Artificial Intelligence Sector Deal

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Thursday 26th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

I am grateful for that guidance, Mr Speaker.

It is always good to see the Minister in her place. She certainly knows how to pack the House with her statements. I am sorry that I am not able to respond to the detail of her statement, but it only came to me by email at 11.25 am, so I was not able to see it in advance. None the less, it is good of her to show up and present her plans, which were first presented to The Times, rather than to Parliament. It is welcome that the Government have now decided to step into the breach where a policy should be. It is a shame that the Minister has allowed the French, the Americans, the South Koreans and the Chinese to get there first, but better late than never.

From what I can divine from what the Minister said to the House, no new money has been announced today. Rather, a top-down earmarked amount of cash has already been handed out to research councils. That is fine as far as it goes, but it is an awful long way short of the £1 billion of funding that President Macron has just announced to support artificial intelligence in France.

As the Minister knows, a strong AI sector in this country will be built on three basic foundations: good networks, which support the internet of things; trust, which supports big data; and skills, which require a great education system. Today, our science spend is, I am afraid, in the second league, our digital networks are lamentable, our framework of trust is hopelessly out of date—in fact, we still have no date for the Data Protection Bill returning to this House—and our skills base is alarmingly thin. Indeed, the Government prayed in aid Jérôme Pesenti in their strategy this morning, but he was told by the Government that he was not allowed to look at the maths curriculum, as he told the House of Lords Artificial Intelligence Committee when he was giving evidence to its inquiry. That is why we call for science spend not at 2.4% of GDP, but up at 3%. We think there should be universal provision of networks at 30 megabits per second, a Bill of digital rights to restore trust and a national education service to restore the skills base.

In the interests of brevity, Mr Speaker, I have some specific questions for the Minister. First, the sector plan makes great play of a £2.5 billion investment fund delivered by the British Business Bank. Is this just for AI, or for innovation generally? Is it DEL—departmental expenditure limit—funding or loan guarantees? Is it intended to deliver grants or loans? When does that money come online? Is it, in other words, spin over substance?

Secondly, the Minister will know that artificial intelligence will accelerate the destruction of existing jobs, so when will we have a White Paper on the future of work? This will be a G20 agenda item in November. We have heard nothing about the Government’s plans to explore this and put in place adequate protections for workers today.

Thirdly, where is the strategy to harness Government procurement, with a cross-Whitehall futures unit, to use the power of Government to drive forward this agenda? That is the way that every other western, and eastern, nation drives its science and tech investment. Why are the Government not doing this?

This morning, the Bank of England published figures showing that this Government have presided over the worst productivity figures since the late 18th century. If we are to be masters of the fourth industrial revolution, as we were of the first, the Government will have to do an awful lot better than this.

[Margot James]

I apologise if the right hon. Gentleman received my statement such a short time ago. That was certainly not my intention. I shortened my statement in anticipation of Mr Speaker’s wish for brevity, and perhaps that delayed matters.

It is a shame that the right hon. Gentleman’s response was pretty overwhelmingly negative, given that we start from a good base in this country with our world-leading institutions and our state of readiness. Oxford Insights, which I mentioned in my statement, has put us at No. 1 across the world on its Government AI readiness index. He referred to other countries, predominantly in Asia, which are indeed investing hugely in this area. [Interruption.] He mentions Macron from a sedentary position; he also mentioned him in his response. We are of course delighted that President Macron is also seeing the potential for AI. There is nothing wrong with that. We are a global-facing country. It is great that our partners in Europe are also committing to this agenda.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned the importance of data and digital performance in this country. The UK is in a very competitive position in terms of digital performance. We now have 95% access to superfast broadband, which was delivered by the end of last year. Only yesterday, I was at a meeting with all the successful parts of the country that bid for the 5G test bed and pilot programme, which will put us in a pivotal position to take advantage of the internet of things. These test beds and pilots extend right across the country, from the Orkney Islands to the south-west of England, and a new wave of bids will be announced this summer. We are very determined on this front.

The right hon. Gentleman asked about the British Business Bank. I can assure him that this is new money that will be provided to tech start-ups and tech scale-ups via both equity finance and loans. I remind him that as of September last year, the British Business Bank had supported, through a combination of loans and equity finance, very many tech companies to the tune of £350 million. We are building on success.

The right hon. Gentleman talked about the future of work. This is an extremely important issue. Of course, we recognise that we are in for a fast ride here. The pace of technological change is such that momentous changes that are not always predictable can potentially displace groups of workers. We are very cognisant of the need to smooth the path through continuous training. The industrial strategy has at its heart improving the world of work and access to retraining throughout people’s lives, so that no one is left behind by these technological advances.

Finally, on that critical subject, the Government’s response to the Taylor review and the consultations that we announced at the beginning of the year will be out at some point this summer, and I am sure that the points raised by the right hon. Gentleman about the future of work in the context of technological advance will be taken extremely seriously.