National Artificial Intelligence Strategy
Nadine Dorries Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
I am pleased to lay before the House the UK’s first national artificial intelligence strategy, which represents a step change in the Government approach to this transformative technology.
The UK is already a world leader in Al. From trailblazing pioneers like Alan Turing and Ada Lovelace to UK-based Al companies such as DeepMind and Benevolent Al, the UK leads the world in the fundamental research, industrial application and commercialisation of the technology.
The challenge now for the UK is to fully unlock the power of Al and data-driven technologies, to build on our early leadership and legacy, and to look forward to the opportunities of this coming decade. This strategy outlines our vision for how the UK can maintain and build on its position as other countries also race to deliver their own economic and technological transformations. This will be achieved through three pillars:
Investing in the needs of the ecosystem to see more people working with Al, more access to data and compute resources to train and deliver Al systems, and access to finance and customers to grow sectors;
Supporting the diffusion of Al across the whole economy to ensure all regions, nations, businesses and sectors can benefit from Al; and
Developing a pro-innovation regulatory and governance framework that protects the public.
Al will be central to how we drive growth and enrich lives, and the vision set out in the strategy will help us achieve both of those vital goals.
The Office for Artificial Intelligence—a joint unit of DCMS and BEIS—will publish an execution and monitoring plan to track the success of the strategy and the wider impact of Al on our economy, society and Government.
A version of the national Al strategy will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.
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Oral Answers to Questions
Nadine Dorries Excerpts(2 years, 10 months ago)
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Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for that very warm welcome.
Football is central to our national life, which is why my predecessor announced this root-and-branch review of the game led by the fans. This might be a good point to mention my own interest in football, as well as in rugby league. My great grandfathers were founding members of Everton football club, although I am a Liverpool supporter, so I declare my interest on day one.
My Department has supported the chair and advisory panel to collect more than 100 hours of evidence and 20,000 responses from football fans. I look forward to receiving the final report of my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and the recommendations later this autumn, and I am ready to take bold action whenever necessary to protect the identity of our national game.
Clive Efford
I am grateful to the Secretary of State for that answer and I welcome her to her new post and congratulate her on the appointment. The interim report from the chair of the panel makes it clear that the panel intends to introduce a golden share for fans to have a veto over certain reserved powers such as club names and colours and similar powers to those under assets of community value legislation to protect stadiums and training grounds. This is a welcome recognition of the power of football fans, but what discussions has the Department had in preparation for the final report with the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and local government to make sure we can move quickly on the recommendations that we know are coming in the autumn?
Ms Dorries
I obviously do not want to predict the findings of the final report or predetermine the outcome, but, as the hon. Gentleman says, the interim report is available on the Government website. My predecessor saw at first hand at Brentford that a golden share can do what the hon. Gentleman outlines without undermining the ownership of clubs. The review has been extensive, involving over 150 clubs and 20,000 fans, and my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford has met numerous organisations and stakeholders throughout the industry. I look forward, as the hon. Gentleman does, to my hon. Friend’s report later this year. I can promise from the Department’s perspective that it will be extensive and will certainly have consulted many people.
Andrew Bowie (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (Con)
I congratulate my hon. Friend on her appointment; she will do a sterling job, as she has done at the Department of Health and Social Care in extremely difficult circumstances over the past year and a half. The fan-led review is hugely important, especially given the recent European super league proposals. What discussions is she having with football clubs on the review and does she plan to meet any clubs in the near future?
Ms Dorries
The review is a root-and-branch examination of football in this country and looks at the financial sustainability of the football pyramid as well as governance, regulations, ownership and the merits of an independent regulator. There is much work to do; being just 35 minutes into the job I have not arranged a meeting yet, but I will be holding a roundtable this coming week with football industry representatives.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
The Secretary of State will be fed up with congratulations soon, but let me add mine as well. She mentioned the question of ownership in football. She knows the north-west well enough where we have seen the collapse of Bury football club because of incompetence and malign owners, and very recently a hostile takeover bid for Rochdale football club in my constituency, which was resisted and, fortunately, defeated. There needs to be some review not only of a potential super league but of the capacity of owners to deliver to the communities that spawned their clubs in the first place. Will the Secretary of State make sure that that is taken properly on board following the review?
Ms Dorries
I absolutely will. Fans are the lifeblood of football and sport. The review is considering the issue of club ownership in light of the submissions and evidence from supporters representing more than 150 clubs, and I will certainly consider any proposals very seriously.
