Post Office Board and Governance

Dean Russell Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I do think the chaos was caused by one individual. I sat through the whole session; for the bit I was not in the room with the right hon. Gentleman, I was watching on television. It is right for people to be able to say that they are not satisfied with the speed of compensation. I have said that time and time again from this Dispatch Box, and we are keen to accelerate the process and make sure it is fast and fair.

We are aware of the recommendations from the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) on an appeals mechanism for some of the schemes where people feel the compensation is too low. We are looking and will continue to look at that. Every compensation scheme I have dealt with, such as the Royal Bank of Scotland global restructuring group scheme and the Lloyds-HBOS scheme, has been too slow, because of some of the complexity involved. We heard some good suggestions yesterday about how we might remove some of that complexity, which I am very keen to do. We heard some positive remarks from the individuals concerned, for example, from some of the solicitors, and from the Post Office on the fixed-sum awards—the £650,000 for the overturned convictions and the £75,000 for the GLO scheme. We heard how that was reducing the amount of disclosure that was required—that is one of the limiting factors. This should mean that the timescales that some people put on the table of one to two years should be rapidly reduced, and I am very keen to build on that work.

As the CEO confirmed to the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) yesterday, I meet him every month, and we speak about the need to accelerate compensation every single time. We have targets for when to pay the compensation by: August for GLO cases, and for all cases ideally by the end of the year. As we heard yesterday, 1,000 new claimants have come forward since the ITV series, which makes it difficult to put deadlines on payment. I am aware that the right hon. Gentleman wants a legally binding target. I am happy to discuss that with him, but we have just removed one legally binding target because not everything within the process is within our gift.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I know that my hon. Friend has a passion to get this right, and to right the wrongs of the past. Does he agree that we must do all that we can to ensure that sub-postmasters who were victims of the awful Horizon scandal are exonerated, and compensated fully, fairly and with haste?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank my hon. Friend for his work on this issue as one of my predecessors; I know that he was as keen as I am to ensure that full and fair compensation is paid to all individuals. As I said, there is no limit to the amount of compensation that we will set aside to ensure that people are compensated properly for this horrendous scandal.

Excess Death Trends

Dean Russell Excerpts

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) for securing this debate. I will be brief, as I have a very specific point to make.

Losing a loved one can be a profoundly painful experience. In Hertfordshire, families are experiencing delays from the coroner due to the apparent increase in complicated deaths over a number of years. Although it is right to take time to do a full investigation, I am concerned about the lack of communication with families who have lost loved ones to update them about the reasons for the delays and set out what the timings will be. I am getting inquiries from families who are suffering and do not know what is happening and why there are delays, and that is feeding their concerns. Does the Minister agree that this only adds to families’ pain? They just want answers, and to know what is happening. Will the Minister please urge coroners, if they are not able to do the work, to at least communicate regularly, and provide updates, so that grieving families know what is happening and suffer less?

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

We now come to the Front Benchers. Will the Minister please give the mover of the motion at least two minutes to respond?

Post Office Horizon Scandal

Dean Russell Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the Minister for his work to bring this to the Chamber with such speed. My first question is on mental health. The victims of the Post Office’s awful Horizon scandal—and they were victims—have been traumatised. We have heard awful stories of individuals who sadly took their life through suicide, and I am sure many others likely came close to that. I want to make sure that the compensation schemes take into account the distress and mental health pressures these people experienced over many, many years, and still experience today.

My second question looks to the future. How do we stop this happening again? I am very conscious of the big increase in the use of artificial intelligence. It is possible to go back to the Horizon system and see where these, in some cases, malicious incidents took place but, with artificial intelligence, it will be much harder to do that. Can the Minister assure me that checks will be made in any Government systems, especially those using artificial intelligence, to ensure that humans are not unjustly blamed for artificial intelligence errors that could lead to a similar scandal in future?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

My hon. Friend is one of my predecessors, and I thank him for the job he did. His tenure was all too short, but he did a great job. I know he raised this matter when he looked after this part of the brief.

We are discussing mental health support for individuals and, potentially, families with the advisory board. The compensation schemes very much take mental health into account, and assessing those impacts is one of the reasons why it takes a while to make sure people receive proper redress.

My hon. Friend raises an interesting point about AI, in which I know he is keenly interested. We should look carefully at the use of AI in prosecutions, and I am sure my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor is doing so.

Horizon: Compensation and Convictions

Dean Russell Excerpts

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Hollinrake]

That is exactly what we want to do and that is why we set up the statutory inquiry to try to identify culpability and responsibility. Whether that leads to corporate sanctions, in terms of contributions to compensation schemes, or individuals who might face prosecution or other sanctions, that is absolutely right. Of course there will be different agencies looking at different things that the inquiry uncovers as part of its process, including not only crime agencies, but the Honours Forfeiture Committee. We are very keen to ensure that that happens. The hon. Gentleman mentions financial incentives—as Charlie Munger once said, “Show me the incentive and I’ll show you the outcome.” I am sure that played a part in some of the terrible mistreatments of postmasters.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

As I have stated previously in this House, the Horizon scandal was an absolute travesty. My thanks, as should all our thanks, go to Alan Bates, for his relentless work to stand up for victims—and they were victims of one of the worst miscarriages of justice this country has ever seen. While I am very aware of the legal complexities and the challenges around righting these wrongs as we go through the various stages, will my hon. Friend, who I know is passionate about getting this right, confirm that he is working at the very highest level of Government to ensure that any blockages, delays or stutterings in this process are cleared through? Does he agree that every single current Member of Parliament—all 650—and every Member of Parliament in the future should make sure not only to watch the ITV drama series, but to read “The Great Post Office Scandal” by Nick Wallis, which originally helped to shine a light on this appalling scandal?

