Creative Industries

Saqib Bhatti Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

It is a privilege to wind up the debate on behalf of His Majesty’s Official Opposition. There have been impressive contributions from across the House, and many Members have highlighted how their constituencies deliver for the UK’s creative industries. We heard from the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler), who participated in a punk rock band—the last one to perform at The Roxy, he said, although I think the jury is out on that. We also heard from the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Frith), who I believe performed at Glastonbury. I do not think he talks about that enough; he should do so more in the future.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) highlighted the places that made him the man he is today. My hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight East (Joe Robertson) secured a meeting for not just himself but his Labour colleague, the hon. Member for Isle of Wight West (Mr Quigley)—a great example of cross-party working. My hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox) made a very serious point about the impact of the Budget on the creative industries. The Chair of the DCMS Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), gave a tour of the power of the creative industries across the country. She is doing an excellent job of holding the Government to account.

As we have heard, the UK’s creative sectors are world-leading. They provide opportunities for young people up and down the country to gain employment and skills that can transform their lives. I welcome the fact that so many Members across the House recognise the potential of the creative industries to grow the economy. The UK’s creative industries are truly formidable. In both cultural and economic terms, they are absolute titans. In 2023 alone, it is estimated that the creative industries contributed around £124 billion to the UK economy—in other words, about 5% of our overall economic output. There has been a steady rise in the value of the creative industries to the UK, from accounting for 4.7% of economic output in 2010 to over 5.2% in 2023. It is important that we in this place recognise their growing importance in economic terms.

Our creative industries are also immense in terms of jobs. Around 2.4 million people work in the sector, which totals around 7.1% of all UK jobs. Although the creative industries are still quite heavily London-based, we see diversification of the sector and clusters of creative industry right across the UK, from the leading video game development hubs in Stoke-on-Trent to the beating heart of Northern Ireland, where the creative industries sector employs 29,000 people. Huge swathes of the UK benefit from our creative industries. I know that at first hand, as a west midlands MP. The remarkable director Steven Knight, who created “Peaky Blinders”, runs an incredible project in Birmingham where he recruits 20% of people from the most deprived neighbourhoods. Steven’s record shows that we must continue to champion our creative industries sector, because it has real potential to drive social mobility and generate economic growth. As “Peaky Blinders” is a huge international success, our creative industries ensure that Brand Britain rules on the international stage.

We cannot measure the value and importance of our creative industries just in economic terms, because their reach is impossible to estimate truly. Government statistics show that between July and September 2023 there were 12.5 million visits to DCMS-sponsored museums and galleries. Given the Government’s desire to ensure that 50 million people come to the UK each year, allowing these cultural hubs to thrive will bring more people to the UK to visit some of our great cultural attractions. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Stuart Andrew) set out, the Conservatives have a proud record of supporting the creative industries. Between 2010 and 2022, the creative industries grew at more than double the rate of UK gross value added, expanding by over 50%. During that period, over one million new jobs were created in the sector. Rather than burdening the creative industries with tax hikes, we introduced over £1 billion of tax reliefs, including the UK independent film tax credit and business rates relief for theatres and cultural venues.

As my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon set out, during the pandemic we introduced unprecedented support for the creative industries, including the £1.57 billion culture recovery fund, the £500 million film and TV production restart scheme and the £800 million live events reinsurance scheme. That support protected over 5,000 organisations and safeguarded 220,000 jobs, ensuring that our creative industries could bounce back and continue to offer opportunities for young people.

As we have heard, our ambition did not end there. In government, the Conservatives published a sector vision setting out our plan to grow the creative industries by £50 billion and create one million new jobs. These were jobs for young designers, artists, writers, creatives and others who wanted to bring joy, inspiration and opportunities to the lives of others. In this debate, the Government claimed to have similar aspirations for the creative industries and the young people eager to build careers in them, but we know that is simply not true.

Labour Members have spoken warmly about the creative industries, their impact on the economy and the many opportunities that they bring to young people, but the Government’s actions speak louder than their words. The Government know that one in eight young people are not in education, employment or training, and that many lack the essential skills and confidence to progress in work. How did Labour rise to that challenge? It scrapped the National Citizen Service.

