Easter Adjournment

Martin Vickers Excerpts

Thursday 30th March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Dr Luke Evans (Bosworth) (Con)]

I have learned since coming into Parliament that there are many pleasant surprises in this place—indeed, your becoming the Chair during this debate, Mr Vickers, is one—and it is another pleasant surprise to see the Deputy Chief Whip, the Treasurer of His Majesty’s Household, my right hon. Friend the Member for Nuneaton (Mr Jones), here in Westminster Hall to respond to us. I am much more accustomed to seeing him sitting next to me as we fight for the A5 to be improved between Tamworth and Hinckley, in my patch.

Today, I will talk about my surprise at the constant phone calls I have received about the use of TikTok. There is no more timely or pleasant a surprise than to have at least an hour in which to talk about the ins and outs of TikTok. I come at the subject as someone without any technical expertise in digital programming, but with a curiosity and an appetite to keep up with the times and to try to hold on to my youth by picking up these tools. When Facebook first came out in the UK, I was on it, starting in 2004. I try to use these kinds of tools to find out a little bit more about them, which I find interesting.

With so much going on with TikTok, the likes of social media and, of course, artificial intelligence, we as a society are left in a very interesting place as to how we should deal with these things. I am privileged enough to be able to ask questions of the people who matter and to try to come up with some ideas about how we can deal with such issues. Over the next hour—well, probably the next five minutes—I will talk a little bit about my background, including how I became interested in this area, what I see at the moment and the way I see things going in the future.

I came into this area through my work on body image. Many Members will know that I campaign about social media and the warped sense that we create around the body, particularly body proportions—simply, scaling up biceps, slimming down waists, making breasts larger—in our pursuit of what we as a society deem beautiful. This also has an impact on mental health. More recently, my work has led me to consider the use of steroids. We know that there are between 500,000 and 1 million people in the UK using steroids, mainly to try to fit an aspiration of what they want to look like. Such issues lead to huge problems societally, from people simply feeling bullied or not good enough, which leads to anxiety, depression and—in the worst cases—to suicide, eating disorders, and heart attacks and strokes if they are addicted to steroids.

Social media has a lot to answer for. I knew nothing about TikTok when I came into Parliament. I did not meet TikTok representatives until, after I had met Instagram, Facebook and Snapchat, they offered to meet me during the pandemic. I thought that I needed to know a little bit more about what TikTok was, because, like many people, I assumed that it was just people—particularly young women—dancing and talking. How wrong could I have been?

TikTok is an incredible community, because it is so varied and diverse. It is no wonder that at least 16 million people in the UK use it and that it is still growing very fast. The reason for that is the ability to seek knowledge and to learn very, very quickly on such a user-friendly platform. It is engaging, exciting and really easy to use. That is where I saw an opportunity, from my side, to try to explain the role of Parliament. What do we do on a daily basis? How is legislation introduced? Why do we only shake each other’s hand once? Why do we turn round in Prayers? What even are Prayers? How do we form an opinion? What does a Committee look like? How does a piece of legislation go through? What does a parliamentary private secretary do? I have shared videos on all those subjects. There is even the question of how we decide where we sit, when we sit and what that looks like. There is a huge amount of public fascination out there with how we deal with and what we do in our niche, which is politics.

To give Members an idea of how powerful TikTok is, a simple video about how people sit in Parliament and where the Speaker is was seen by 750,000 people. However, it goes even further than that. During the tributes to the Queen, I was the 274th speaker out of the 283 speakers on the day, sitting there for 10 hours, explaining that and reading a poem that had gone viral on social media. My video about all that has been seen by 1.9 million people. That is the power of this app.

TikTok is so user-friendly is because it is easy to interact, to duet or to stitch—that is, people can made videos straight away with someone else when they are both looking at TikTok. That is the beauty of it, but, of course, that in itself is part of the problem.

Where does that leave us now? In the last few weeks, I have seen a lot of concern and caution, and hype and hysteria. That came out particularly in the congressional hearing in America. I have not watched all four or five hours of the CEO taking questions, but having spent three years on a Select Committee, I have some understanding of how those questions are formulated, the briefings and what people are trying to elicit. What struck me was that lack of understanding from some on the panel and the lack of clarity from the tech companies that were answering the questions.

What do I mean by that? For hon. Members who have never used these apps, some of the questions might seem quite silly, but they have a serious undertone. It is important to ask how the apps connect to the wi-fi, but a child would know that apps need to connect to the wi-fi. The question underneath that needs to be: once it is connected to the wi-fi, what else can it connect to?