[Kevin Hollinrake]

I thank my hon. Friend for all his work as one of my predecessors. He was an excellent postal affairs Minister—for all too brief a time, I think it is fair to say, but he did a great job, and I know some of the things he put in place in this area are important to the whole process. Of course we are working at the highest level: the Prime Minister is taking a personal interest in these matters, so I see no barrier in terms of willingness to right these wrongs from anywhere in Government, right to the highest possible level. I had a meeting with the Justice Secretary today, who offered some positive ways forward in the next few days.

I completely agree with my hon. Friend that we should all watch that programme to learn lessons about not only this particular scandal, but the potential for future scandals based on the same kind of motivations. He mentions the “The Great Post Office Scandal”, written by the excellent journalist Nick Wallis, who has been such an important part of uncovering the truth of this horrendous scandal.

Local Radio: BBC Proposals

Dean Russell Excerpts

Thursday 22nd June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Robert Buckland (South Swindon) (Con)]

Mindful of the time, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will make sure that my remarks show—I hope—an admirable economy.

It is 100 years since the BBC was founded. Lord Reith took on that responsibility in the late 1920s and talked about BBC’s mission to inform, to educate and to entertain. Without the local radio network that we have seen developed over the last 50 years or so, I am afraid the first of his three maxims will not be fulfilled. Without the important network of journalists, supported by the staff to whom my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) quite rightly referred to in his excellent introductory remarks— I thank him for securing this debate—local people will not be informed.

Swindon sits right in the middle of the south of England, between the west of England and south central regions, and it is frankly not adequately covered by television; we are affected by a real dividing line where my community sits. BBC Radio Wiltshire is the only glue within the broadcasting network that links us with the historical country from which Swindon has developed. It is certainly the view of my constituents, and the constituents of my colleagues in North Swindon, Devizes and other local seats, that the loss and denigration of that service will really harm the way local people can access information.

It is all very well talking about digital coverage, and I accept that many of us use online services. However, without local journalists generating live coverage daily by ringing MPs here, ringing councillors or ringing local people and getting them on the show, there will be no material generated to put online. The co-ordination between the generation of live content—particularly for evening drivetime shows, in our case—and its transfer online seems to be being missed in all this.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (Sir Mike Penning) for securing the debate. BBC Three Counties Radio is a local radio station, but how can it be local if it is not able to deliver local news? To go back to the point that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland) is making, the key thing is that the BBC is effectively getting rid of the local in local radio.

Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill (First sitting)

Dean Russell Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

Q When I go back to my constituency in Watford tonight and speak to people on the street, what can I tell them will make a difference to their lives, in the simplest terms?

Sarah Cardell: It is opening up choice; it is opening up access to the fullest range of services. It is enabling them to have confidence that their data will be used in an effective way and that they can move between different products and services so that they do not get locked in. When we think about the consumer side, daily we hear and see so much about consumer detriment. We are working as hard as we can to address that, but the consumer reforms will enable us to take a massive step up in terms of the impact we can deliver, the speed with which we can tackle their concern,s and the effectiveness with which we can deliver improved outcomes for people.

[Dean Russell]

Q Will they see that happen, or will they need to be involved in the process to report where there are issues?

Sarah Cardell: Both. On engagement, we work very much with bodies such as Which? and Citizens Advice, which I know you are hearing from shortly, so we have a lot coming in. That is really important, because when we make the choices about the work we are doing, they need to be informed directly by consumer concerns, not be something that we just think is the right thing to do. We want to deliver that visible impact.

George Lusty: I think your constituents will see the CMA directly taking decisions. When we find that something has broken the law, they will find that we are taking direct orders to get their money back for them, and we will be imposing deterrent fines on the firms that do not do the right thing.

[The Chair]

I thank our three stellar witnesses very much indeed for their time this morning. We wish you continued success at the CMA.

Examination of Witnesses

Rocio Concha and Matthew Upton gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Thomson]

How could we legislate create the framework by which the problem of fake reviews could be best addressed?

Rocio Concha: I think it needs to be in the list on schedule 18, and there is a very simple way to draft that amendment. We are going to suggest an amendment to help you with that, so I do not think that it is a major difficulty to include it on the face of the Bill.

[Dean Russell]

Q You are both at the coalface for consumers in terms of the challenges around all the issues addressed by the Bill. Can you briefly share some real-life examples of why the Bill is so important and what difference it will make to consumers?

Rocio Concha: I can give you some examples from the past so that you can see what consumers face. I already talked about the secondary ticketing problem, but I will give you another example. During covid, there were a lot of issues about people getting their refunds that they were entitled to by law. Many people could not really get them. I will give you another example on the digital side—that was on the consumer side.