The NCS, introduced by the previous Government, was designed to support young people during a crucial time in their life, connecting them to peers from many walks of life. It gave them opportunities to build their skills and confidence, and empowered them to make a difference in their communities. Having delivered over a million experiences to young people, who took part in over 18 million hours of volunteering, the NCS made a real difference. Does the Minister recognise that Labour’s decision to scrap the NCS will mean that fewer young people take up the opportunities presented by the creative sectors? UK Youth has warned that scrapping the National Citizen Service and the youth investment fund, along with other cuts, could lead to a net reduction in central Government funding for youth services in 2025-26, possibly by tens of millions of pounds. That will inevitably hurt the creative sector.

Many Labour Members spoke warmly about the creative sector, but their Government are doing irreparable harm to its industries. The truth is that the Chancellor’s Budget of broken promises raised taxes to the highest level ever and introduced a national insurance jobs tax. Labour slashed retail, hospitality and leisure relief. There is nothing to protect the creative industries from the Deputy Prime Minister’s radical Employment Rights Bill—a ill-thought-through piece of legislation that will bolster the power of the trade unions and take the country back to the 1970s.

[Gareth Snell]

The hon. Gentleman’s point about the trade unions is absolute nonsense, but that aside, he was first elected in 2019. He is on record as publicly supporting former Prime Minister Liz Truss and, according to Hansard, voted for the health and social care levy, which was a larger increase in national insurance across a much broader spectrum. At no point did he raise concerns about the creative industry then, so would he like to take this opportunity to apologise for that, or is this just naked political point scoring?

[Saqib Bhatti]

The hon. Member makes an interesting point. I can see the Whip furiously making notes: “Give the man a job.” He was reading that off the Whip’s handout, and that is all I will say.

Our creative industry sector, and especially the young people within it, will pay the price of the Chancellor’s growth-killing Budget and the Deputy Prime Minister’s radical Employment Rights Bill. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that Labour’s national insurance jobs tax could lead to fewer opportunities. The sad truth is that under this Labour Government, many businesses in the creative sector will not survive. Don’t just take it from me; take it from Sir Nicholas Hytner, the former artistic director of the National Theatre, who warned that Labour’s jobs tax will force businesses to close, or from UK Theatre, which warned that 40% of venues could close in the next five years due to Labour’s autumn Budget. The inevitable truth is that this Labour Government are a threat to the entire creative industry sector.

But it is not just the Government’s rampant socialism that poses a huge threat to the creative industries. [Interruption.] I am glad Government Members are cheering the demise of the creative sector; people in them will be listening. Alongside the catastrophic impact of Labour’s increase in national insurance, there is the Government’s copyright and AI consultation, which is causing deep concern for the creative industries, but also for many Labour Members. The Minister’s preference for a data mining opt-out for the creative industries will place extra burdens on creators, who are rightly concerned that their work is under threat. My hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) and many others made a compelling argument about how damaging the Government’s proposal is.

Given the magnitude of the potential changes to copyright and AI, one would think that the Minister would have allocated significant time for creative industry sectors to raise their views. Instead, during the Christmas break, he rolled out a consultation that finishes just next month. He left the creative industries scrambling to raise their concerns with a Government who refuse to listen.

The Minister also works in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, so can he tell me why, as my hon. Friend for Gosport mentioned, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology has refused to meet representatives from the creative sector? I have heard myself just how worried, angry and frustrated the creative industry sector is about this proposal. Does the Minister have any idea about its impact? Has he considered having a full and transparent impact assessment to properly understand how the sector will be harmed by these changes? My right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon put forward some really important points and challenges, and I look forward to hearing the answers to those.

In our last exchange at the Dispatch Box, I asked the Secretary of State questions about her national youth strategy, but my questions remain unanswered. I hope that the Minister, in his closing statement, can address the serious concerns we have raised about Labour’s Budget of broken promises and its radical Employment Rights Bill, as well as the serious issues we have highlighted around the Government’s AI and copyright consultation.

I repeat, slightly changed, the question I asked Secretary of State at the Dispatch Box less than two weeks ago: can the Minister guarantee that the Chancellor, in a desperate attempt to save her job, will not balance the books by putting the burden on the back of our creative industry sector? When I asked the Secretary of State that question, she said that it was tired. Well, I can tell the Minister that Conservative Members will not tire of standing up for our young people; we will not tire of standing up for our creative sectors; and we will not tire of holding the Government to account.

