Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Friday 9th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Flight (Con)]

My Lords, I add my grateful thanks and tribute to Her Majesty the late Queen. I raise these points both professionally and at a personal level. She has always been professional in the delivery of her duties and responsibilities, and it is wonderful to see how much she is recognised across the whole world.

I stood with my parents 69 years ago in Birdcage Walk to watch the coronation procession and I can remember that to this day. Little did I know that I was witnessing the beginning of a reign of 70 years by such a wonderful and human Queen. At the tender age of only 18, the Queen committed herself to her duty, her standards and all the action that has come since.

A mere 67 years ago, the Queen opened the science building at my school, Brentwood School. Very many other enterprises have been supported thus by the Queen. While I am sure Charles III will make an excellent King, I am saddened greatly by the departing of my Queen. She has left us, a wonderful person. We will not see her like again.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope the House will allow me to begin by saying how much I appreciated the opening speeches by the Leader of the House, the Leader of the Opposition, the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, the Convenor of the Cross-Bench Peers and the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury, who made a collection of remarks that set the tone for today’s debate. I have listened to some wonderful tributes from other Members throughout the day and I think today’s Hansard will be a remarkable document and a testament to the person in whose honour we are holding this debate.

I remember when I lost my own mother, as many Members will remember losing theirs. It is a very difficult thing to lose one’s mother and therefore my sympathy personally goes out to the King, from whom we will hear shortly, and his family, because of the loss they are suffering, which is of course combined, as others have said, with the duties that now fall upon the new King.

I am one of the Members of this House who did not meet Her Majesty and I am not going to claim that I did. I was in close proximity to her on more than one occasion—at the investiture when she gave my wife an OBE, and so on—but I am not going to claim that I had any personal conversations with her. Nevertheless, I recognise the enormous importance she had to the lives of people in this country and the impact she had on them. I am sorry in some ways that my dad is not here to make a speech about his relations with the Queen, because he certainly had many stories he could have told, including his rather unsuccessful attempt to cut her head off—not in any physical sense, you understand, but in relation to British stamps. Noble Lords can read all about that in his memoirs.

The more I have thought about it over the last 24 hours, the more I think it was no coincidence that we saw her fulfil the one last constitutional duty which only she could fulfil on Tuesday in appointing the new Prime Minister, and then sadly found that she became very unwell and died shortly after. I think she knew for weeks, as we all did, that she had this duty ahead of her and she held on to fulfil it. That would be absolutely typical, from everything I have heard anyone in this Chamber say about Her Majesty in the 70 years she reigned. I do not think it was a coincidence that she lived long enough to do it.

I also think she is a supreme example of a successful constitutional monarch, for which we should all be very grateful. Looking back over the years of her reign, I think that this country has moved, as has been indicated by others, from a position where we were still an imperial power and had an element of what you might call hard power. Over the decades it has been transferred into soft power, and she embodied that in a way that is going to be very hard to follow.

Her death is still a shock and for many people it will continue to be so. When we hear from the new King in a moment, it will begin to bring itself to bear on people’s lives. However, there is a great deal to celebrate. We all know that she lived to see an unrivalled Platinum Jubilee celebration. Although she was not able to take that much of a part in many of the events, the country, the nation and the Commonwealth had a chance to say thank you to her, and her own contribution was, in a way, to live to see it unfold in front of her. However, there is still a great deal of mourning now.

Reference has been made to the remarkable interviews that she gave when she was younger and her pledge to serve her country and the Commonwealth whether her life “be long or short”. It turned out to be remarkably long, for which we are all very grateful. She served her country as she promised to do and fulfilled her promise. You cannot ask for more than that and I do not think we will see her like again in our lifetime.

[Baroness Morgan of Cotes (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Viscount. So much has already been said this afternoon, but at a time of grief it is better for us all to say something. In his message yesterday, our new King said that he and his family would draw comfort from all the sentiments of loss, mourning and gratitude that people would express in the coming days. We have heard many fantastic and moving speeches and it has been a privilege to be part of your Lordships’ House today to listen to them.

I will offer three brief thoughts. First, as has been mentioned and as the noble Viscount just captured in his tribute, the Queen’s last service was to invite her 15th Prime Minister to form a Government. Her face in that picture was still innately curious. To have that level of curiosity at the age of 96, after everything that the Queen had seen, was truly remarkable. Her curiosity was also captured, as we heard earlier, in that very simple question to those City financiers after the 2008 financial crash: “Why did no one else see that this was going to happen?” What a good question that she asked on behalf of so many of her subjects.