One of the questioners asked about following pupils and using facial recognition. The CEO is completely right to say that they need that to map pupils to know where the sunglasses go. Anyone who has played with the app, particularly the “bold glamour” filter, which has gone viral, will know that it is incredibly powerful in changing one’s shape and the way one looks in a very subtle way. Naturally, the technology needs to be able to pick up those facial points to be able to do that, so the CEO was correct to say that the app follows the user’s face. The question is, what happens with that data? When is it being done, and when else is the company using it? Those questions were not answered in that hearing. In my private meetings, I cannot get answers to those kinds of questions. There lies the concern. This is not just aimed at TikTok; it relates to Instagram and Snapchat—all the platforms have a similar problem. When we flick on and load up an app, it asks for permission to use the microphone or camera, and we have to do that to interact with the app, but to what end, how far and what does that mean? That is the crux.

I will bypass the issue of where the data goes and TikTok being owned by ByteDance—frankly, even as a politician, I do not know whether the Chinese Communist party has access to that data. After listening to the hearing, I am not sure that anyone else is quite sure either. Those are some of the obscurities in the debate. We need to think much more about what we need to know, what can be done with this technology and, more importantly, what is being done with it. The realms of possibility and probability are very different.

That comes down to managing risk. The public and, indeed, politicians have a particularly poor grasp of the difference between absolute and relative risk. As a GP, I spent a lot of my time dealing with this issue. If I told someone that the risk of taking the contraceptive pill had gone up twofold, they would panic, but if I told them that it had gone up from one in 20,000 to two in 20,000, that is not as scary. We need to know the absolute and relative risks of using this data, and for whom.

It is right for the Government to ban an app on Government devices if the risk is high, given the fact that the Prime Minister is probably a high-value target, but does that apply to a teenager who is watching educational videos? We simply do not know, and that is the problem for someone sitting in the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero and trying to find the answers to such questions. By shining a light on this issue and having this debate, I hope that we can get some transparency on what is going on with our data, what it looks like and what the capabilities are.

That leads me on to where we should be going in the future. We are at the forefront of the AI technology revolution. In this debate at Christmas, I delivered the first speech written by OpenAI with ChatGPT. We are already on the fourth iteration of ChatGPT. For hon. Members who do not know what that means, it is quite literally able to design an app by looking at something written on a napkin. It will deliver speeches. It will write copy. Many MPs may well be using it to answer hundreds of items of correspondence and give their opinions, because it can source data from across the internet, condense it all and use it in a practicable way. It is fundamentally changing the way in which we as society use this data.

Some Members may have seen that Elon Musk has put out a letter saying that we should pause AI development for six months because of the dangers of AI. Now, I think that is probably an exaggeration, but he makes a point for this House to consider: we need to think very hard and very quickly about how we can ensure that AI development is done safely, but in a way that does not stifle innovation and investment or stop the UK being one of the world leaders in this field.

I am pleased to see the Government bringing forward Data Protection and Digital Information (No. 2) Bill and their AI White Paper. Fundamentally, underneath this whole issue are two parts: data and algorithms. The sheer scale of the data we can draw on means that inherent biases are built in and no one can give an answer as to why an algorithm has made its decision. With some probability, they will be able to say it is likely to have made a decision, but if it is scouring the entirety of the Department for Work and Pensions’ records across the Department’s existence to decide the right amount of support someone should receive without rigorous human oversight, we are going to be in real trouble. Imagine that happening with passport applications or applications to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and even into the financial world and back into social media.

This is all happening at pace right in front of our eyes. We, as the public and as legislators, need to better understand what data we have, who it is about and who it is for, why we are using it and how long we are going to allow people to do that. While that will start to help with transparency, for the algorithms themselves we need much more accountability regarding who uses them and how they are used. When I put this to the likes of TikTok, Facebook or anyone else in the click-based economy, I am simply told, “It’s commercially sensitive,” or, “We have a team. It’s very complicated and difficult over here.” That simply is not good enough, because either maliciously or by accident people are being sent huge amounts of content and we rely more and more on algorithms.

To my mind, as a simple person who has stepped into this with no expertise but with the privilege of having the opportunity to ask questions to those who lead and think in this field, there is space for a regulator of algorithms to link the issue to data—not in every single Department or looking into every single niche, but to try to bring this all together. There is a danger that if we outsource this issue to the finance world, or have specific ones for social media or health, they may diverge. We need the specialisms in how this works, but we also need to work in a similar fashion to the way the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency dealt with the vaccines: we must regulate as we move forward at the pace of industry. If we can do that now that we have the Brexit benefits of being free to set our own regulation, we have a real opportunity to set the course for the rest of the world on this area.

