Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation

Debate between Margot James and Peter Bottomley

Tuesday 20th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Margot James]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. First, I should make it clear that the centre is not a new regulator. It will be an advisory body, which, for its first year or so, will be in the business of advising the Government and leading public debate on serious ethical issues associated with artificial intelligence. However, I can give a positive response to his question about its independence. It will become independent, and it will be placed on a statutory footing as soon as parliamentary time is available for us to introduce the necessary legislation. We fully intend this body to be totally independent of the Government in due course. Only on that basis, I believe, will it become the world-leading authority on data ethics and innovation that we want it to be in the future.

The right hon. Gentleman asks what the centre will do about online hate speech and other well-known online harms, which my Department and, indeed, the whole Government take extremely seriously. Earlier this year, we published a response to the Green Paper on internet safety, in which we stated that we were working on a White Paper that would explore various options, including legislation and statutory regulation to hold internet companies, particularly social media platforms, to account, and that we intended to produce legislation when parliamentary time permitted. We regard that area as separate from the ethical issues on which the new centre will advise public debate and the Government.

The right hon. Gentleman mentions data protection. As he knows, that is regulated by the Information Commissioner, who has been involved in the development of the centre. He also mentions competition and the concentration of huge amounts of market power in the hands of a few companies. I am sure that many Members on both sides of the House share that concern, but it is very much a matter for the Competition and Markets Authority rather than for the new centre.

The right hon. Gentleman asks whether the centre will advise on Google’s decision to move parts of the healthcare practice of DeepMind to its Californian headquarters. As DeepMind and Google are private corporations, it is not up to the Government to pass comment on how they manage their affairs, but it is, of course, up to the new centre to opine on the practices and code of corporate governance of companies with which public services and Government contracts might work in the future. So there is a connection for the centre, albeit a rather tenuous one.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I hope that the centre will work in collaboration with the Open Data Institute, founded by Sir Nigel Shadbolt and Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Work on open data can make a significant difference both to people with new industries and to us in the House. The Leasehold Knowledge Partnership, of which I am a patron, can use open data in a way that makes the Government start to change its approach to residential leasehold. I am sure that we can use information of this kind to make our job better, and to make a better economy.

[Margot James]

I thank my hon. Friend for his suggestions. The Open Data Institute is just the sort of organisation that the new centre will work with and consult.