Secondly, we have heard that, for those who encountered her in the flesh, it was an unforgettable experience. She said that, for those who were just going to catch a glimpse, she deliberately wore bright clothes so that she could not be missed. Whatever we might think of His Majesty’s wardrobe, he is unlikely to wear that rainbow of colours that we got so used to.

As we heard, in 2012 the Queen visited Leicester with the new Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke of Edinburgh. It was a huge honour for both the city and county for that visit to be the first to any city in the Diamond Jubilee year. Of course, there was great excitement, but the tip that I took away, having watched Her Majesty during the lunch, was that it is acceptable to open your handbag, get out your lipstick and put it on after lunch. I have taken that tip and told many people about it; they found it a great insight into what was in her handbag—apart from marmalade sandwiches.

We heard a story from the noble Baroness, Lady Barker, of someone encountering the Queen and not being able to speak. In my case, when I was appointed to the Privy Council, I forgot to breathe. As the black spots appeared in my peripheral vision, I suddenly realised that I had stopped breathing as I was so close to my monarch and was observing her in close quarters. We also heard about the kissing of hands. While one is not meant to go into the details of Privy Council experiences, it is fair to say that, however experienced in life you are, that ceremony of kneeling and kissing your monarch’s hand is probably the most agonising kiss that you will ever make in your lifetime.

Thirdly, the Queen was our voice of stability at key moments. We have mentioned her Christmas afternoon broadcasts. Of course, after the death of Princess Diana, when the country needed a moment of stability, she was the one who invoked the phrase:

“Grief is the price we pay for love.”


That is worth remembering today. She was also asked to speak in spring 2020 when the Covid pandemic had struck with such ferocity.

I have no doubt that His Majesty the King will provide that same stability and that our thoughts and support will be with him over the coming days and months as he takes on his new duties. In many ways, we began to see that transition of power when he was at the State Opening of Parliament in this House just a few months ago. As we have heard, all these events will be much more of a shock for everyone at every level of society and everywhere around the globe than most of us would have expected. God save the King.

Women and Girls: Economic Well-being, Welfare, Safety and Opportunities

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lady Gale on providing us with the opportunity to have today’s debate, and on giving me the chance to make a brief contribution from the Opposition Back Benches. The part of the Motion to which I draw the House’s attention is the reference to “opportunities”. To get straight to the point, I want to talk about women and girls and their opportunities to study science. Perhaps I should refer to my entry in the register of interests as president of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee.

I thank the Campaign for Science and Engineering, the House of Commons Library, and the Royal Society for providing far more statistics in this area than I could ever fit into the speech time available to me, but I want to refer to a few. The Higher Education Statistics Agency publishes data on student enrolment, and it shows that there are small increases in the proportion of women students in STEM subjects, but nothing dramatic. A Royal Society report in 2019 showed a 1% rise in the number of women fellows, from 9% in 2018; and 34% of researchers offered fellowship grants were women. The Royal Society also highlights that at the end of 2019 just 27% of the STEM workforce were women, although women in the workforce as a whole comprised 52%.

So there are still areas where progress needs to be made and where we may be going backwards. For example, take mathematics, a fundamental science that underpins all other areas. The latest figures produced by the Protect Pure Maths campaign, of which I am a supporter, show that the proportion of women enrolling in first degrees in maths actually fell from 39.3% to 37.7% in the space of seven years. This is not good news. The 1% of women enrolling in doctoral research in maths slipped from 29% to 28% over the same period—again not good news—and in the 2017-18 academic year 89% of maths professors were men while only 11% were female. In the chemical sciences, the retention and development of women into senior roles remains poor. The higher up the career ladder, the fewer the proportion of women. At professional level it even drops below that for physics; only 9% of chemistry professors are women, whereas the figure for physics is 10%.

There are many strategies that the science community could adopt to address the leaky pipeline. In particular we must do more to encourage women taking career breaks to keep in touch with their science, and to make it easier for them to return as soon as they want to, and not to positions clearly less senior than those they occupied before taking a maternity break, for example.

It is a well-known fact that female scientists frequently fail to get proper credit for their research. Rosalind Franklin—I agree that this example was 70 years ago—was the person whose X-ray crystallography made it possible for Watson and Crick to discover the double helix, for which they got the Nobel Prize. I am not saying that they did not deserve it, but she was not even referred to in their paper, which is a scandal. The problem remains. A new study published by Nature found that women were 13% less likely, on average, to be named as authors on scientific papers to which they had contributed. When it comes to the patents that emerged from the research, women were 58% less likely to be named as authors than men who spent a comparable time in the laboratory. In other words, at every level, women are less likely to get the credit, although they spent the same time at work as the men.

