Social Media and Screen Use: Young People’s Health

Debate between Jo Swinson and Norman Lamb

Thursday 7th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

The hon. Lady makes a valuable point, and I am conscious that teenagers and young people can get online access to advice, guidance and support to help them through difficult periods of their life, and encourage them to seek help from others. We must recognise that and ensure that our approach to this issue is balanced, both recognising the potential harms and understanding the positive aspects of social media.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

I congratulate my right hon. Friend and his Committee on the production of this excellent report. Does he agree that as new technology develops, and particularly as we hand more control over to algorithms, there is an urgent need to ensure that ethical considerations are fully thought through at the design stage? In addition to the specific regulation that he envisages, we also need a more general code of data ethics—a sort of Hippocratic oath, perhaps, for developers and data scientists—to ensure that those principles are thought through as technology is developed. Would he support my campaign for such a code to be named after Ada Lovelace?

[Norman Lamb]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution, and I would support her campaign. I also agree about the importance of designing ethics into the way that algorithms operate. Indeed, this week our Committee took evidence from the head of the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, and there is an important discussion to be had. Although there are rapid developments on the ground with the Government using algorithms in all sorts of different ways, we do not fully understand how to ensure an ethical framework that protects people from bias and can be built into the data used by algorithms. If such bias become embedded into the algorithms there are very dangerous potential outcomes, and my hon. Friend is correct to say that we need to get this right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Jo Swinson and Norman Lamb

Thursday 15th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Norman Lamb]

First, may I say that I appreciated the kind words of welcome from the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Edinburgh South (Ian Murray)? I guess that wishing me a modicum of success is about as good as it will get, so I thank him for that.

I appreciated the chance to debate the issue of post office closures, and particularly the temporary closure, because of the sudden resignation of the sub-postmaster, in the village of Torphichen in the constituency of the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty). I absolutely confirm that Post Office Ltd will always abide by the code of practice to ensure that action is taken quickly to restore post office services wherever possible. In his village community, everything is being done to restore those services.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

I welcome my hon. Friend to his new position.

Under the last Government, post offices closed in my constituency in Courthill, Auchinairn, Westerton, Killermont and elsewhere, so I very much welcome the Government’s £1.3 billion of investment in the post office network. Will the Minister outline what the next steps will be in modernising the network so that we can all be certain that it will have a secure and sustainable future in all our constituencies?

[Norman Lamb]

I thank my hon. Friend. I am proud of the fact that the Government are investing £1.34 billion in ensuring that we retain the post office network, in marked contrast to the Labour party, which spent public money on closing down great chunks of the network. There is a lot of work to be done, and we particularly need to ensure that the post office becomes the front office of both local and national Government services. Post Office Ltd has already had significant success in that regard.