Listed Places of Worship Scheme

Saqib Bhatti Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

I start by praising my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) for securing this vital debate. As we can see, it is incredibly important to many hon. Members, and I want to acknowledge contributions from a number of them, but given the time, I cannot acknowledge everybody. I thought my hon. Friends the Members for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool), for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty), for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) and for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp), my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), the hon. Members for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell), and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and Tavistock (Sir Geoffrey Cox) all made wonderful contributions, as did the other Members I have not been able to mention. They have all made their faith communities incredibly proud. I take your steer, Mr Western, and will try and give the Minister as much time as possible to satisfy the Members in this House, because this is an important debate.

Britian is defined by its history: up and down the country, people are fiercely proud of their heritage. As His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, it is therefore right that we hold the Government to account as we try and stand up for our history and protect our heritage. In Opposition, we have campaigned on this issue very vehemently and I know there is a written ministerial statement on the way. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough said this might be the shortest campaign ever.

[Chris Bryant]

The shortest WMS.

[Saqib Bhatti]

It might the shortest WMS, which I hope tells us how the Minister is extending the scheme. I want to thank all the people from across the country who have written to us on this issue—their voice matters. I thank all the volunteers who protect our most beautiful heritage sites.

The Conservatives are very clear that Britian’s rich history, deep sense of tradition and incredible national story is something we should always protect, and there is no doubt that our churches, and other places of worship that have been announced, are fundamental to that. These cherished buildings play key roles in their local communities, serving both as a window into our past and as active centres of support and sanctuary for people of all faiths and none.

The people who look after them, as custodians of our future generations, are volunteers who give their time and energy generously with very little external help, but many of them are reliant on the vital lifeline that is the listed places of worship grant scheme. Introduced in 2001, the scheme provides essential grants covering the VAT charge and repairs to listed buildings used as places of worship. I am proud that the Conservative Government had a very strong record of supporting that important scheme. Under the previous Government, the listed places of worship grant scheme was extended, providing funding to cover VAT on essential repairs, which meant thousands of churches were protected for generations to come.

However—this may change—Labour is yet to announce whether it will fund the scheme past its expiry in March this year. The Budget came and went without an answer. This uncertainty is making the task of those who look after these precious buildings more precarious and stressful. Many are understandably delaying their plans until the Government make up their mind, meaning more leaky roofs, more draughty windows and more cold churches during the vital Christmas period. With the WMS on the way, I am hopeful that the Minister will announce something meaningful that goes beyond one year. I share the ambition of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove for the permanency of this grant, so I hope the Minister will address that point.

According to Historic England, 969 places of worship are under threat, including churches in the Prime Minister’s constituency. When questioned about the scheme at the Dispatch Box last week, the Minister quoted a hymn, but the custodians of our historic churches need more than a hymn and a prayer. They deserve clarity and support from the Government, which I hope the Minister can give us today. That is important because Historic England’s informative heritage at risk register paints a harrowing picture for England’s historic sites. For places of worship in particular, the possibility of roofs collapsing or a lack of maintenance on stonework would be catastrophic.

Numerous constituents in my constituency of Meriden and Solihull East have written to me about their concerns for some of our most beloved local churches. They told me that discontinuing the scheme would

“be a disaster for listed places of worship”,

and that the ability to reclaim VAT

“makes an enormous difference, particularly at a time when the cost of building work has increased substantially.”

There is great frustration about the Government’s failure to confirm the extension of this vital scheme. It is not just felt by constituents; it has an impact on all our communities and on the rest of society.

The chair of the National Churches Trust, Sir Philip Rutnam, has called on the Government to renew the listed places of worship fund. Sir Philip states that the crisis affecting church heritage could get worse in the coming months if this vital “financial lifeline” is scrapped. The Bishop of Dudley, Bishop Martin Gorrick, also paints a bleak picture, saying,

“It is not just heritage that is at risk if the Scheme lapses. Churches and other places of worship are home to so much social enterprise and action: Church of England churches support over 35,000 social action projects such as foodbanks, community larders and debt, drug, alcohol advice and rehabilitation groups.”