We must not forget that people can still suffer from a great deal of sexism. I remind the House of the experience of Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, probably Britain’s most distinguished living astrophysicist. As the House will know, in 1967 she personally discovered pulsars, a most remarkable discovery, for which she did not get sufficient credit—she has now, but not then. She was left off the paper, other people got the Nobel Prize, and she has written in a recent book, The Sky is for Everyone, about her experience. Her supervisor at the time—the press was very interested in the discovery—was asked about the astrophysical significance of the discovery. What was Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell asked about? Her bust size, her hip size, and how many boyfriends she had had—you could not make it up; it is astonishing. I like to think things have changed since then, but there will be many people in this Chamber who are not so sure.

Thank heavens, we have more women now active in science who can inspire. Anyone who has listened to Maggie Aderin-Pocock, who has presented “The Sky at Night”, will know how inspirational they can be. My time is fast running out so, with the indulgence of the House, let me just get in a reference to some more women scientists. For example, the first Briton in space was not Tim Peake but Helen Sharman. Then there are the women scientists at Oxford who spearheaded the development of the AstraZeneca vaccine, Sarah Gilbert, who was recognised with a damehood for science in public health, and Catherine Green, who received an OBE for the same contribution. You may remember the moment at Wimbledon when the crowd discovered that Sarah Gilbert was in the royal box, all stood up and gave her a standing ovation, which she certainly deserved. I understand that Sarah is now being celebrated by the toymaker Mattel, which is making a Sarah Gilbert Barbie doll, one of six to honour women in STEM.

I must not test the patience of the House, but this week, the James Webb telescope produced the most fantastic, beautiful images of deep space. I am very pleased and heartened to tell the House that the BBC interviewed the following people about what those images mean: Sarah Kendrew from the European Space Agency, Jane Rigby from NASA, and Becky Smethurst from the University of Oxford. If only the media had been present at the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee meeting—I am coming to the end—last week when we had two brilliant young women who were chief executives of start-up companies.

In conclusion, my message is very straightforward: our country cannot afford to waste the talents of half the population. Science needs access to the full range of talent, and women and girls need science.

[Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)]

I remind noble Lords that five minutes is not an advisory speaking time for this debate; it is actually a limit. If we go over, the Minister will not have as much time to respond.

NATO Accession: Sweden and Finland

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Thursday 7th July 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

The noble Baroness, Lady Blackstone, referred earlier to these countries’ expertise and insights on the Arctic, which is demilitarised, and that has been a key objective. We need that insight to make sure that is sustained, for example. Our mutual security declarations also mean that the added security and the collective security of the alliance will be sustained and now extended to both countries. Frankly speaking, let us not forget when Russia, and indeed Mr Lavrov, stated repeatedly, “We have no intentions to invade Ukraine”. The reality is very different.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s Statement, and I agree with my noble friends and others that the President of Russia’s one success has been to strengthen and expand NATO. But I ask the Minister whether he might consider the wider effects around the world of the accession of these two countries, especially in view of the fact that there are other areas at risk in the Indo-Pacific region, to which he has already referred—Ukraine is not the only country that might be at risk of invasion—and whether this development in NATO might have a wider effect on other parts of the world and encourage further defensive alliances.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I think our approach is a global one, and from a NATO perspective, it is a defensive alliance, and that was the reason the two countries joined. There is broader issue about where our focus is, and when we talk about the Indo-Pacific and our focus in that particular area, it is strategic, and we are looking at a range of partnerships. The AUKUS agreement reflects how we work with our key allies on a range of issues, covering maritime and safe navigation when it comes to commercial routes, but also looks at the whole issue of the seas in terms of protection and co-ordination, and security within the Asia-Pacific region. The noble Lord, Lord West, knows that far better than I do.

Beyond that, we play an important role along with our partners, not just when we look at defensive or military partnerships, but also looking at the economy and economic development. That again is an important lead on how we work consistently and in a collaborative fashion with key allies. In looking at the economic empowering of countries, there are other international players, and we are seeing, with repeated interventions from the IMF, how countries are being disabled in terms of their economies—not just failing to grow but failing to operate altogether. We need to step in to provide alternatives.