At the moment, as you have heard from the CMA, digital advertising is basically controlled by two companies, Google and Facebook. Google has doubled its revenue from digital advertising since 2011 and Facebook used to make less than £5 per user—more recently, it has been around £50 per user. Google charges around 30% more for paid-for advertising than other search engines. All that cost translates into the products that we buy. We expect that once this pro-innovation, pro-competitive regulatory framework is put in place we will see it translate into prices.

We will also see it translate into more choice, in particular on data. At the moment, it is very difficult for consumers to have a choice on how much of our data is used for targeted advertising. You will have seen examples of that. When we talk to consumers in particular on the issues surrounding data, they feel disempowered. When we talk to consumers about the problems that they face in some of the markets where there are high levels of detriment, they also feel disempowered.

Matthew Upton: To be clear, there is a lot of good in the Bill. I echo Rocio’s first comments that there are a lot of positives. It has been a long time coming, and is a testament to the civil servants in the Department who have stuck with it. The main lens through which we see the impacts of the potential changes in the Bill is the cost of living. It is not exactly headline news that people are struggling with their bills. One of the main measures that we look at is whether one of our clients is in a negative budget: whether their income meets their essential outgoings. About 52% of our debt advice clients can no longer meet their essential—not desirable—outgoings with their income.

There are two areas where the Bill can make a real difference. One of the frustrations is that a debt adviser will go in detail through someone’s income and where they spend their money, helping them to balance their bills, and so on. You see the impact of other Government interventions, such as energy price support, putting money in their pockets and uprating benefits. You are combing through their expenditure and you find something like a subscription trial taking £10 a month—a huge amount for a lot of our clients—unnecessarily out of their account. They did not even know that it was there. Often, it is people who are not online, are not savvy, and are not combing their bills every month because they have a lot on. That is hugely frustrating, and things like this, especially if strengthened, could tackle that.

You will see similar things where people are just about balancing their monthly income with their expenditure and they get hit by some big scam bill or are let down by a company. Such companies are too often not held to account in the right way. It is a bit of a tangential example in some ways, but the hope is that the CMA’s increased ability to act and, in effect, to disincentivise poor behaviour towards consumers will lessen such instances as well.

[The Chair]

We have 12 minutes left, and five Members are seeking to ask questions, so we need to increase the pace.

Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill (Second sitting)

Dean Russell Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 13th June 2023 Public Bill Committees

[Paul Scully]

Okay. Thank you.

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

Q Professor Fletcher, imagine I am a growing business: I am successful, I have an online presence, I am doing lots of great stuff and I am a challenger to the global big businesses. What does the Bill mean to me? What difference will it make?

Professor Fletcher: It would make quite a lot of difference, but quite small differences. It would depend on the business that you were in. You might be an app developer. First of all, at the moment we have categories of rules rather than specific rules, so I cannot say exactly what it would do. For example, it could give you fairer access to app stores. If you were a seller through Amazon, which we were talking about earlier, it could give you fairer access to your own data on your own sales. I could probably talk for a long time about all the things that it could do, but I will highlight that you are, in that role, exactly who the law is targeted at helping.

[Dean Russell]

Thank you. I notice that we have lost one of our witnesses, so I will go to Professor Marsden—I mean Professor Furman. My apologies; I forget my own name sometimes!

Professor Furman: Fair dealing, open choices, and trust and transparency are three of the main conduct requirements. They are all designed to make sure you could not have a search engine hiding searches from your business, and that you could not have them preferencing themselves and directing to themselves instead of to you. You might benefit from some of the interoperability and data access by being given access to the data or access to a system that you could operate on, which right now one of your bigger competitors is doing, so I think it is preventing harmful and unfair things being done to you, but also affirmatively opening up some options. By the way, all that is good not just for innovation but for the consumer, because it will make things easier and more streamlined for them.

[Dean Russell]

Q Excellent. If I may follow up and spin that question on its head, Professor Marsden—hopefully I have the right person. I was asking before about what difference the Bill will make to a small business or growing business, but what will it mean for big businesses—the global giants—especially those that work in the online space? What will it make them better at doing? What will it stop them doing that might be harmful to competition at the moment?

Professor Marsden: I will deal with that first, then I can go back to the appeal point, if you would like my views.

The Bill will make those big platforms compete, basically for the first time. You will hear a lot of guff about how they are in some sort of monogopoly competition with each other all the time, and some of that might be true, but they are not really—they really are not. We see that in the competitive structure of the market, in the profits and in the concentration levels and so on. We are not trying to reduce profits or anything like that; we are trying to allow others to have a chance. If anything, like with open banking, that will light a fire underneath some of the big platforms, which are telling you they are innovative, and they are, but they are usually innovative in a way that makes us more dependent on them. We are not that fond of dependence in such markets; we are fond of diversity, choices and allowing competition on the merits—for products to rise and fall based on their merits, rather than on whether they have satisfied the terms and conditions of a particular platform.

On appeal, briefly—I am sorry for cutting out; Zoom might not be a platform of strategic market status—I have heard many advisers to tech platforms that might be subject to the Bill argue that the appeal issue is not just a small thing in the legislation, but absolutely fundamental. I agree with them on two things: first, the Bill itself and the ex ante approach that we have been discussing are absolutely fundamental—that is the big change. Secondly, the change with respect to ex post enforcement—the review of the conduct requirements, the investigations, anything imposed on the platforms and so on—to me involves such an involved, open and participative process between the platform, the digital markets unit and other entities that it gives me a lot of comfort about due process. If anything, if there were a full appeal standard, we might as well move to a prosecutorial approach, where the DMU is a prosecutor and everything is adversarial, and takes 18 years in court.

