Deafblindness: Emerging Technologies

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 27th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for raising her Question this week, which is, of course, Deafblind Awareness Week. I take this opportunity to pass my very best wishes to those who suffer from the affliction and those who work with them.

The Government are working with providers of technology of all different sizes in this space. The noble Baroness referred to Google’s new centre for technology for disabled people, which highlights its recognition that the UK is the right place for it to operate in this market. I could point to a number of fascinating new innovations by smaller organisations, but I will restrict myself to just one: BrightSign has created a life-changing AI-based smart glove, giving voice to the voiceless by enabling sign language users to communicate without an interpreter.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister rightly identified that there are many excellent technologies using smartphones and tablets that are designed to help those who are deafblind achieve greater independence. I too congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy, on raising this Question during Deafblind Awareness Week. What co-ordination role does the new department, DSIT, have in this respect—there are many departments, and a couple have been mentioned already—and what resources does it have to help with training and information on these vital technologies?

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

As the noble Lord rightly points out, identifying the appropriate technologies by scanning the horizon for those that will be of most impact and use is, and must be, a cross-governmental matter. I take every opportunity to urge my fellow Ministers to fight the good fight in this respect. DSIT’s role is as the provider and exemplar of technology use to all of government and the public sector, and indeed all of the UK, but all government departments recognise their responsibility to continuously identify ways to use technology and to make technology in the United Kingdom as accessible as it can possibly be.

Emergency Communications

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

Following the failure of the system, three strands of investigation have been put in place. First, BT is performing its own internal investigation. Secondly, Ofcom is engaging directly with BT, which it is required to regulate. Thirdly, based on the findings of those two, there will be the Government’s lessons learned approach. The combination of all those will allow us to learn lessons to improve future resilience of the system.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, one of the worrying things about this incident is not the failure of the main 999 service itself—although that is bad enough—but the failure of the back-up as well. The Minister will know that I have raised the issue of the changeover from analogue to digital on a consistent basis, particularly BT’s digital voice changeover. This changeover from analogue to digital creates huge risks. Will the Minister say whether the incident report will also include a wider look at the changeover from analogue to digital? There are huge risks involved in this. This is critical infrastructure, and in the case of emergency, it is even more important that we have an analogue back-up to our digital services.

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I pay tribute to the noble Lord’s frequent correspondence with me on this subject and recognise the importance of what he says. I do not want to prejudge the findings of the deep root-cause analysis that will now be going on at both BT and Ofcom level, but I will make sure that that question is at least asked, and asked forcefully.

Artificial Intelligence

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

We must recognise that China is ranked number two in AI capabilities globally, and we would not therefore envisage excluding China from any such discussions on how to deal best with the frontier risks of AI. That said, in the way we approach China and involve it in this, we need to take full cognisance of the associated risks. Therefore, we will engage effectively with our partners to assess the best way forward.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, in a recent speech the Minister rightly said that AI regulation clarity is critical. How on earth, in trying to achieve this, is he going to reconcile the AI White Paper’s tentative and voluntary sectoral approach to AI governance with the Prime Minister saying that unregulated AI poses an existential threat to humanity and with his desire to lead the world in AI safety and regulation? Does this mean that a screeching U-turn is in prospect?

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. The starting point for the AI White Paper—of which I do not accept the characterisation of tentative—was, first, not to duplicate existing regulators’ work; secondly, not to go after specific technologies, because the technology space is changing so quickly; and, thirdly, to remain agile and adaptive. We are seeing the benefits of being agile and adapting to a very rapidly shifting landscape.

Science and Technology Superpower (Science and Technology Committee Report)

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Wednesday 7th June 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register, in particular as chair of the council of Queen Mary University of London. This has been a wide-ranging debate, demonstrating that the committee’s report, despite being nearly a year old, still has great currency and relevance and its conclusions are as valid as they were a year ago. I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, for her clear, comprehensive and challenging introduction to the report.