Ukraine

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Thursday 16th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I strongly agree with the right reverend Prelate’s remarks. I am certain that my colleagues and fellow Ministers at the Foreign Office, for whom I am standing in, would be very keen to have that discussion and to learn more about how we can benefit from the kind of reach that the right reverend Prelate has.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. Many people in the House and the country will welcome the provision of additional multiple rocket launchers. I have two brief questions. First, are the Government confident that the military aid is actually reaching the people in Ukraine who need to use it? Secondly, in relation to that part of the Statement that says

“We cannot allow Ukraine to be pressured into giving up territory in a way that we would never accept ourselves”,


is it the Government’s unshakeable and unwavering policy that Ukraine should remain in the borders that existed on 23 February? In the light of some of the other questions that have been asked, is there any concern in the Government that varying points of view may emerge that make it difficult to have a common front on that question?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

In reverse order, I am going to have to refer the noble Viscount to a previous answer—that it is not for the UK Government to be prescriptive. There are principles that we can stand for, and the principles are that Ukraine must be in the driving seat and that whatever solution there is has to reflect its sovereignty and right to self-determination. But it is for Ukraine to make those decisions.

I understand the point that the noble Viscount and a previous speaker made about Ukraine being pressured. We will not be, and we are not, part of that pressure. We do not know what is happening in the meeting that was just raised by a previous speaker; I do not know what is being discussed in that meeting. But the UK position will be exactly as it was a few months ago when the invasion began, and it will not change.

On military support, it is our view that the support that we are providing—as certainly seems to be the view of our friends and allies within Ukraine—has been exemplary and well targeted. I have to assume that that is the case as I have heard nothing to the contrary.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe: Forced Confession

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I too heard the interview and I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. As someone who campaigns on the central issue of human rights, her detention was not just a challenge beyond belief for her personally but obviously for Gabriella and for Richard, and we pay tribute to their work in this respect. On the issue of engagement with the Iranian authorities, we regularly raise issues specific to different cases. Some work we do privately, because that is reflective of the engagement that those who are detained and their families ask of us. Of course, we will continue to implore, particularly on the case that the noble Lord, Lord Collins, raised, that when Iran comes to and reaches an agreement, it needs to uphold it.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords—

[A noble Lord]

Order.

Working Practices (International Agreements Committee Report)

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to support my noble friend Lady Hayter of Kentish Town, but can I say at the beginning what a pleasure it is to follow Sir Humphrey? It is a rare privilege afforded any of us to follow such a masterful example, and I felt as I listened to the noble Lord that his speech provided a script for an entire episode of “Yes Minister”. If they ever make it again, he should send in his speech and get the credit accordingly, because it was a wonderful example.

I was not a member of the committee, but I congratulate its chair, members and staff on producing a very good report. It is remarkably frank in its conclusions, but they contain a warning for those of us who want to make sure that government remains properly accountable to Parliament. Its title does not seem very glamorous; “Working practices” has a sort of technical, rather boring aspect to it. It made me wonder how the Government of the day would have presented Magna Carta: “A technical adjustment to the working practices of the monarch.”

However, these things do matter. Of course, the Motion before us says that the House should take note of the report—well, it is the Government who should take note of it. My noble friend introduced it so comprehensively, and other Members have spoken with such expertise, that I really have very little that I can add today, other than perhaps just emphasising one or two points. Perhaps that is the fact of being put so late in the list, but I had the pleasure of following Sir Humphrey, as I said.

When I look at the report, I am looking at the Government’s arguments. Paragraph 91 says that the Government’s position is that

“the legislative framework in Part 2 of CRAG is appropriate and provides sufficient flexibility to permit Parliament to undertake effective treaty scrutiny prior to ratification.”

The report says that the committee disagrees—and so do I. Another phrase I find of great interest is this:

“The Government believes that the scrutiny system that is currently in place is appropriate in light of the UK’s constitutional settlement.”


The phrase “constitutional settlement” conveys a certainty and finality that does not, in fact, exist—constitutions evolve. Sometimes I think that you cannot see the wood for the trees because we are so close to it, but it does evolve, and I think that it needs to evolve further.

The right of a King or a Queen to make a treaty is a very substantial power. That power has been ceded to Governments and Prime Ministers, but we must be very careful that we do not end up with a system where, in effect and by extension, government powers escape the scrutiny of Parliament.