That is kind of what we have now so, if anything, this is an opportunity really to understand the business models, to put in bespoke requirements, to test ably the remedies—that is an important aspect—and to release remedies if they are not working or if they need to be tightened up. That therefore shows internationally what the UK thinks about such practices, which might help with the global spread that Amelia was mentioning. However, I have to state firmly that I believe that judicial review takes a lot longer than a substantive appeal, and I think that if the Bill were amended to allow a substantive appeal or even a few years of substantive appeal, we might as well have not done the study at all and might as well not pass the Bill in respect of the digital prior arrangements, because it will just return us to what we have seen before, basically.

In contrast, the European Commission is allowing substantive appeal rights. If anything, I think that means that they will code for prohibitions. As Amelia said, the law is not as bespoke, so we are going to see: “Here’s your general obligation. I don’t think you are satisfying it.” Then there will be an appeal to the Court and a wait of 18 years for Luxembourg to make a ruling. Here, those issues we hope will be dealt with at the administrative stage, and whether the authority of the DMU or the process itself was fair and reasonable is something that the courts should obviously review. We welcome that scrutiny. In fact, if I were involved in any of this, I would very much welcome that kind of scrutiny at the judicial review level, which is itself a very intense form of review, so it feels perfect to have this JR standard, but I appreciate that you will have already heard a lot against that and will in future.

[The Chair]

Thank you, professor. I have a follow-up from the Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Chair]

I call Dean Russell to ask a brief question.

[Dean Russell]

Q I have two, but they are really quick. First, will the consumer be expected to do anything in order to see benefits from the Bill, in your view? Will they benefit from all the wonderful things we have talked about, or will a communications campaign be needed alongside the Bill to tell them what their new rights are so that they can report back and make complaints, as it were?

Noyona Chundur: A communications campaign is fundamental. The language that is used, how the messaging is framed and how it is targeted to the various consumer groups will be key, as will consistency of messaging across the regions, not just from a UK perspective. It needs to be mindful of how consumers absorb information and who they engage with, as well as being mindful of communities. Consumers want clear, transparent information in plain English, so we need to make it simple for them. We need to be careful not to just push the onus on consumers to make decisions. The job of the Bill, and of Government, is to make lives better, so that is what we want to do.

[Dean Russell]

I will leave my second question, because I am conscious of time.

[The Chair]

Thank you.

That brings us to the end of the time allocated for this witness panel. On behalf of the Committee, thank you all very much for taking the time to give evidence.

Peter Eisenegger: Thank you for listening.

Examination of Witness

Professor Geoffrey Myers gave evidence.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Hollinrake]

Q But the removal of the cooling off period would make it more difficult for some people to exit a contract, wouldn’t it?

Owen Meredith: The removal of the cooling off period for us is a concern around how that technically applies and whether consumers have had benefit that they are then seeking to be refunded for, despite having engaged with and received the benefit.

[Dean Russell]

Q We live in an era where we talk about consumers, who might be consuming services or products—but they also might be consuming news. How will the consumers of journalism benefit from or be impacted by the Bill?

Peter Wright: They will benefit through the quality of the journalism they are offered. Every news organisation —we are no exception; we went through a period of redundancies earlier this year—is having to trim their editorial budgets, because you cannot make sufficient revenue in the present digital advertising market to support the scale of editorial resource that you would really like.

Commercial news publishers have seen revenues falling, despite inflation, over the last two decades. At some point, we need to have a mechanism that gives us—this particularly applies to smaller and regional publishers—a level playing field and levers we can pull to bargain with these vast companies. I have colleagues who work at not inconsiderable regional publishing companies, who do not even have a telephone number they can ring at Google, so they just have to accept whatever terms Google offers. We are slightly more fortunate in that we can ring Google, but we do not necessarily get an answer.

[Dean Russell]

Q I am the MP for Watford. We have the Watford Observer and My Local News—those smaller regional organisations. Do you see this legislation benefiting them?

Peter Wright: Absolutely. I once worked as a local paper journalist in Watford. Tristan Garel-Jones was the MP then; he used to pop into our office once a week. He was very assiduous—I would recommend it! I do see this legislation benefiting them. It is more important to them than to anybody else.

[The Chair]

I will bring in Andy Carter to ask a brief question. I would like us to be able to wrap up soon to avoid detaining our witnesses for up to an hour. If everybody is agreed and there are no further questions other than Andy Carter’s, I will call him to ask his question.

Artificial Intelligence and the Labour Market

Dean Russell Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

It is a privilege to speak in this debate, and I thank the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mick Whitley) for securing it. I wanted to apply for it myself—he beat me to the chase, which is a wonderful thing.

Before I became an MP, one of my final clients was in the AI space. It dealt with artificial intelligence and psychology—I believe that my first entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests was my final bit of work for it—so I have seen this technology evolve over many years. We often talk about technology revolutions, but this has been an incredibly fast evolution.

We are seeing Moore’s law, which related to the size and scale of technology, affect society. The scale of what is happening right now is both inspirationally amazing and terrifying at the same time. It will absolutely shape the job market and the type of jobs that come through over the next few years. It will shape how people interface with their co-workers, with technology, with society and with politicians. It will affect every aspect of our lives.