The director of the Friends of Friendless Churches, Rachel Morley, wrote to the Secretary of State saying,

“The impact of this cut at a parish level would be devastating”

and that,

“We place the burden of caring for thousands of the nation’s most important buildings—undoubtedly the nation’s greatest free heritage resources—on a tiny proportion of the public who are, for the most part, volunteers.”

That view was eloquently shared by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and Tavistock (Sir Geoffrey Cox).

I hope the Government will confirm the continuation of the scheme as soon as possible or, better still, an expanded scheme that helps the custodians of listed places of worship to carry out vital repair works in the first place. One challenge I would put to the Minister is that the funding has been a rebate for many years. Let us make it into a grant and let us make it permanent. Will he also consider the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), which raises quite a vital point? I hope he addresses that.

I cannot speak about this issue without addressing the broader economic picture. If the Government were to neglect these cherished buildings, it would be an act of vandalism, but it would come as no surprise to many of our constituents if the Labour Government did turn a blind eye to this threat to our heritage, given where we are economically. We have seen the calamitous impact of the Chancellor’s callous Budget on our great houses already, including on our historic houses, and I have already written and made comments about the impact. Independent analysis has shown that the dramatic increase in inheritance tax could spell an end for many of our historic heritage sites and estates across the country. This would cost jobs and mean that some of the UK’s most popular stately homes would be closed.

I have very little confidence in the long-term faith that the Government would put in our heritage. Of course, the dire economic circumstances make a big difference. I have already raised the matter on the Floor of the House, because it is becoming ever clearer that the Chancellor will have to cut budgets. Although many of our voters, including many of my constituents, do not believe that they can afford a Labour Government, what they certainly cannot afford is the Minister abandoning our most vital sector, so I encourage him to stand up to the Chancellor and try to protect those vital budgets. As the cost of debt goes up and the economic situation becomes more dire, the Chancellor will have even less headroom to spend on schemes such as the listed places of worship grant.

Mr Western, in deference to your timing request, I will conclude. I share the concerns of many beyond this House that the Government are yet to protect our heritage. As we have heard from hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber, hundreds of churches have been left with a deep sense of uncertainty for months. The Government’s failure to commit to that funding risks imperilling centuries of British history and heritage, all while leaving gaping holes in our local communities and depriving our constituents of spaces to accommodate celebration, grief, art, music, sculpture, political hustings—of course—wellbeing groups, childcare, addiction support sessions and so much more. The listed places of worship grant scheme is essential, and I urge the Minister to make the strongest possible case for its renewal to the Treasury; otherwise, many of our constituents will ask, “Is nothing sacred any more?”

Live Events Ticketing: Resale and Pricing Practices

Saqib Bhatti Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for advance sight of his statement. As he said, dynamic pricing is a strategy used across many industries outside the creative sectors, including by hotels, taxis and airlines. It can offer significant benefits for consumers when prices are low—for example through early-bird tickets or late ticketing.

The Government are right to emphasise the importance of transparency. Oasis fans know—I am one of them—that we did not have the necessary information up front, and I understand that the Competition and Markets Authority is rightly investigating that episode. However, it is my view that new regulations should be considered only when they are necessary and proportionate and do not duplicate existing rules. Current legislation already states that although dynamic pricing is legal, it must be implemented transparently. I can assure the Minister that we will carefully consider any proposals that could strengthen, improve or simplify the market for fans, but I warn him that we will oppose regulation introduced for the sake of introducing new regulation.

The secondary ticket resale market plays an important role for artists, fans and venues. It can provide a safer way to transfer unwanted tickets, ensuring that seats in venues are not left empty. The Minister claims that his reforms will better protect fans, improve access to live events and support the creative sectors. He claims that the proposals will give power back to fans and prevent them from being fleeced by ticket touts. We know that that is not true, however. We know that Labour’s plans will harm fans and venues, and make live events even harder to attend. [Interruption.] The Minister wants to know so I will tell him.