I shall make these my final remarks because I do not want to detain the House on a long day. On 25 April, I think, I was sitting in my place and saw the Minister get up to answer a Parliamentary Question about the memorandum of understanding with Rwanda. I thought to myself, “This is a major political policy development, but this House can exercise no scrutiny other than to ask a few supplementary questions. That is not good enough.” The committee says that

“legislative change may prove the only means to ensure adequate scrutiny of international agreements.”

I do not think we are anywhere near getting that at the moment, but there is a risk that if Governments continue to find ways to evade proper parliamentary scrutiny, we will get into trouble. I hope, of course, that a future Government will make the proper provisions necessary because the committee’s title, “International Agreements”, covers a very wide range of areas and, if we are to be a meaningful democracy, this House must play its full part in it.

Queen’s Speech

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Wednesday 18th May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, this is my first Queen’s Speech debate. The whole House was sorry, as was the Monarch herself, that she was not able to deliver it in person, so I attended a state occasion made possible for the first time by the Regency Act 1937—and I do not suppose it will be the last. I pay tribute to my predecessor, the noble Baroness, Lady Fall. She is a person of great experience at the highest levels of government and there were many interesting points in her speech.

However, before I begin properly, I want to declare an interest in the 22nd century. I hope the House will forgive me for saying this, but yesterday I became a grandfather for the first time.

[Noble Lords]

Hear, hear!

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

And, like any grandparent, I find myself immediately looking ahead at the lifetime of someone born yesterday—literally—who will expect to live into the 22nd century, and I hope very much that he will grow up to live in a stable and secure world, although that is far from certain.

We all know that there is one essential difference between the debate today and the debate that was held last year, and that is the invasion by Russia of Ukraine, which is the President of Russia’s biggest strategic mistake. The war that has followed decisively changes the nature of today’s debate and the way in which we need to rethink our foreign, defence and national security policy to ensure this country’s safety as well as that of western Europe.

In the few minutes at my disposal, I want to emphasise one key consequence of this shift in the kaleidoscope. We must examine as a priority the nature of the relationship between the United Kingdom’s science and technology needs on the one hand, and foreign and national security policy on the other. We are entering an era where the needs of science and technology and of our economy are increasingly going to determine the strategic outlines of our foreign policy. I am not talking about one obvious facet of the current war, which is that it is being fought with increasingly sophisticated weapons made possible by science and technology. Nor am I talking about the equally obvious use and counteruse of cyberwarfare, which is clearly vital to success on today’s battlefield. I want to draw the House’s attention to a different way of looking at our strategic national security.

We need to have regard to how we secure and safeguard the strategically important resources we need, without which we cannot function as an economy or as a society. This key consideration needs to lie at the heart of our international aims. When I say “strategically important resources”, I am thinking of things such as the strategic metals, including the so-called rare earth metals, on which we now rely for so much. The climate change debate reminds us that we all live on a finite planet, but the resources at our disposal are also finite. One real problem is that some of the resources we need for our security and economy are not by any means under our control. Access to strategic materials must be a major consideration in our foreign and security strategy and policy. Our international relationships and alliances need to have regard to that fact.

More than a decade ago, the Science and Technology Committee in another place produced a well-researched report which highlighted strategically important metals to the UK. It also emphasised the need for a stable supply of these metals, as well as nonmetals such as helium, as we move to a low-carbon economy. I believe that the Government would do well to revisit that report, because it has a lot in it that we still need to learn. The increasing global demand for strategic metals from the West, from China and from emerging economies will not just be a factor in their price; it will be a crucial factor in their availability. Future Governments will need to be alive to the need for sufficient supplies and stockpiling is an expensive option.

We must also consider the effects of conflict and war on access to these materials. After all, we are living through a war which has had a profound effect on access to grain. In the United States, the Dodd-Frank Act requires companies to produce a detailed report on conflict materials that they use; perhaps the Government should introduce similar legislation here.

As part of our national security strategy, we are also going to have to pay more attention to the recycling of strategic materials. Everyone in this Chamber has got a phone—heaven knows, we hear them go off often enough—and in these phones, as your Lordships may know, rare earth metals are used to produce the colours on our screens. Indium tin oxide is used in the transparent film to enable us to use them as touchscreens —and these are things that we are going to need in the future.

Last year, the House voted to set up ARIA, which is a symbol of our science ambition, and we are strengthening the UK Space Agency. But, like it or not, we need to hugely expand our R&D capacity and the current target of 2.4% is not enough. Our science budget will prove as important a basis of our future national security as money spent on military hardware. Arguments that people might have thought were overtaken by a globalised world in the last 30 years or more now need to be completely rethought and reframed. Understanding and adapting to the new landscape must be a critical role for the Executive and the legislature in this new Session, bearing in mind that the balance is, I hope, tilted towards the legislature.