I am particularly concerned about the use of artificial intelligence for deception. I have long said—not necessarily in the Chamber, so I put it on the record now—that there should be in law something that I would call the Turing clause. It would mean that when technology is used to deceive somebody into believing that they are talking to a real person or engaging with a real business, whether for entertainment or for any other purpose—for instance watching a deepfake, which is perhaps for entertainment purposes—it must be crystal clear to them that they are being deceived.

I will give some examples. I was recently speaking to somebody who works in the entertainment industry, running studios where they record sound, voiceovers and music. They said—I should declare that I do not know the scale of this issue and have not looked into the numbers—that lot of the studios are often being used to record voiceovers for AI companies, so that the AI can learn how to speak like a real person. We all know about fraud and scams in which somebody gets phoned up from a call centre and told, “Your insurance is up,” or by someone pretending to be from the Government. We saw, awfully, during the covid crisis how those horrible people would try to scam people. Doing that requires a number of people in a space.

Now imagine that AI can pretend to be somebody we know—a family member, for instance—and imitate their voice. It could call up and say, “I need some money now, because I am in trouble,” or, “I need some support.” Or it could say, “This is somebody from the Government; your tax affairs are an issue—send your details now.” There are a whole load of things going on in society that we will not know about until it is too late. That is why a Turing clause is absolutely essential, so that we are ahead of the curve on deception, deepfakes and areas where technology will be used to fool.

One incredibly important area in relation to the labour market that is not often talked about is the role of AI in creativity. DALL-E 2 is one of the tools, and there are many others popping up now. They can create artwork and videos almost at the speed of thought—typing in a particular phrase will create amazingly beautiful pictures—but they are pooling those from places where real artists and real musicians, with particular styles, have contributed. That is then presented as AI creativity. That could kill the graphic design industry. It could prevent people who are in the early stages of life as an artist, in both the visual and music worlds, from ever having an opportunity to be successful.

Just recently, Drake and the Weeknd—if I have those artists correct—had a song that was put online. I think that it even went on Spotify, but it was definitely on some streaming services. Everybody thought, “Gosh, this is a fantastic new collaboration.” It was not. It was AI pretending to be both of those artists with a brand new song. Artificial intelligence had created it. It was not until after the fact, and after the song had been streamed hundreds of thousands of times, that the big music companies said, “Hang on—that isn’t real. We need to stop this.” Then it was stopped.

In the case of social media, it took us many years to get to the fantastic Online Safety Bill. I was very fortunate to be on the Draft Online Safety Bill Joint Committee. Its Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), is in the room today, and he did a fabulous job. Getting to that point took 10 or 15 years. We do not have 10 or 15 months to legislate on AI. We probably do not have 10 or 15 weeks, given where we will be in a matter of days, with the new announcements and tools that are coming out.

[Dr Cameron]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making those extremely important points. Just last week, we had the Children’s Parliament at the all-party parliamentary group on the metaverse and web 3.0. The children were excited about the opportunities of AI and the metaverse, and we were told on the day that the World Economic Forum predicts that technology will create 97 million new jobs by 2025 alone. But like the hon. Gentleman, they were also very concerned about what is real and what is not, and they were concerned about the mental health impact of spending much of the day in an altered reality setting. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we need much more research into the mental health impact on staff and young people who are engaged in AI?

[Dean Russell]

I thank the hon. Member for her comments. Mental health is a passion of mine—I had a ten-minute rule Bill about ensuring that mental health first aiders are in the workplace—and I agree wholeheartedly. We saw that in evidence given to the Draft Online Safety Bill Joint Committee; Rio Ferdinand talked, including in his documentary, about the fact that what is said online can affect a person’s real life. The challenge with artificial intelligence is that it will not just be able to say those things; it will probably know precisely how to do the most harm, how to hit the right triggers to make people buy things and how to fool and deceive people to ensure they hand over money or their rights.

I will move on because I am conscious of time. I know we have quite a long time for this debate, but I do not intend to use it all; I promise. I think that the creativity part is absolutely essential. A few weeks ago, I predicted in Parliament that, in the next year or so, a No. 1 song will be created by artificial intelligence for the first time. I have no doubt that a No. 1 bestselling book will be written by artificial intelligence. I have no doubt that new songs in the voices of artists who are no longer around, such as Elvis Presley, will be released, and that actors who are sadly no longer alive will play starring roles in new films. We are seeing this already on a soft scale, but it is going to become more and more pervasive.

It is not all negative. I do not want to be a doomsayer. There are great opportunities: Britain—this wonderful country—could be the home of identifying and delivering transparency within those industries. We could be the country that creates the technology and the platforms to identify where artificial intelligence is being used; it could flag up when things are not real. It could, for example, force organisations to say who they are, what they are doing and whether they have used artificial intelligence. I think that will create a whole new world of labour markets and industries that will stem from this country and create all the jobs that we talked about earlier.

I am also concerned that we do not often talk in the same breath about artificial intelligence and robotics. In the industrial world, such as in warehouses and so on, there has been a rise in the use of robotics to replace real people. Office jobs are changing due to artificial intelligence. The role of accountants, of back-office staff and of both blue and white-collar workers will change.

