estimated that that is the equivalent of throwing away 10 tonnes of lithium each year.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. That would make a fantastic bonfire, would it not? You would not want to pour water on it.

Some batteries do not have that kind of technology. Silver zinc is an aquatic substrate in the battery, so will not get very hot—at least it cannot burn at the sort of temperature of 700 degrees Celsius.

Finally, some years ago I tried to introduce a Private Member’s Bill about the labelling of drugs. I wanted particular labelling—which I will not go into as it is not relevant to the Bill—as I felt that it was missing. The Government at the time were well disposed towards the Bill, and we went through Committee without any problem. However, the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, took me to one side and pointed out that this might affect EU legislation. At the time of my Bill labelling any product would be subject to EU regulation, and it was clear that we would not get it through the EU. We are now, of course, free of that—I am not a Brexiteer by any means, by the way—but there is still a problem about labelling. We must ask ourselves how we can get a decent label on a small package and what we put on it, with some kind of legal advice—maybe even commercial advice—to make certain that we can sell our batteries in the EU. We are trying to expand the industry in this country, with gigafactories and so on. We need to think about it very carefully, as clearly it would be valuable, having made safe batteries, to be able to sell them globally. I commend the noble Lord and support the idea of taking this to Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I do not know the answer to that specifically. My instinct is that there needs to be a policy of “safety first” on issues such as the London Underground, but we may well get those standards to a high enough level. I was very interested to hear what the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, said about passports for batteries. There may be schemes like that that we could adopt. I do not know the answer, but it is a very good point that I think we can pursue outside this Chamber.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Winston for delivering an interesting lesson on the science and chemistry behind these products: I know that we all learned from it. I reassure him that the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill will allow for changes to labelling to ensure that proper details are updated and safety information on products is made clear.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that helpful point. Does that mean that there is a possibility that the chemistry might be labelled? If we could actually teach people a bit more about the chemistry, it would do no harm. Also, of course, we are dealing with products that are going to become scarcer and scarcer and which will be thrown away, or not recycled. There is a public lesson that is rather more important than the average labelling that we see on many foodstuffs, for example.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

In fact, I am going to come on to the point about the availability of lithium, so bear with me for a second. I reassure the noble Lord that we are taking greater education very seriously, and we will be running more consumer campaigns. The composition of the products might be included in that. I recognise, however, that more can be done.

A number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Winston, made a point about the new technology implications of this. I assure them that the Product Regulation and Metrology Bill will allow us to regulate for developments of innovation and technology in UK energy going forward, because there are new issues that a number of noble Lords have raised. It will enable powers to change the regulations, to future-proof full technological advancements.

To noble Lords, including the noble Lords, Lord Holmes and Lord Howell, and my noble friend Lord Winston, I say that at the moment lithium-ion batteries are the most efficient way of powering vehicles; we should not lose sight of that. We will, however, continue to keep the mining of critical minerals and their use in our green technology under review. We have to do that because, as my noble friend quite rightly said, if we do not, we are in danger of scarcity on these issues. We have to keep moving forward. There is not an endless supply of these minerals, so we have to make sure that those in circulation are protected and properly recycled.

My noble friend Lord Berkeley made a point about battery safety being a wider issue and gave some very vivid examples of why that was the case. I assure him that we continue to liaise with the Department for Transport on these issues. Similarly the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, raised an important point about wheelchair travel. She mentioned the issue of wheelchair passports, which was an interesting conversation. I assure her that we will continue to liaise with departmental Ministers across the board, including the Disability Ministers, because we need to get this issue sorted.

I have spoken a lot about product safety, but I am aware that the noble Lord’s Bill goes further in scope, so I will now turn to battery energy storage systems, which are also covered by the Bill. The flexibility offered by grid-scale lithium-ion batteries will play a vital role in the decarbonisation of the grid, enabling Britain to balance the system at lower cost while maximising the efficiency of intermittent low-carbon generators such as wind and solar—a point the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, quite rightly made.