Let us first discuss price caps on resale tickets. The Government’s consultation proposes capping ticket resale prices to somewhere between the original price and a 30% uplift. That may seem on the surface like a reasonable measure, but we know that it will lead to an upsurge in black market activity and to more money flowing into the pockets of ticket touts. In fact, price controls would lead to a surge in unregulated and illegal transactions, leaving fans with little to no consumer protections. The Minister might not believe me, a free-marketeer, but in response to Government’s consultation, the Computer and Communications Industry Association, warned that

“Draconian regulation, targeting only the secondary market, will only mean more tickets changing hands in informal settings without the same protections that exist in proper marketplaces.”

I regret to say that the Government’s proposed measures to increase the regulation of resale websites and apps, and to raise fines for rule violations, will not prevent fans from turning to underground markets. We have already seen that in Victoria, Australia, where a 10% profit cap failed to prevent significant mark-ups on ticket prices, and even led a spike in the number of ticket scams. We know that scams are already a serious issue in the secondary ticketing market. For example, and as the Minister will be aware, Lloyds Bank estimates that Taylor Swift fans lost £1 million in ticket scams ahead of her tour. If his policy had been in place, how much more would fans have lost to scammers?

We know that a ticket resale cap will lead to empty seats and the prevent spontaneous ticket purchases. We saw that at the Paris Olympics, where restrictions on the resale of tickets left empty seats at many venues. Empty seats are bad not just for artists, but for the economy. Events at stadiums and venues provide a boost for local businesses, including restaurants, bars and other hospitality venues. Let us be clear: the hospitality industry is already under a lot of strain, not least because of the Budget of broken promises. Labour’s national insurance jobs tax, and its slashing of reliefs, have led the Music Venue Trust to warn that many businesses are at

“immediate risk of closure, representing the potential loss of more than 12,000 jobs, over £250 million in economic activity and the loss of over 75,000 live music events.”

Let us be clear: the reason we are here today is that the spin doctors in No. 10 are trying to move the news cycle away from a beleaguered Prime Minister, a Chancellor already drowning in the debt markets, and an anti-corruption Minister being accused of corruption. All the while, the Government and the Department are throwing creative industries and hospitality businesses under the bus.

[Chris Bryant]

Lordy, lordy, lordy! The hon. Gentleman says that he is an Oasis fan, but to be honest given how he talks about the last Tory Government, I think he must be a Nirvana fan—because everything was absolutely perfect when he was a Minister, wasn’t it?

Let me first put something right. The hon. Gentleman seems to think that our call for evidence on dynamic pricing is about all sorts of different industries, but it is only about the live events sector. We are not talking about the tourism industry, hotels, taxis or anything like that; we are talking solely about the live events sector. We recognise that that was not part of our manifesto commitments, so we want to hear people’s evidence and whether we need to take further measures.

One thing that I can say confidently is that it seems horribly unfair for someone logged into the system to see the ticket price going up—£120, £125, £130, £135—because that creates a sense of panic that they must buy one. It is perfectly legitimate to consider whether that is a good way of selling tickets and whether it is fair to consumers. That is a legitimate question to ask. I cannot comment on the Oasis situation; the hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that the Competition and Markets Authority is investigating that.

Let me correct the hon. Gentleman’s other point. He kept saying, “We know that” this, that or the other will happen. Well, we do not know, for a start, but more importantly, let me explain to him what we are really trying to tackle. It is the thing where, say, Becky, who lives in flat 23, No. 75 High Street, is desperate to get two tickets to see her mum’s favourite band on her mum’s birthday later that year. She is absolutely desperate, so she tries and tries again to log on at 9 o’clock. She cannot manage to get into the system, but can see the tickets selling. At 20 past 9, all the tickets are gone but then—lo and behold—at 21 minutes past 9, they are available on the secondary ticketing market for vastly inflated prices. That is what we are trying to tackle. It is a very simple problem.

The hon. Gentleman referred to just one country, but loads of places around the world—France, Italy, Ireland, Poland, Portugal, Norway, Japan, Belgium, most of Canada, most of Australia, Israel, and several states in the United States—have simple measures in place. We want to ensure that we tackle that very simple problem. In the end, the value is created by the artists themselves and by the passion of the fans. It should not go into pockets that are not, in the main, based in this country and certainly have not contributed anything to the creation of that value in the first place.