As was stated earlier, the challenge with robotics is on things such as defence. Artificial intelligence is being used in robotics to get way ahead of the scale of where we are now. We really need to take that seriously. ChatGPT was probed. People tried to catch it out on different aspects of its response. When asked how it would steal the nuclear codes, it outlined how it would do it. I am not trying to give any bad actors out there any ideas, but it explained how it would use AI to control drones, and how they would be able to go in and do certain things. Hopefully, it got it all wrong. However, if AI is in not just our computers and mobile phones, but in drones and new robots that are incredibly sophisticated, incredibly small and not always identifiable, we need to be really wary.

There are many positives, such as for detection in the health sector and for identifying things such as breast cancer. Recently, I have seen lots of work about how artificial intelligence could be layered on the human aspect and insight, which was mentioned earlier, and enable the identification of things that we would not normally be able to see.

There is huge positive scope for using data. I have said previously that, if we were to donate our health data to live clinical trials in a way that was legitimate and pseudonymised, artificial intelligence could be used to identify a cure for cancer and for diseases that have affected our society for many centuries. In the same way that it has found new ways of playing chess, it might find new ways of changing and saving lives. There is great opportunity there.

Many years ago, I wrote an article called, “Me, Myself and AI”. In it, I commented on areas where AI is dangerous, but I also mentioned opportunities for positives. I would like to make one final point on this: we must also make sure that the data that goes into the AI is tracked not only for things such as royalties in creative industries, but for bias. I wrote an article on that a while ago. If we take a sample, say within a health context, and take that data based on only one ethnicity or demographic, the AI will develop options and solutions for that group. If we do not have the right data, regarding diversity, going into the analysis, we risk not being able to identify future issues. For example, sickle cell disease might get missed because the data that the AI is using is based only on clinical trials with white people.

There is a wide-ranging issue about what is being fed into the systems around AI and how we ensure that we identify where AI is being used—hence my point about a Turing clause when it comes to deception. We also need to know where it is being used, including in Government. We need to look at the opportunities, too: whole new industries around how we monitor AI, apply it and use the science of it.

AI is already there in the spelling of “Great Britain”. We have a great opportunity to be ahead of the curve, and we need to be because the curve will be moving beyond us within a matter of weeks or months—and definitely within years.

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[Richard Thomson]

I thank the hon. Member for that intervention. He has perhaps read ahead towards the conclusion of my speech, but it is an interesting dichotomy. Obviously, I know my biography best, but there are people out there, not in the AI world—Wikipedia editors, for example—who think that they know my biography better than I do in some respects.

However, to give the example, the biography generated by AI said that I had been a director at the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency, and, prior to that, I had been a senior manager at the National Trust for Scotland. I had also apparently served in the Royal Air Force. None of that is true, but, on one level, it does make me want to meet this other Richard Thomson who exists out there. He has clearly had a far more interesting life than I have had to date.

Although that level of misinformation is relatively benign, it does show the dangers that can be presented by the manipulation of the information space, and I think that the increasing use and application of AI raises some significant and challenging ethical questions.

Any computing system is based on the premise of input, process and output. Therefore, great confidence is needed when it comes to the quality of information that goes in—on which the outputs are based—as well as the algorithms used to extrapolate from that information to create the output, the purpose for which the output is then used, the impact it goes on to have, and, indeed, the level of human oversight at the end.

In March, Goldman Sachs published a report indicating that AI could replace up to 300 million full-time equivalent jobs and a quarter of all the work tasks in the US and Europe. It found that some 46% of administrative tasks and even 44% in the legal professions could be automated. GPT-4 recently managed to pass the US Bar exam, which is perhaps less a sign of machine intelligence than of the fact that the US Bar exam is not a fantastic test of AI capabilities—although I am sure it is a fantastic test of lawyers in the States.

Our fear of disruptive technologies is age-old. Although it is true to say that generally what we have seen from that disruption is the creation of new jobs and the ability to allow new technologies to take on more laborious and repetitive tasks, it is still extremely disruptive. Some 60% of workers are currently in occupations that did not exist in 1940, but there is still a real danger, as there has been with other technologies, that AI depresses wages and displaces people faster than any new jobs can be created. That ought to be of real concern to us.

In terms of ethical considerations, there are large questions to be asked about the provenance of datasets and the output to which they can lead. As The Guardian reported recently:

“The…datasets used to train the latest generation of these AI systems, like those behind ChatGPT and Stable Diffusion, are likely to contain billions of images scraped from the internet, millions of pirated ebooks”

as well as all sorts of content created by others, who do not get reward for its use; the entire proceedings of 16 years of the European Parliament; or even the entirety of the proceedings that have ever taken place, and been recorded and digitised, in this place. The datasets can be drawn from a range of sources and they do not necessarily lead to balanced outputs.

ChatGPT has been banned from operating in Italy after the data protection regulator there expressed concerns that there was no legal basis to justify the collection and mass storage of the personal data needed to train GPT AI. Earlier this month, the Canadian privacy commissioner followed, with an investigation into OpenAI in response to a complaint that alleged that the collection, use and disclosure of personal information was happening without consent.