Ukraine: War Crimes Allegations

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Monday 4th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, as the Russians pulled back from Bucha and other cities, I, like other noble Lords I am sure, was left speechless by what we saw unravelling on our screens. I have read reports at the FCDO qualifying some of the scenes that we have been seeing on our television screens. This is happening in 2022 in Europe—it is abhorrent and it churns the stomach. Equally, however, it should bring to focus our need to work together, collectively and collaboratively, to ensure that every perpetrator in the Russian regime, whoever they may be, is brought to account.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, precisely because of what the Minister has just said, we should all bear in mind that this is all denied by the Russians on the grounds that it is fake news, there are actors and it is not real. As we consider what is, as the Minister quite rightly says, unfolding on our screens, can this evidence not be presented by the United Kingdom in our capacity as a P5 member of the United Nations Security Council, as other noble Lords have mentioned?

Commission on Race and Ethnic Disparities

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for her contribution. I agree wholeheartedly with the words that she read from Minister Badenoch. Family life in the UK needs to be strong and resilient, and it needs to ensure that young people grow up knowing that they are supported and cared for. This does not always happen, so I am pleased that our Government have put around £650 million—I think; do not quote me—into supporting families and, more importantly, into the family hubs and the reducing parental conflict programme, which, I hope, based on the evidence thus far, is making a huge difference to the lives of people who struggle to maintain good family relationships.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, may I draw the Minister’s attention to the very end of this report, on the impact of AI and algorithms? Action 72 says that the Government will address

“potential racial bias in algorithmic decision-making.”

The only word I would disagree with is “potential”, because there have been some shocking examples, such as in facial recognition technologies, where the algorithms used and the data that is fed to set them up has been overtly racially biased. May I invite the Minister to tell the House a little more about what the Government intend to do in this area? I think they are going to need expert help. Would the Minister, for example, consider contacting the Council for the Mathematical Sciences, which is an umbrella body comprising a range of different mathematical experience and expertise? In the world in which we live now and the algorithms which in great part determine our lives, the potential for racial bias is enormous, and I invite the Government to take the advice that will be needed to fix that.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I thank the noble Viscount for that question. I did not catch the name of the council that he referred to, but if he could let me have that afterwards, I will certainly pass it on. The space of decision-making algorithms and AI is fast-moving, and they are increasingly embedded in all our lives. Greater understanding and transparency from those building these systems is crucial to ensure that the public trust the decisions being made. Our first priority is understanding what it means to improve transparency in the use of AI. We want to build the most trusted AI governance system in the world. We also want to ensure diversity of thought and experience in the sector, as this is the best way to avoid in-built bias. To achieve this, up to £24 million of funding is being put towards attracting early career talent into digital and tech roles.

Ukraine: Discussions with US and China

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Viscount Stansgate]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what discussions they have had with the governments of (1) the United States of America, and (2) China, about the situation in Ukraine.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom is working very closely with our allies and partners in our continuing condemnation of the actions of Russia and Mr Putin in their reprehensible attack on Ukraine. We have worked very closely with the United States, and the Foreign Secretary visited it last week to further co-ordinate our support for Ukraine. We have also engaged directly with China, and have been clear that China must also stand up for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and not condone Mr Putin’s actions.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that answer. Would he agree that the geopolitics of the world in which we live are being changed by the unjustified war with and invasion of Ukraine? Would he further agree that the Chinese are clearly uneasy about the way in which the situation is developing? As a permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations, cannot the British Government take an initiative to work with the Chinese and the Americans to try to secure, for example, humanitarian corridors to enable aid to go in and people to come out safely? Will the Government try to promote these actively with all our partners, because it is the right thing to do?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I agree with the noble Viscount on both points and I assure him that we are working very closely with the Chinese, among other countries. My right honourable friend the Foreign Secretary spoke with her Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister and State Councillor Wang Yi, on Friday 25 February. She underlined the UK’s expectation of China’s role in the current crisis. As we have heard, it has an important role in the multilateral system. We are engaging at all levels, including official and ministerial.

The UN General Assembly vote, where 141 nations came together, demonstrated how we are working with key partners and other countries. It is important that we are universal in our condemnation of the Russian war on Ukraine.