The Government agree with the intent of having robust measures in place to manage the risks associated with facilities that involve the use of large numbers of lithium-ion batteries. In terms of the proposals in this Bill, powers already exist under the Pollution Prevention and Control Act 1999 to bring new sectors and pollution sources in scope of the Environmental Permitting Regulations (England and Wales) 2016. Similarly, the Government do not believe currently that there is a need for additional statutory consultees on planning applications for standalone battery energy storage systems. However, my officials continue to work closely with the industry-led electricity storage health and safety governance group to ensure that a robust health and safety standards framework is maintained.

A number of noble Lords talked about disposal. The Government are deeply saddened at the recent increase in the number of fires at waste treatment facilities caused by batteries. We are committed to cracking down on waste as we move towards a circular economy where we keep our resources in use for longer and reduce waste. The existing producer responsibility scheme for batteries and waste electricals makes producers responsible for the cost of end-of-life treatment.

Under the existing legislation, it is already mandatory for all batteries placed on the market in the UK to be clearly marked with the crossed-out wheeled bin symbol. This symbol indicates that batteries should not be disposed of by throwing them in the bin. This symbol is also mandatory on electrical products containing batteries. Existing legislation also requires those selling batteries to provide a means to take back waste batteries —for example, the waste battery collection bins at supermarkets, which many noble Lords will be familiar with. Similarly, sellers of disposable vapes, which were mentioned earlier, are now required to provide take-back of waste vapes. Producers of industrial batteries, including e-bike and e-scooter batteries, must take back waste batteries free of charge on request. This means that a shop selling e-bikes, such as Halfords, must take back a waste e-bike battery if asked to do so by the owner of that battery.

There are also existing public awareness campaigns such as the HypnoCat Recycle Your Electricals campaign, funded by industry to educate the public on safe battery disposal. Ministers are reviewing proposals to consult on reforms to UK battery regulations before setting out the next steps. However, I agree with noble Lords that we need to find more imaginative ways to help consumers dispose of batteries more conveniently and in greater numbers than is currently the case.

In summary, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, for the debate that this Bill has enabled. As I have laid out, my department is already working across government to identify the key aspects of lithium-ion battery safety and has taken action where needed. The Product Regulation and Metrology Bill, which will soon be debated by your Lordships’ House, will enable us, where necessary, to make regulatory change to keep our product safety framework up to date. We are seeking to address this complex issue while ensuring that we have the evidence to help prevent further injury and loss of life. We will continue to engage with all noble Lords on these critical issues as we develop our regulatory approach.

I can of course assure the noble Lord, Lord Redesdale, that we will continue to consult with him about his Bill, which will happen at a ministerial and official level, as necessary. I hope that the noble Lord has heard my request for him to consider withdrawing this Bill and I look forward to his response.

E-scooters and E-bikes: Battery Fires

Lord Winston Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

I thank my noble friend. I do not have the precise number so I will write to her. She is absolutely right: it is currently illegal to use an e-scooter on a public road. It is legal to use an e-scooter on private land with the permission of the landowner. Any person using an e-scooter on a public road is breaching the law and committing a criminal offence so can be prosecuted. The Government are providing e-scooter trials in 32 local authorities, as I said. These trials are taking place and will continue until the end of May 2024. Transport for London has banned the carriage of e-scooters and e-unicycles on its premises and services, so this is being regulated heavily. In the meantime, the trials continue.

[Lord Winston (Lab)]

My Lords, can the Minister kindly tell the House what methods other than lithium are being researched and how much the Government are spending on researching alternatives to lithium in batteries?

[Lord Offord of Garvel (Con)]

That goes back to my department, the Department for Business and Trade, where the Office for Product Safety and Standards has established a safety study precisely to understand the data on and evidence of risks in the sector, as well as the alternatives; this will inform enforcement action. Specifically, the noble Lord will be pleased to know that a project is going on at the Warwick Manufacturing Group, which is part of the University of Warwick, in which intense conditions are being created to examine further the science and technology around this issue and the safety of lithium-ion batteries in personal light electric vehicles. Where the Office for Product Safety and Standards receives a notification that these products present a serious risk or need to be recalled, such notifications will be promoted on the product recalls and alerts websites, on social media and via stakeholders. I do not have a precise number on the amount for research, but I will write to the noble Lord with that figure.