To come full circle, I will follow the Government guidance and keep using TikTok. We must think very carefully about how we should secure and use our data, but, of course, as that advice changes as we learn more, we should all take that on board. We should all think very carefully about what we are doing and make those changes accordingly.

[Martin Vickers (in the Chair)]

I now call the SNP spokesperson, Chris Stephens.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) for leading today’s debate. As always, we have discussed a great range of issues. It has been a really interesting debate, and I am certainly learning a lot. It is good to see the pre-recess Adjournment debate on tour here in Westminster Hall, although I hope that we get back into the main Chamber in the future.

I will start with a short apology to the pupils at Caldicot School. I was originally due to be with them this afternoon for their Easter musical “Back to the ’80s”, which was the decade in which I misspent my youth. I am sorry to miss it, and I send my good luck to them. To follow on that theme, I know that the Conservative party is often keen to turn the clock back to the 1980s, but I am proud to represent a party that looks to the future under the leadership of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer). Whether it be making our streets safer, kickstarting a green industrial strategy with support for things such as steel, which is important in my constituency, or breaking down the barriers to opportunity at every stage and working for sustained growth in the G7, we have a confident vision for the modernisation of our economy and our public services to prepare Britain for the years ahead.

Speaking of looking ahead, I know many of us will be looking ahead to Easter, as will the congregations of the churches and chapels in my constituency of Newport East, who will be gathering to celebrate the most important time of the Christian calendar. I put on record my thanks to the Christian congregations across my constituency for all they do. In doing so, I praise the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for all her work as the special envoy for freedom of religion or belief. In her contribution to the previous debate this afternoon, she raised some important cases. It was fascinating and valuable to hear about her work, and I hope that the Minister takes up the points raised in the Truro review.

Last weekend, I hosted a surgery at St Julian’s Methodist Church. It is one of several churches running warm hubs in my constituency, offering people the chance to stay warm. These kinds of initiatives run by volunteers typify the way our churches continue to offer people help and hope. They offer a helping hand during worrying times in a cost of living crisis, as the hon. Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) said. We have a host of initiatives across our communities, with campaigns on behalf of vulnerable and persecuted people across the world, including the many persecuted Christians in Africa and Asia who will be unable to worship in freedom this Easter.

I will highlight one project before referring to other hon. Members’ speeches. The Sanctuary Project is based at Bethel Community Church in the constituency of my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones). She is not present today, but had she been she probably would have spoken in the previous debate. Sanctuary is another example of that kind of community work. Run by the brilliant Mark Seymour and Sarah Croft, it offers practical support, advocacy and friendships to refugees and asylum seekers in Newport. With the team last week, I met one of the Afghan interpreters who has settled in Newport—we have had a community for quite a while now. The interpreter outlined to me just how many brave interpreters who worked with the Ministry of Defence and have been accepted under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy are still waiting in UK-sourced accommodation in Pakistan, all these months on. They are awaiting entry clearance visas, which can be issued by only the Home Office. With no income or right to work in Pakistan, some are resorting to the treacherous small boats journeys that we have talked so much about to claim asylum in the UK, in the hope of having a quicker journey. The same is true of some former Afghan military personnel who were trained by and worked with the UK forces. It is in the UK’s moral and security interests to address this dire situation 18 months on.

Volunteers at the Sanctuary Project are dismayed by the Illegal Migration Bill. I also had lots of letters about it this week from year 5 pupils at Lliswerry Primary School in Newport, who are fundraising for the Sanctuary Project. It was disappointing that the Government voted down the amendments to the Bill this week, including the amendments on improving support for victims of modern slavery, removing the Home Secretary’s power to detain and remove unaccompanied children, and the creation of a new national crime agency unit to crack down on the smuggler gangs. I hope that the Government will think again in the Bill’s remaining stages.

The hon. Member for Harrow East mentioned response times. The end of term presents an opportunity for the Government to reflect on their responsiveness to communication from hon. Members—whether that be in the form of oral or written questions, or correspondence to Ministers in the hotlines that we and our staff use. I have raised the issue of responsiveness in previous Adjournment debates as shadow Deputy Leader. There has been some improvement in some Departments. Notably, the Department for Health and Social Care picked up in 2022 after a pretty dismal record in 2021.

