Artificial Intelligence: Public Services

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

As I mentioned, there are three AI exemplars being used at the moment. They are: future customer experience; citizen AI agents —so starting with an AI agent to help young people to find a job or an education pathway; and the government efficiency accelerator. In all these examples, procurement is exactly one of the things that needs to be looked at. I have mentioned previously in this House that AI assurance services are part of this as well. The point raised, which is that it is easy to get the wrong thing, is right, and we need to look very carefully at this.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

Back in January, the Blueprint for Modern Digital Government stated the intention to establish

“an AI adoption unit to build and deploy AI into public services, growing AI capacity and capability across government, and building trust, responsibility and accountability into all we do”.

How will this new AI adoption unit ensure that ethical principles, safety standards and human rights considerations are embedded from the very beginning of the AI adoption process throughout the public sector rather than being treated as a secondary concern after deployment?

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

The deployment of AI has started, as the noble Lord recognised, and I have given the three headline exemplars—and others are being put in through the incubator for AI that sits within DSIT. He raises a crucial point, and that is why the responsible AI advisory panel is being set up, which will include civil society, industry and academia to make sure that this is looked at properly. An ethics unit is already looking at this, and there are many diverse groups across government. What the Government Digital Service is trying to do is to pull it together into something more coherent, of which I think the responsible AI advisory panel is an important part.