Court Reporting Data

Lord Jackson of Peterborough Excerpts

Wednesday 11th February 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. In fact, there was no contract; it was a licensing agreement. Our view is that there was a clear breach of the licensing agreement, and that is why we were concerned. The real issue is Courtsdesk’s lack of candour with us when this came to our attention. If there was no problem, why did Courtsdesk not ask us about it or even tell us that that was what it was doing?

[Lord Jackson of Peterborough (Con)]

My Lords, it is worth saying that there has been a substantive rebuttal by the CEO of Courtsdesk, to which I understand the Government have not responded. I have no vested interest in this issue, but it is a matter of fact that Courtsdesk has gone to extensive lengths to protect victims’ personal data and ensure that it was handled responsibly and securely. This included working only with security-cleared engineers and building its AI test features in an encrypted sandbox environment, hosted in the EU, that is automatically and permanently deleted every 24 hours. Is it not the case that there has been a misunderstanding, and that this company has been treated quite shabbily by the Government?

[Baroness Levitt (Lab)]

Absolutely not. The first thing I would say in reply to the rebuttal put up very recently by the chief executive of Courtsdesk—it went up during my meeting with officials earlier this morning to discuss this issue—is, they would say that, wouldn’t they? Secondly, if there was nothing wrong with this, why did they not ask us and tell us they were doing it?