However, we know that others are still lagging behind or not disclosing up-to-date information on how quickly they respond to inquiries and questions from MPs. The Home Office is one prominent example, but there are so many Departments, including the DWP, the MOJ and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, that say they are committed to increasing response times—even that they are undertaking regular training with the parliamentary capability team—but will not provide up-to-date information on responsiveness to us. We are a few months too late for new year’s resolutions, but a commitment to greater Government transparency going forward would be most welcome.

The hon. Member for Glasgow South West mentioned that away from the workings of Westminster, as I am sure we will all be aware, people up and down the country are still experiencing a very real cost of living crisis. He was quite right to quote and highlight the figure from the Resolution Foundation that people are £11,000 worse off since 2010.

It is always difficult to pull together the full range of contributions, but I will say to the hon. Member for Harrow East—as mentioned earlier by the hon. Member for Glasgow South West—that he did indeed live up to the record of the late, great and wonderful Sir David Amess in this debate. He talked about the excellent facilities in Harrow and antisocial behaviour. That allows me the opportunity to say that building up really good neighbourhood policing teams, which is a Labour promise in the next general election, is very important. My force has been cut by 40% since 2010, and Operation Uplift is possibly just bringing us up to where we were when we were cut. It is really important that we do that. The hon. Member for Harrow East also represents a diverse community, and it is always interesting to hear about a range of issues, not least the suggestion of a GCSE in Romanian.

My hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier) spoke about the tragic case of Rasharn, sending love to his family, and about the need to learn lessons in record keeping. I really hope that that particular issue for Rasharn’s mother is taken up by the Minister in his closing remarks, as well as the awful case of historical discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. That is completely unacceptable. My hon. Friend has done a good service to her constituents in raising that today, as well as the issue of housing.

That issue was also mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda), who gave a really compelling case for an arts-based solution for using Reading jail. It is an excellent idea, and I wish him well with that campaign. It reflects the importance of preserving the significance of our historic buildings; for instance, in Newport we have the Westgate Hotel, the home of the 1839 Chartist uprising, where our Chartists fought for democracy. I think we all share that view about saving those really important buildings.

I have been to the drop-ins of the hon. Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) on body image. I am most grateful to him for the work he does, not least as the parent of two teenage children who use social media. He does a great service there, and he made some really important comments about TikTok. There are questions with that going forwards, which I am sure will be heard. His was indeed the first AI speech, but it was quite amusing watching my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan); he had done precisely the same thing, but the hon. Member for Bosworth got there first.

Finally, I wish everyone across the House and all staff on the Estate a very happy Easter. I know it is a special time for many other traditions, too. I met recently with the Kurdish-Turkish community in Newport and celebrated Newroz at the weekend. The Muslim community is currently observing Ramadan, and I am going to various iftars next week, and the Jewish community will soon be marking Passover. I hope that wherever we are and however we are commemorating the days and weeks ahead, we all have a restful but constructive working recess, and I will see everyone in April.

[Martin Vickers (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister, I ask him to allow Mr Blackman a minute at the end to wind up.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Marcus Jones]

There is always work that needs to be done, and a significant amount of investment is going into that.

To go back to the Romanian diaspora in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East, he spends a massive amount of time supporting various diasporas in his constituency, and I know that they are very grateful for that. I am sure he will continue to press the case of the Romanian GCSE.

In terms of private Members’ Bills, my hon. Friend will recall the success that we had with the Homelessness Reduction Act 2017. I took that through for the Government and was proud to do so in support of my hon. Friend’s private Member’s Bill. It has made a big difference to people that face homelessness and the risk of homelessness. I understand what he says about rogue landlords, and I hope that his private Member’s Bill will fly through the House of Lords.

He mentioned the Indian trade deal—I think talks are continuing on that. It will massively boost trade between our countries. He also mentioned smoking prevalence and what we can do to reduce that, but it is at a record low of 13%. I have never even tried a cigarette or any form of smoking, but I acknowledge the damage that it can do. We have the independent Khan review of 2022 and Ministers are in the process of considering a response to that.