David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
In July, we removed all restrictions, enabling audiences to return to live events. In August, the Government announced a live events reinsurance scheme worth £750 million, which will instil confidence and support events previously unable to obtain covid-19 cancellation insurance. DCMS has continued to support the events sector throughout the pandemic, including through the £2 billion culture recovery fund.
David Warburton
I warmly welcome the new Secretary of State. The live music sector has had an enormously challenging 18 months. Although I strongly welcome Government interventions such as the culture recovery fund and the live events reinsurance scheme, VAT on tickets for live events is set to double by the end of this month. As we all know, live music is not only essential to our economy, but plays a vital role in bringing us together after so many months of lockdown. As live events return, will the Government consider a permanent extension of VAT relief on music tickets to aid the sector’s recovery and to ensure that the show can go on?
Ms Dorries
I assure my hon. Friend that I will be working closely with the Chancellor to discuss the support required for the live events sector. The 5% rate on VAT for event tickets has been extended until 30 September 2021, when the 12.5% reduced rate will be introduced until March 2022. We have already provided £21 million to festivals and £2.5 million to grassroots music venues through the culture recovery fund, and our reinsurance scheme is designed to support the continuation of live events.
Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)
Has the Secretary of State any information on the take-up of that reinsurance scheme? Some promoters have said it is so inadequate, and covers such specific circumstances, that there is almost no point in taking it out. Was it always the Government’s intention to design a scheme in such a way that they could claim to be acting, while being safe in the knowledge that the scheme would not actually be used?
Ms Dorries
At this stage in my appointment, I am afraid I cannot give the hon. Gentleman an exact figure for the take-up, but I will write to him.
Sally-Ann Hart (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
Mr David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
I want to start by saying how delighted I am to have been appointed Secretary of State at DCMS. This is one of the most important Departments in Government, economically, socially and culturally, and I am determined to ensure that our sectors bounce back stronger than ever from covid. We continue to support them through this stage of the recovery, particularly through our £750 million events insurance scheme. London Fashion Week and London Tech Week are back with a bang. The creative and tech industries are British powerhouses, and I am committed to driving them to even greater heights. In the meantime, we have all enjoyed a fabulous summer of sport. It started with the Euros final, followed by incredible success at the Olympics and the Paralympics, and it was topped off by Emma Raducanu’s wonderful victory on Saturday—the best tennis match I have ever watched. I am sure the whole House will join me in congratulating our fantastic athletes.
Mr Davis
Can I express my delight at the arrival of my hon. Friend in Cabinet? She demonstrates that you do not need to be a boring conformist to get on in this world. Returning to the boring conformity, however, I shall put my substantive question to her. What assessment has she made of delegating the decision on what is harmful and what is not harmful to the online platform providers?
Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)
We know that the new Secretary of State has set out her own views and interpretation of racism online, because she has written about it, so I am sure she will remember what the Prime Minister said about the torrent of online racist abuse against England footballers on 14 July. This is what he said:
“Today we are taking practical steps to ensure that the football banning order regime is changed, so that if a person is guilty of racist online abuse of footballers, they will not be going to the match—no ifs, no buts, no exemptions and no excuses.”—[Official Report, 14 July 2021; Vol. 699, c. 362.]
I am really pleased that the Prime Minister heeded my call to extend banning orders to online racism. Can the Secretary of State tell us exactly what practical steps have been taken to change the football banning order regime since 14 July?
Ms Dorries
I am afraid that I am going to have to write to the hon. Lady, being new to the job as I am. I will do that immediately.
Caroline Ansell (Eastbourne) (Con)
Ms Dorries
Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (John Nicolson) for his warm and kind words of welcome.
Of course, we all stand with the women of Afghanistan. I know the hon. Gentleman has been looking through my long tweet history of 20 years, or whenever I first went on Twitter, and he will therefore know that I have repeatedly supported the women of Afghanistan and will continue to do so.
Edward Timpson (Eddisbury) (Con)
Data Protection Bill [Lords]
Nadine Dorries Excerpts(6 years, 2 months ago)
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Matt Hancock
I welcome the fact that we have self-regulation of the press and that IPSO has been set up. Unlike when the Leveson inquiry took place, we now have an effective self-regulator that has introduced low-cost arbitration. The crucial thing about this self-regulator is that is has now committed itself to having compulsory low-cost arbitration, which it has not had until now.