Many noble Lords mentioned the Government’s science superpower ambition. The “hot air” comment from the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, was pretty fair. Sir James Dyson was even ruder, describing the Government’s science superpower ambition as a political slogan. There is probably a common view that it should be dropped, but it being clearly overblown as a slogan should not detract from the fact that there are opportunities in so many different fields, as many noble Lords have said.

I very much liked the way in which the noble Lords, Lord Holmes and Lord Krebs, both talked about the secret—the essence—of success in terms of collaboration and cocreation. The noble Lord, Lord Krebs, mentioned long-termism, openness, freedom of inquiry and the fact that those lessons had not been learned. As the committee noted and a number of noble Lords have said, we have had a proliferation of strategies in various areas, but with what follow up and plans for delivery? We have had a whole series of reviews, some of which were mentioned by the noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, but where is the result? What will the KPIs be? What is the shelf life of these reviews and where is the practical implementation?

I will take just one example: the Life Sciences Vision, which was launched back in 2021. Dame Kate Bingham is quoted as believing that the vaccine scheme legacy has been “squandered” despite that vision. Business investment is crucial and nowhere more than in the life sciences sector. A couple of weeks ago, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, highlighted the issues relating to business investment in the life sciences sector in his regret Motion on the Branded Health Service Medicines (Costs) (Amendment) Regulations 2023. All the levers to create incentives for the development of new medicines are under government control but, as his Motion noted, the UK’s share of global pharmaceutical R&D fell by more than one-third between 2012 and 2020.

The noble Lord rightly argued that the voluntary and statutory pricing schemes for new medicines are becoming a major impediment to future investment in the UK. We seem to be treating the pharma industry as some kind of golden goose so, despite the Government’s Life Sciences Vision, we see Eli Lilly pulling investment on laboratory space in London because the UK

“does not invite inward investment at this time”

and AstraZeneca has decided to build its next plant in Ireland because of the UK’s discouraging tax rate. The excellent O’Shaughnessy report on clinical trials is all very well, but if there is no commercial incentive to develop and launch new medicines here, why should pharma companies want to engage in clinical trials here? The Chancellor’s growth package for the life sciences, announced on 25 May, fails to tackle this crucial aspect, and I could repeat that for other sectors.

On these Benches, we welcome the creation of the new department and the launch of the Science and Technology Framework to inform the work of the department to 2030, but what are the key priority outcomes? What concrete plans for delivery lie behind it? Does it explicitly supersede all the visions and strategies that have gone before? The crux of this committee’s report seems to me to accord with that. It states:

“The Government should set out specifically what it wants to achieve in each of the broad areas of science and technology that it has identified. There should be a clear implementation plan.”


It also stated that,

“the Government should consolidate existing sector-specific strategies”

into that implementation plan.

We have heard from a number of Lords about vital cross-departmental working and joining up government on science and technology, but we do not yet really know the role of the National Science and Technology Council and what its key priorities are and, indeed, what the priorities of the Office for Science and Technology Strategy are.

This applies particularly with regard to the Home Office’s policy on visas. We heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, my noble friends Lady Walmsley and Lady Northover, and the noble Lord, Lord Patel, about the fact that the policy on visas and migration is directly at odds with an effective science policy. If we are going to be world-leading in our approach to research and mobility, we need to correct that in many different ways.

There are important systemic issues that should be a top priority for resolution by the new department. We have had the independent review by Sir Paul Nurse, which has been mentioned. I suspect he has calculated our spending in a rather different way from the way that the department has, but he concluded that funding, particularly provided by government, was limited and below that of other competitive nations such as Germany, South Korea and US. My noble friend Lady Walmsley asked whether we track how other nations are spending.

There is the question of Horizon, which we have disproportionately benefited from in the past, yet we have a complete lack of clarity in this area, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Brown and Lady Bennett, the noble Viscount, Lord Stansgate, the noble Lord, Lord Mair, and my noble friend Lady Walmsley said. We need a clear commitment to re-entering Horizon. What is the position nearly two months after the Prime Minister’s letter to Sir Adrian Smith on 14 April assuring him about our intentions on Horizon? Many other nations that are not members of the European Union belong to Horizon.