Artificial Intelligence Opportunities Action Plan

Saqib Bhatti Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle]

I really look forward to Reading getting involved, and to it offering to partner with us. We want to get investment into great places like Reading, which has a lot of great small businesses. Small businesses in communities up and down the country could benefit the most. They might sometimes feel like they are tucked away, but they can enter the global stage because of the technology that is before us. The Government’s job is to ensure that the infrastructure is there, and that all the technology is as accessible to small businesses as it is to big companies.

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

We should be under no illusion: the U-turn on a supercomputer is exactly that. We committed £1.3 billion to it; Labour cancelled it. Can the Secretary of State tell the House how much money has been set aside to achieve his supercomputer ambitions?

[Peter Kyle]

I admire the way the Conservatives just push through with this. They did not commit a single penny to a single one of the projects that the hon. Gentleman mentions. They want all the benefits of our Budget, but will not say how they would pay for them. He is actually asking me to cut £800 million, or £1.3 billion, of revenue—perhaps cut thousands of research grants to universities and PhD students—to pay for a project that the Conservative Government announced but did not commit a single penny to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Saqib Bhatti Excerpts

Wednesday 20th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

Free speech and our press are incredibly important—they are part of our democracy—but in direct response to my hon. Friend’s question, the police are independent and it is a live investigation, so it would not be appropriate for me to comment on that. I believe that we should have a free press. It is part of our democracy, and we should have free speech, but with that comes responsibility for those who do it.

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

Q2. Yesterday, I met three constituents in Parliament: Duncan Hawley, his wife Nicola and his 10-year-old daughter Hattie. Duncan is a sheep farmer, and he has stewarded his family farm for most of his life. He is outraged, hurt and worried about the Government’s deeply damaging family farm tax. He is deeply worried about food security, food inflation and whether he will even be able to pass that farm on to future generations. My question to the Deputy Prime Minister is simple: why have this Labour Government declared war on British farmers?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

I say to the hon. Gentleman and to Duncan and Nicola that this Government have not declared war on farmers. The vast majority of farms will not pay any inheritance tax. We have protected them. We have been as generous as we can. The farmers rely on our public services, like everybody else. We inherited a £22 billion black hole from the Conservatives, who spent reserves three times over. We are investing in our schools, our hospitals, our public services and housing. If the hon. Gentleman does not agree with that, then, like the Leader of the Opposition, he should say what he would do differently .

Tourism: Northumberland

Saqib Bhatti Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

It is a great privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Roger. As I make my debut as the shadow Minister for DCMS, it is great that I am now shadowing my friend, the hon. Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant), as he shadowed me in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology. I hope we will have a constructive debate today and going forward.

I want to thank the hon. Member for Hexham (Joe Morris) for securing this debate and for his illuminating speech about what his constituency, and the whole of Northumberland, offers in the way of tourism. We should all aspire to nurture the tourism industry in our constituencies. I look forward to visiting his constituency in Northumberland in the near future.

We should all recognise the immense contribution of the tourism industry to our economy, our constituencies and our local communities. Tourism is a vital sector, contributing more than £70 billion to the UK economy annually and employing more than 1.6 million people directly, with millions more benefiting indirectly. Indeed, brand Britain depends on a thriving tourism industry.

The latest annual Scarborough Tourism Economic Activity Monitor report on the economic impact of tourism shows that the Northumberland visitor economy has experienced strong year-on-year growth. In 2023, it recorded its highest ever gross value contribution of £1.262 billion, a 7.9% increase from 2022, with Northumberland welcoming more than 10 million visitors. That demonstrates that Northumberland’s tourism industry is continuing its post-covid recovery, thanks in part to the support provided by the previous Government’s tourism recovery plan. I put on record my thanks to the former Members who contributed to that plan, Guy Opperman and Anne-Marie Trevelyan, who are greatly missed on the Conservative side of the House.

However, it is now up to the new Government to demonstrate how they plan to support the tourism sector in sustaining its post-covid recovery. During the general election and throughout their time in power, we have seen no indication yet of a comprehensive, long-term strategy. Can the Minister outline when the Government will present a sector-wide support plan to help counties such as Northumberland, and the businesses that rely so heavily on tourism?

Many businesses in Northumberland are heavily dependent on seasonal tourism in particular, which poses significant challenges when it comes to retaining experienced staff and making long-term investment in their businesses. To truly support local economies such as Northumberland, it is crucial that we shift towards a year-round tourism model, which provides the stability and growth opportunities that our businesses need. Can the Minister confirm whether the Government’s tourism plan will consider specific support for businesses to operate year round, helping them to overcome the seasonal challenges that they face?