This technology brings huge ethical issues not just in the workplace but right across society, but questions need to be asked particularly when it comes to the workplace. For example, does it entrench existing inequalities? Does it create new inequalities? Does it treat people fairly? Does it respect the individual and their privacy? Is it used in a way that makes people more productive by helping them to be better at their jobs and work smarter, rather than simply forcing them—notionally, at least—to work harder? How can we be assured that at the end of it, a sentient, qualified, empowered person has proper oversight of the use to which the AI processes are being put? Finally, how can it be regulated as it needs to be—beneficially, in the interests of all?

The hon. Member for Birkenhead spoke about and distributed the TUC document “Dignity at work and the AI revolution”, which, from the short amount of time I have had to scrutinise it, looks like an excellent publication. There is certainly nothing in its recommendations that anyone should not be able to endorse when the time comes.

I conclude on a general point: as processes get smarter, we collectively need to make sure that, as a species, we do not consequentially get dumber. Advances in artificial intelligence and information processing do not take away the need for people to be able to process, understand, analyse and critically evaluate information for themselves.

[Dean Russell]

This is one point—and a concern of mine—that I did not explore in my speech because I was conscious of its length. As has been pointed out, a speech has been given previously that was written by artificial intelligence, as has a question in Parliament. We politicians rely on academic research and on the Library. We also google and meet people to inform our discussions and debates. I will keep going on about my Turing clause—which connects to the hon. Gentleman’s point—because I am concerned that if we do not have something like that to highlight a deception, there is a risk that politicians will go into debates or votes that affect the government of this country having been deceived—potentially on purpose, by bad actors. That is a real risk, which is why there needs to be transparency. We need something crystal clear that says, “This is deceptive content” or “This has been produced or informed by AI”, to ensure the right and true decisions are being made based on actual fact. That would cover all the issues that have been raised today. Does the hon. Member share that view?

[Richard Thomson]

Yes, I agree that there is a very real danger of this technology being used for the purposes of misinformation and disinformation. Our democracy is already exceptionally vulnerable to that. Just as the hon. Member highlights the danger of individual legislators being targeted and manipulated—they need to have their guard up firmly against that—there is also the danger of people trying to manipulate behaviour by manipulating wider political discourse with information that is untrue or misleading. We need to do a much better job of ensuring we are equipping everybody in society with critical thinking skills and the ability to analyse information objectively and rationally.

Ultimately, whatever benefits AI can bring, it is our quality of life and the quality of our collective human capital that counts. AI can only and should only ever be a tool and a servant to that end.

Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Bill

Dean Russell Excerpts

3rd reading
Friday 24th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I rise in support of the Bill and I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) for her incredible work to ensure that it reached this stage. I also thank the Minister and his team for their work to ensure that it happened.

I am slightly biased, because I was a Minister for a short period and worked on the Bill with the hon. Lady. Its importance goes beyond politics and party lines, so I am pleased that hon. Members have come together to ensure that it goes through to the next stage. I hope that, when it reaches the House of Lords, the Lords realise how important it is to this place and to society. During the pandemic, and in the lead-up to it, society changed and flexible working became much more important to us, because the technology had finally caught up with where society wanted to be.

The challenge is that we live in a fast-paced, 24/7 world where it is easy to be switched on all the time. Sadly, some workplaces expect us to be switched on 24/7, which can be challenging for families, parents and everyone. It also means, however, that we can be switched on to work from home, when it is beneficial to be at home or to be flexible in the hours that we work, and so fulfil our duties as family members, parents, siblings and carers while delivering on the job at hand. Flexible working is often seen through the lens of workers, and that is absolutely right, but it is important that businesses know that it is also beneficial to them. Some employers already have lots of flexible working opportunities, and they do that not only for the right reasons, but because it is good for them, as it is good for employees, for productivity and for morale.

I want to raise several points about the Bill. First, it introduces a requirement for employers to consult with the employee before rejecting their flexible working request, which facilitates a more open and constructive dialogue between employers and employees. That is important, because to have that conversation in the first place enables action to be taken, but if the request cannot be achieved, the Bill would ensure there is an understanding of why, which ultimately may enable a future request. That is important because it opens employers’ eyes to the importance of flexible working to the employee.

Secondly, the Bill allows an employee to make two statutory requests in any 12-month period. That is important, because at the moment it is just one, and the problem is the stress on the individual. It is quite a moment when someone needs to go in and ask for time to be flexible within the workplace. For many, even asking makes them worry and fear that they will then be judged and that ask will be seen as negative. The Bill makes a level playing field by ensuring that both employee and employer are aware of why the flexible working request is important and what the benefits are, and ultimately what difference it will make to the employee.

Thirdly, the Bill reduces the decision period within which an employer is required to administer the statutory request from three months to two months, reducing undue delay for the employee, who is balancing multiple commitments. I have had a family member have to go into hospital, which all of a sudden throws everything out. It throws up the challenges of picking up one’s child from school and the worry about one’s family member—it picks up so many different issues that can affect someone within the workplace. It can affect what they are thinking about and where they can physically be at certain times. Making that request and knowing that one can get a response within two months rather than three makes a big difference. That could perhaps be even shorter, but I appreciate that for many employers, making a change within two months can be challenging in and of itself.