Ms Nadine Dorries (Mid Bedfordshire) (Con)
Nobody in this or the other House should ever fail to stand up and question the press. We know what has happened in the past, and people should always question the press, but there is a line, and it is that line to which the Government are adhering today. I have full respect for the hon. Member for West Bromwich East (Tom Watson) and his campaign, as he knows, but there is a line, and that line should not be crossed. I hope that the Secretary of State will always challenge the press, but are we not right to hold that line, which Members of the other place they have not done?
Matt Hancock
I agree comprehensively with my hon. Friend, who set it out incredibly well.
I want to take a look at the precise details of amendment 62B, because it is unnecessary. First, it promises to look into the reporting restrictions around arrests, but this work is already under way. Indeed, I have committed to working with hon. Members to get the details right. Secondly, it promises to look into the impact of social media, but we are already undertaking this with the Cairncross review, which has started to take evidence right around the country. Thirdly, it promises to look into Northern Ireland, but this has already been provided for with the review outlined in new clause 23 last week.
In addition to replicating a lot of what is already going on, the amendment goes over ground already covered by the Leveson inquiry, the three substantial police investigations and the two Select Committee investigations. There has been no shortage of inquiry. I am focused instead on getting the system right for the future. The amendment is unnecessary at a time when we should be coming together to face the challenges of the future.
I fully understand the strength of feeling on the issue of press standards. I supported the original Leveson inquiry, and I have met victims of press intrusion, including some in this House, and, worse still, have heard about the impact on Members and their families. I am fully aware of the distress caused and of how lives have been affected by false allegations, how hacking was used to access the most intimate messages and how personal information was obtained through blagging and deception, but much has changed since the inquiry, While our press are not perfect, the culture that allowed phone hacking to become the norm has gone, and, with the newly strengthened IPSO, this country now has the most robust system of redress for press intrusion that it has ever had.
The Arts: Health Effects
Nadine Dorries Excerpts(6 years, 9 months ago)
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Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
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Mr Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the effect of the arts on health.
It is a great pleasure to appear under your chairmanship, Ms Dorries—obviously with some trepidation, as I know that you are a hard taskmaster. I hope that we can exchange messages on WhatsApp afterwards, about how well I have done in this afternoon’s debate.
Mr Vaizey
Health and wellbeing is much on our minds at the moment, and I am co-chair of the all-party group on arts, health and wellbeing, so this is a great opportunity to debate the significant role that arts-based interventions can play in addressing a wide variety of health and social care issues.
In July the all-party group published an inquiry into that important issue—I am holding it up to get the appropriate screengrab, which can go viral on social media. I can see that the Minister is holding it up as well. If someone could pass it to the Opposition spokesman to hold up, we could get a full house. The report was the result of two years of research and discussions with individuals and organisations from the worlds of health, arts, academia and politics. I assure the House, because I had nothing to do with it, that it is of the highest quality. The people who can take credit are Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt, who effectively wrote it, Alexandra Coulter, who runs the all-party group with such effectiveness, and my colleague Lord Alan Howarth, the chairman, who invited me to become the co-chairman.
The inquiry and report provide considerable evidence to support the idea that arts-based approaches can help people to stay well, recover faster, manage long-term conditions and experience better quality of life. It is important to stress that arts engagement and participation can have a positive impact at every stage of a person’s life. I was struck, for example, when reading the report—I should have known this fact—that one in five mothers suffers from a mental health condition at the time of, or in the first year after, childbirth. The report shows some of the interventions that can help. In Stockport an arts on prescription pilot offered visual art and music projects to women who had or were at risk of postnatal depression. Every woman who participated experienced improvements in their general health, and all but one experienced a reduction in their level of depression. Funding for that service was lost, but similar programmes have been replicated around the UK, with comparable results.
Childhood is another important area where the arts can have a huge impact. I leave aside the effect that music and arts education in schools can have on children’s wellbeing, as well as their educational attainment, although no doubt it is a subject that we will return to in future debates, but it is estimated that possibly 850,000 children suffer from mental health and related physical health problems. Some of the most serious mental health problems can manifest before the age of 24—indeed, in half of cases they manifest before the age of 14.
Such mental health problems can be prevented or mitigated through early intervention. The Alchemy Project, which uses dance as an early intervention in psychosis, had a remarkable effect on mental health. Two groups of young participants with no experience of dance were pushed to work with professional artists. At the end of the pilot both cohorts demonstrated clinically significant improvements in wellbeing, communication, quality of life and many other variants.