The way the UK delivers and supports research is not optimal. We have heard from a number of noble Lords about the way that the bureaucracy of UKRI operates. The Tickell review found that there are issues with bureaucracy around research and development funding. As the noble Lord, Lord Rees, says, it is extraordinary that ARIA was specifically designed to avoid bureaucracy. Its budget is tiny in comparison to UKRI, yet we have not reformed the processes of UKRI to make them less bureaucratic.

The noble Viscount, Lord Hanworth, talked about the role of university research, and others talked about the research excellence framework. We seem to have a rather perverse approach to this. As the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said, we should encourage strategic partnerships, which should be very much part of the warp and weft of what we are trying to achieve. At the moment, our research in universities is cross-subsidised by overseas students, which is an extraordinary state of affairs. We really need to look at that in some detail.

With the greatest respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Bennett, commercialisation is a crucial aspect linking R&D to economic growth. This, in turn, means the need for a consistent industrial strategy—as the noble Baroness, Lady Brown, and my noble friend Lady Northover said—with the right commercial incentives and an understanding of the value of intangible assets, such as IP and data. The noble Lord, Lord Mair, talked about catapults—I am a huge fan of them—and he was entirely right to raise the resources and the strategy that is being pursued. An update from the Minister on that would be extremely welcome.

There are many other aspects to do with the scale-up finance issues, which Sir Patrick Vallance mentioned in his evidence to the Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee last month. We have seen the whole question of listing problems in London, as well as the delay in the pension fund issue and helping to de-risk their investment in new technology—I have seen the new initiative from the British Business Bank, which is long overdue. Then we have the whole question of regulatory divergence. I disagree with those who, like the noble Lord, Lord Wei, seem to think that, if we stand out in terms of regulation, everything will be fine. Regulatory divergence is one of the real problems; it creates uncertainty. We need to align ourselves in so many ways. I could have given a whole speech on AI regulation, but I have desisted. However, needless to say, I am highly critical of the Government’s White Paper in this respect.

Finally, the whole area of diversity in STEM is absolutely crucial. In the wise words of the British Science Association, we must ensure that the opportunities and benefits are equitable in any future science strategy. There is not enough time to go into that, but I believe that that could be a real key to unlocking so much of our success. I do not have time to mention pure maths, but we also need to look at that.

There is much to do for the new department. I wish the Minister and his colleagues well, and I am sure that they will rise to the challenge. But we need to create the kind of consensus that the noble Lord, Lord Rees, advocated. That is another secret to success.

Data Protection

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for his question. My first observation is that Palantir is a very good illustration of some of the new technology providers we are seeing, because the value it was able to provide and demonstrate is very great. However, the perfectly legitimate concerns about data privacy are, none the less, equally great. Any organisation operating in the UK or processing the personal data of people in the UK must comply with our strong and internationally renowned data protection laws, and those laws set out robust penalties for those who do not, including, as necessary, Palantir. Lastly, with respect to the Secretary of State’s remarks, the intention is by no means to reduce the requirement for data protection, merely in some cases to make it more straightforward to demonstrate that the requirements are being met.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I join in welcoming the noble Viscount to the Dispatch Box in his role as the first Minister for AI and IP—I think it is the first time those two responsibilities have been joined together. I wish him every success. Given that there is a new data protection Bill in the Commons, does he agree that it would be highly damaging to our AI developers if we were to diverge too widely from the EU GDPR and risk access to the datasets on which they rely so heavily?

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord and pay tribute to his expertise and knowledge in the area, of which I look forward to taking full advantage. The EU adequacy requirements are uppermost in our minds in continuing our ability to maintain the data relationship with it. I note that EU adequacy does not set out any particular legislative requirements to maintain adequacy, judged as it is on outcomes of data protection rather than its specific mechanisms. I am told that there are currently 14 jurisdictions that meet EU adequacy but have different legislative approaches to acquiring it. Our well-founded ambition is to be among them as well.