I was very sorry to hear about the tragic and sad death of Rasharn Williams in the constituency of the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Dame Meg Hillier). My condolences certainly go to Lorna Williams and her family and friends, and the friends of Rasharn. It seems like a terrible situation and extremely tragic. There are procedures in place for schools to support pupils with medical conditions. The statutory guidance is clear that governing bodies should ensure that written records are kept of all medicines administered to children, and that the school’s policy sets out procedures to be followed when it is notified that a pupil has a medical condition and that it covers the role in individual healthcare plans. I certainly hear what the hon. Lady says and will make sure that her comments are fed back to the Leader of the House of Commons, so that they can be followed up on. Hopefully another meeting can be arranged with the Schools Minister. That would be important and worthwhile.

The hon. Lady mentioned a constituent who has been severely disadvantaged because of his inability to serve in the diplomatic service because of the completely misguided perception that LGBT people were more susceptible to blackmail and would therefore pose a security risk. That is an awful case, and I commend her for taking it up. In terms of what can be done now, there are a number of issues that would go across a lot of Departments. I will therefore try to find out who the best person would be to engage on that issue and will ask the relevant Minister to meet the hon. Lady to discuss this important case—a sign of previous times rather than times today, thankfully.

On lifts, the hon. Lady mentioned an awful example. Providers of lifts should provide better support to their customers. As a Conservative, I think the more choice we have in being able to procure such items and the more resilience there is, the better. I am sure the Minister responsible for that area will consider her comments.

On the renters’ reform Bill, as the hon. Lady knows that will come forward in due course. While there are real challenges with housing, 632,600 affordable homes have been built since 2010 and the Government have a £11.5 billion fund for an affordable homes programme.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) is a passionate advocate for freedom of religion and religious rights. She is a passionate envoy for the Prime Minister. She mentioned that she wants to become an ambassador. For me to confirm that position today would be slightly above my pay grade, so I will not do that at this point, but I commend her and her team, particularly our friend David Burrowes, who was a valued Member of this place just a few years ago. It was good to hear about the education element of the work she does in galvanising young people to speak out about religious persecution. It was sad to hear the case about the young man who was sentenced after he sang a song and put it on social media. Clearly, the Foreign Office takes up such cases on a regular basis, but it would be interesting to speak further with my hon. Friend on that case, perhaps after the debate.

In terms of the implementation of the Bishop of Truro’s review, I hear what my hon. Friend said, and the passion with which she said it, in particular when it came to recommendation 6. I will speak to the Leader of the House and ask that a follow-up meeting is arranged for my hon. Friend so that she can take up those concerns with the Minister responsible.

What the hon. Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) said about the project in his constituency, which he and my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West (Sir Alok Sharma) are trying to get up and running, sounded like an interesting prospect. I am someone who wants to protect heritage and bring heritage buildings back into use. I could not quite picture what the hon. Member was describing until he mentioned “Porridge”, which was one of the best comedy series, probably ever. That gave me a picture in my mind of the type of building we are talking about. It was great to hear his passion and to hear about the link to Oscar Wilde, who served his sentence there.

As I understand it, at the time Oscar Wilde was sentenced, the phrase “the love that dare not speak its name” was quoted. That is clearly something that we would not recognise today. It therefore sounds fitting—if I can put it that way—that the suggested project is one for community, arts and the LGBT+ community. Clearly there is a decision to be made by the MOJ, and I am not in a position to give a view on that. I will ask the Leader of the House to ask the MOJ Minister responsible to get back to the hon. Member for Reading East and my right hon. Friend the Member for Reading West.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) made a fleeting reference to our local campaign about the A5—I will not mention that again today. He mentioned a lot about TikTok and other social media sites and made some really serious points about body image and the challenges around that. The work that he is doing on that front is well recognised in this place. He also made good points about how those companies use the information that they glean when someone signs up or uses such apps. There are lots of unanswered questions, which is why the Government have decided not to allow the use of TikTok on Government mobile devices. That is the right thing to do until those questions are answered. My hon. Friend also mentioned AI; the Government White paper sets out clearly the work the Government are doing to ensure that people are protected, while trying to bring forward a technology that could make a massively positive difference to our economy.

Very quickly, in the time I have left I will touch on the fact that the cost of living was mentioned by the hon. Members for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) and for Newport East (Jessica Morden). We are providing £94 billion to support the cost of living. We are raising the state pension by a record level in cash terms. It is the 13th year that fuel duty has been frozen; we have actually cut fuel duty by 5p this year, saving people £200. The Government are doing everything they can, but the best thing we can do is bring inflation down. [Interruption.] The Chair is asking me to finish, so on that basis I wish everybody a happy Easter and I wish well all the other religions that are taking part in religious ceremonies in April.

[Martin Vickers (in the Chair)]

Mr Blackman has 32 seconds.