Several hon. Members rose—
Ms Nadine Dorries (in the Chair)
Order. Let me do a quick headcount of Members who wish to speak in the debate.
Nine Back Benchers have indicated a wish to speak. The maths dictates that I will have to call the Front Benchers at 6.22 pm. The debate must finish no later than 6.42 pm, because of all the Divisions we have had. I will therefore have to impose a three-minute time limit on speeches. If there are too many interventions, they will cut that time down further.
Mr Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)
Thank you for calling me, Ms Dorries. I will make my points as briefly as possible. I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) for this debate on an overlooked but exceptionally important subject.
I will talk briefly about my island’s relationship with art and art’s wider purpose—there are some fantastic examples of the use of art in healthcare on the island—and then about Arts Council England’s visit to the Isle of Wight on 20 October, which we are looking forward to, both to reinforce our reputation as Britain’s “arts island” and to seek a stronger relationship with national institutions. I look forward to Government support in enabling that, and I thank the Minister for attending the debate.
On the island we have a unique relationship with art. Our history is in some senses an example of art’s meditative and restorative roles. From 1790 onward, when chaos and revolution in Europe made travel difficult, artists and writers began to explore the United Kingdom more. They came to the island, in part, to find a sense of peace and to be inspired by our rural tranquillity, but also our inspiring nature and sea. The island provided inspiration for artists. Turner’s first great work was of the Solent, with the Needles as its backdrop. Tennyson moved to the island to be inspired by it, and some of his work has a meditative and calming sense of his view of life and death. Perhaps the most famous poem that he wrote was called “Crossing the Bar”. Physically, it described the journey across the Solent from the mainland to the island, but metaphysically, it talked about the journey from life to afterlife:
“Sunset and evening star,
And one clear call for me!
And may there be no moaning of the bar,
When I put out to sea”.
I use that quote because art is used on the island in palliative care, in youth mental care and in the NHS. In Newport, our county town, our wonderful hospice uses art to help islanders who are dying to understand and accept difficult and profound issues. Our hospice director, Nigel Hartley, trained as a pianist and psychologist prior to working in the hospice movement. If the Minister ever has a chance to talk to him, he will find him an interesting person. He champions the use of art in healthcare, and we have a wonderful project with the Royal Academy whereby artists and people in the hospice work together to create works of art. We are lucky to have people such as Nigel on our island.
Elsewhere, in our Quay Arts project run by the multi-talented Paul Armfield, we have a WAVES programme that engages over 200 young people. Many of them were reported to us or came through the young carers or mental health services, and they are engaged in the use of art to enable them to express themselves in a more fulfilling way.
Our Healing Arts project operates within our NHS trust, both in commissioning art and organising interactive and creative expression.
Ruth George (High Peak) (Lab)
It gives me great pleasure to participate in this debate and to speak about High Peak Community Arts—a fabulous project that has been based in my constituency for more than 20 years, and has helped people with their health and wellbeing throughout that time. It is a real pioneer of outcomes. At the moment, it is funded through five-year lottery funding grants, and it helps people with mental health and wellbeing issues in particular. It creates community arts projects around my constituency, including in ceramics and mosaics. There is a sundial in a park, and it has created a life-sized willow-frame donkey for an elderly people’s care home. Working together on those projects helps people in a way that our health services often cannot.
With Project eARTh, High Peak Community Arts creates arts projects to enhance the natural environment. Those are aimed at adults who are experiencing mental distress or other long-term conditions, such as anxiety, stress, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder. Generally, the participants are isolated and are lacking in self-confidence and self-esteem, and working together on those projects addresses such issues.
Being creative is relaxing, absorbing and takes people’s minds away from negative thoughts. People work together in the groups, discussing themes and ideas. They often physically work on the same project. We have unveiling ceremonies, in which the projects are unveiled in communities, which gives people a real sense of worth and wellbeing in the knowledge that they have created something.
The story of one of the participants illustrates the project better than any sort of evaluation. The lady was left severely traumatised seven years ago as the result of an armed robbery at her store. She suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and did not leave the house for four years. She lost all her friends because she was unable to talk to them anymore. In spite of all the care she received from doctors, counsellors and other health professionals, she still could not go out on her own. She says,
“I was petrified that my life was collapsing, I felt helpless.”
She felt that nothing could help her, until her support worker took her along to the art group. She managed to speak to people again, and took part in the project. Since then, she has been able to get out of the house to take her dog for a walk. She is not 100% recovered, but the projects have helped her more than anything else.