Lord Hintze debates involving the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology during the 2024 Parliament

Employment: Artificial Intelligence

Lord Hintze Excerpts
Monday 13th July 2026

(3 weeks, 6 days ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Hintze Portrait Lord Hintze (Con)
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My Lords—

Lord Kennedy of Southwark Portrait Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
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My Lords, it is the turn of the Cross Benches, then the Conservative Benches.

Baroness Lloyd of Effra Portrait Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
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The noble Baroness raises an important point. The development of technology and what can be augmented leaves the human aspect very much to the fore, which can include issues around discernment and judgment. The Government have a number of courses and training opportunities—for example, to support businesses in management. I know that the Office for Students is looking carefully at what all this means for higher education, for example, and the Department for Education has provided a range of advice to schools about this. The noble Baroness’s point is well made and is something that the future of work unit will look at, among its other considerations.

Lord Hintze Portrait Lord Hintze (Con)
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My Lords, the Minister has been very clear on how much it will cost. But it is not clear to me, and not for the first time, how effective the Government’s money—taxpayers’ money—will be when it is spent in this way.

Baroness Lloyd of Effra Portrait Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
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Some of the programmes that I have mentioned, including the TechFirst programme, have been running for some time. TechFirst has been successfully run and we learn from what is effective. We work carefully with partners to deliver these programmes. They are seeing good outcomes in the alumni who then go into the industry.