The increase in national insurance contributions for businesses, made by the Chancellor in the last Budget, will have a profound impact on the hospitality sector. The sector is vital for the success of tourism-dependent businesses, as we are continually hearing. As noted by many industry leaders, including UKHospitality, it could force many small, tourism-related businesses—including those independent ones previously mentioned—to close, reduce employees’ hours, or even scale back their expansion plans.

Tourism businesses, including hotels, restaurants and attractions, rely on part-time and seasonal workers to meet demand during peak times. The changes in NICs may make it more difficult for those businesses to retain or take on staff, limiting their capacity and ability to make a profit. That is especially concerning for Northumberland, where tourism clearly not only contributes to the local economy, but plays a key role in sustaining small businesses and preserving local jobs.

Given the ongoing recovery of the tourism sector following the pandemic, those additional financial challenges may well threaten to undo much-needed and well achieved progress, particularly for small businesses struggling with already thin margins. Therefore, it is essential that the Government consider how those new cost pressures will affect tourism and hospitality businesses, and that they work to provide support to help those businesses navigate the challenges in that sector successfully.

To unlock Northumberland’s full tourism potential, we must prioritise investment in key supply-side areas such as transport infrastructure, as rightly pointed out by the hon. Member for Hexham . Improved connectivity, whether by road or rail, is vital for attracting domestic and international visitors. Enhancing access to Northumberland’s iconic sites—from Hadrian’s wall to Alnwick castle—will enable more people to experience the county’s rich cultural and historical heritage.

In addition, strengthening digital infrastructure is crucial. Many rural areas in Northumberland suffer from limited broadband, which affects not only local businesses but tourists’ experience. Will the Minister clarify the Government’s commitment to improving Northern Rail and investing in digital infrastructure as part of its tourism strategy?

Northumberland’s tourism industry has demonstrated exceptional resilience in its recovery from the pandemic. However, the Government’s recent changes to national insurance contributions could push small tourism and hospitality businesses to the brink. It is crucial that the Government provide the necessary support to the tourism sector, particularly in counties such as Northumberland, to help them to absorb those additional financial pressures and work towards returning to pre-pandemic levels. I look forward to hearing the Minister’s plans for the future of tourism in the UK and in Northumberland, and for the communities that depend on the industry to thrive.

Draft Online Safety Act 2023 (Priority Offences) (Amendment) Regulations 2024

Saqib Bhatti Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 General Committees

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I am happy to confirm that the Opposition will support these regulations, not least because, as the Minister has said, they complement the previous Government’s work on the Online Safety Act, and I was the Minister responsible for implementing the Act from when it received Royal Assent until the general election.

I take great pride in having served in the Government that introduced and passed the Online Safety Act. It places significant new responsibilities and duties on social media companies, platforms and services to increase safety online. However, most importantly, this vital piece of legislation ensures that children are better protected online. Having just attended a roundtable where we listened to victims of online abuse, I know that that is more important than ever. The Minister will share my thoughts on that. I share his sentiment—the Opposition will work with the Government to make sure that victims of online abuse receive justice and are supported and protected.

It is worrying and sad that almost three quarters of teenagers between 13 and 17 have encountered one or more potential harms online, and that three in five secondary school-aged children have been contacted online in a way that potentially made them feel uncomfortable. It is for those reasons that we ensured that the strongest measures in the Online Safety Act protect children. For example, platforms are required to prevent children from accessing harmful and age-inappropriate content and to provide parents and children with clear and accessible ways to report problems online when they arise. Furthermore, the Act requires all in-scope services that allow pornography to use highly effective age assurance to prevent children from accessing it, including services that host user-generated content and services that publish pornography. Ofcom has robust enforcement powers available against companies that fail to fulfil their duties.

The Online Safety Act also includes provisions to protect adult users, as it ensures that major platforms are more transparent about which kinds of potentially harmful content they allow. It gives users more control over the types of content they want to see. I note that Ofcom expects the illegal harm safety duties to become enforceable around March 2025, following Ofcom’s publication of its illegal harm statement in December 2024. Does the Minister agree that platforms do not need to wait for those milestones, as I often said, and should already be taking action to improve safety on their sites? Can he confirm that he is encouraging platforms to take proactive action in advance of any deadlines?