Fourthly, this important Bill removes the requirement that the employee must explain the statutory request, the effect the change would have on the employer and how that might be dealt with. That is crucial, because previously the employee had to explain to the employer how the request for time and flexible working practice would impact on the business. The challenge for employees is that they might not know the full context. They might not be able to make that argument. Someone working as a cleaner in a business might not know why the request has an impact on the wider business, but that does not mean the request is not still crucial or that it will have an impact on their ability to do their job.

Fifthly, it was pleasing to see in Committee that the amendment tabled on the entitlement to make flexible working applications from day one was accepted by the Government. That took a lot of time and effort to get right, because for some businesses the concern was that if they are doing it on day one, how can the person be judged on doing their job when they are not physically in work, and how can the impact of the request be judged? The amendment would enable any employee on day one to go in and say, “I’ve got a need to be flexible, but I can still offer something positive to the business and make sure that I am delivering.” This is about productivity and flexible working in the best possible way, but it is ultimately about ensuring fairness at the heart of workers’ rights and within businesses.

With the Employment (Allocation of Tips) Bill that I have been working on with my hon. Friend the Member for Ynys Môn (Virginia Crosbie), the key thing is workers’ rights, but it is also about fairness. In the workplace, we often go to work to make a life. We work to live or we live to work. Many of us in this place often live to work and we all love what we do 24/7, which is why we do what we do; it is about community and civic service. However, many people go to work to get a wage in order to go home and look after their family, and flexible working is a key part of that. When we are looking at this Bill, we have to make sure we are delivering on that part.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. We shall now observe the national one-minute silence to mark the one-year anniversary of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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[Hon. Members]

Slava Ukraini.

[Dean Russell]

Slava Ukraini. I pay tribute to all those in Ukraine at the moment, and to those with family here in the UK and around the world who are thinking of their loved ones and those who were lost.

I will finish my speech shortly. I just want to make a few comments about why this Bill is so important. Flexible working is not something people request for the sake of it. They often ask for a reason, be it a family reason or about being able to do their jobs better. It might be about enabling them to work at different hours from some of their colleagues but still be productive. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Bolton South East for bringing this Bill through. It will be transformative for this country, because it makes us competitive; it makes businesses competitive; it makes employees feel wanted and makes sure they are supported; it brings fairness into the workplace; and it makes sure that workers’ rights are at the heart of what we do, just as we have seen with many of the Bills that have been going through, especially the private Members’ Bills. I wholly support this Bill. I hope the House of Lords will make sure it passes quickly and can come into force as soon as possible.

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[James Daly]

Absolutely; that is clearly correct. We have to recognise that there are individuals in our country who are being excluded from the labour market, and ways have to be found to ensure that they have an equal opportunity.

[Dean Russell]

On that point, does my hon. Friend applaud the Watford inclusive jobs fair, which took place just this week? Step2Skills, Hertfordshire County Council, Watford and West Herts chamber of commerce and many other organisations came together to make that happen. When I visited, it was amazing that it had had over 500 people apply to join and over 30 business were attending. Does he think that would be a good way forward for every other constituency?

[James Daly]

Obviously, I applaud everything Watford-based, but my hon. Friend makes a very serious point—it was also made by the hon. Member for Bolton South East—which is that in order to make a difference, we must have such events. We must ensure that employers and others involved in the local economy, whether in Watford or elsewhere, take these issues seriously.

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[Greg Smith]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. As we look at this legislation, it is important that we do not just think about it through the lens of the private sector, but talk about public sector jobs as well.

I can only highlight the point I made a few moments ago about the challenges involved in getting driving licences issued in the time that our constituents wanted them to be issued. The problem in that example was an inability to do the job from home. Not only had the original documents been posted as good old-fashioned snail mail to Swansea; even when staff in the office scanned those documents and transferred them to a digital format, so that other staff could process them and judge whether a driving licence could be issued, the files were so enormous that they were not necessarily able to get through to the person working from home. We have to ensure that productivity is included in this debate. As others have said, certain jobs simply cannot be done from home. The technology is not necessarily there for absolutely everyone to receive hundreds of megabytes and gigabytes of data in order to do their job, so I very much agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North.

To conclude, Madam Deputy Speaker—

[Dean Russell]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Greg Smith]

I give way to my hon. Friend from just down the A41.

[Dean Russell]

As someone who sometimes gets stuck on the motorways and gets delayed, it is important to note that the Bill is not just about working from home; it is about time as well. Sometimes, getting into work an extra half-hour or hour later and then working an extra hour at the end of the day can make an immense difference, especially to people who need to take their kids to school or who have caring needs. It is important to frame the debate so that we are clear on that. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Greg Smith]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. This is the point that I was attempting to make earlier about childcare—that it is not about working from home or working from the office, but about timings and the ability to drop the kids at school at 9 am and not be penalised for going into the office at, for instance, 9.30 or 10 am. Similarly, many parents need to pick up their children from school at 3, 3.15 or 3.30. Employees, whether in the private or the public sector, need the ability, indeed the right, to negotiate with their employers something that works for them when it comes to picking the kids up from school and making sure they are looked after before and after school. Many schools offer some wonderful after-school clubs, but it is not possible for everyone to attend a breakfast club or an after-school club every day, so those timings are very important.

To actually conclude, Madam Deputy Speaker—[Laughter]—I once again congratulate the hon. Member for Bolton South East on taking her Bill to its Third Reading with cross-party support, and I look forward to its gaining Royal Assent very soon.