Technology in Public Services

David Reed Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle]

I am extremely grateful to my hon. Friend—it is fantastic to see him back in his seat, and we can see no better reason why when he makes such incisive contributions. I am in very close touch with the Education Secretary over the skills agenda, and my Department is in very close touch with the Department for Education, because we can only seize these opportunities and ensure that they are available to everybody from every background if we get skills right. At the moment we are not, but there are some pioneering projects that I have visited. We ought to ensure that they are accessible to everybody who needs them. I can assure him that is essential to the conversations we will be having.

Even as we seize every opportunity to build a better future, we will responsibly manage the threats that new technologies pose to our security. The first duty of any Government is to keep our nation safe. Thanks to years of neglect, Britain has been left catastrophically exposed to cyber-attacks, with disastrous consequences for public services and working people alike. Over 10,000 out-patient appointments were postponed following this year’s attack on the NHS in London—that is 10,000 people forced to wait to access the care they needed. If we do not act, we know there will be more attacks to come, and more hours lost in our hospitals and our schools. The Prime Minister has been clear that in an ever more volatile world we will do what is necessary to defend our country from those who seek to do us harm. That is why we are introducing the cyber security and resilience Bill, which will shore up our cyber-defences and protect our public services in the decades to come.

[David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)]

Supercomputing and artificial intelligence are key drivers for making us more cyber-resilient. Will the Secretary of State please clarify why £1.3 billion has been cut from that budget?

[Peter Kyle]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention and I welcome him to his place. It is good to see him participating in these debates. It gives me the opportunity to respond to his question. He asks why I cut something. Can I just point out to him that I cannot cut something that did not exist in the first place? We have a former Prime Minister who announced a scheme but allocated not a single penny towards it. We have a former Chancellor of the Exchequer who at this Dispatch Box in his last Budget announced a scheme, but did not go back to his Department and allocate a single penny towards it. I did not cut anything, because nothing existed in the first place. Words matter when you are in government, and they must be followed through with action. I am afraid that the previous Government were all words and no action.

That is why we will be bringing forward binding regulations on the handful of companies that are developing the most powerful AI systems of tomorrow. The principle behind both pieces of legislation is simple: trust. We will rebuild Britain’s public services. Public trust in technology will be our cornerstone. To earn that trust, we will always put people’s safety first. We must also show that technology can be a force for good, and that is what we will do. Every person who receives the kind of scan my mother did not receive, every family with years longer together, every child with an education that gives them the opportunities their parents never had—every one of those people is a testament to the power of technology to change lives for the better. And yet for each of those people there are so many more who are missing out on an education that could change their life, or on the scan that could save it. By closing the technology gap, this Government will ensure that every person benefits from the digital public services that they deserve, and we will give Britain’s future back.