Separately from the Online Safety Act, the last Government also launched the pornography review, which explores the effectiveness of regulation, legislation and the law enforcement response to pornography. Can the Minister provide a reassurance that the review’s final report is on schedule and will be published before the end of the year? Can he also clarify whether the review will consider the impact of violent and harmful pornography on women and girls? I would be grateful for the Minister’s comments on those points and for his co-operation throughout his tenure. I am happy to add our support to these regulations, and to see that the previous Government’s pivotal piece of legislation is making the UK the safest place in the world for a child to be online.

Oral Answers to Questions

Saqib Bhatti Excerpts

Wednesday 16th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

The Secretary of State, in one of his first acts in his new role, cut £1.3 billion-worth of funding that would have been transformative for enabling cutting-edge research and development in Britain. I note that he has also ditched our ambition to turn Britain into a science and technology superpower. We set a target of £20 billion for R&D, which we met, but he has set no such target. Will he be setting a target, and can he today promise that there will be no cuts to R&D expenditure?

[Peter Kyle]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his appointment to his Front-Bench role. Let us just be honest about what this Government inherited. That £20 billion black hole affects every single Department across Government. My Department inherited a situation where the previous Government—including the former Chancellor, the right hon. Member for Godalming and Ash (Jeremy Hunt), who is sitting on the Opposition Front Bench—committed at this Dispatch Box to an exascale project to which not one single penny had been committed. That was a fraud committed on the scientific community of our country by that Government, and I had to make the difficult decision to move forward—

Technology in Public Services

Saqib Bhatti Excerpts

Monday 2nd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)]

I would like to start by paying tribute to all the Members who made their maiden speeches. I congratulate each and every one of them on that nerve-racking experience. We may not always agree on many things or we may agree on a lot, but clearly they will all be formidable contributors to this House.

I would also like to welcome the ministerial team to their place—and the new Secretary of State. As the shadow Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Arundel and South Downs (Andrew Griffith) said in his opening remarks, the Front Bench have my utmost respect for serving in public office. Being a Minister is a great privilege and we know that it also places burdens on those closest around us, so I genuinely wish them well. The civil servants I worked with in the Department, including those in my private office, were hard-working, dynamic and top notch. I am sure Ministers will have the same experience.

As His Majesty’s Opposition, we will of course hold the Government to account. We will challenge them where challenge is required, but let me be clear: our sole intention is only to ensure that the United Kingdom remains at the forefront of global innovation and technological advancement. Ministers may not believe me when I say it, but I do want them to be successful because their successes are the nation’s successes.

It is in that spirit that I welcome some of the announcements on enhancing technological use in the public sector, because, as has been said, productivity in the public sector lags behind that of the private sector. The private sector has largely recovered from the pandemic, but the public sector remains less efficient than it was before. That is important for two reasons. First, the public sector—our services that we are so privileged to have, whether the national health service or our police, to name just two—represents 20% of the national output. Improving technology in our services means improving the very services that the British public rely on. Secondly, public services are funded by taxpayers’ money. It is not our money or the Labour party’s money. Hard-working British people pay their taxes for these services, so it is morally right that we all do all we can to make our public services fit for purpose and as efficient as possible.

That is why the previous Conservative Government launched the comprehensive public service productivity review to address low levels of public sector productivity. In our national health service, we utilised AI to cut administration to keep more staff on the frontline and increase the speed of diagnosis, including better diagnoses of stroke, and lung and breast cancers. Our police officers were kept on the streets, rather than pushing pens, with the use of technology to speed up simple administrative tasks, which meant that crime fell in every part of the UK—except, of course, in Labour-run London. We see and welcome the value of better technological uses in the public sector.

I have some questions for the Minister and for the Secretary of State, which I hope the Minister will be able to answer on his behalf. First, over the summer we were all appalled by the riots that gripped the nation and the role that social media played. Digital accessibility for our most vulnerable people matters, and part of that must be that the public have trust in using social media and online platforms. Antisemitism and anti-Muslim incidents have seen a huge rise online. Ministers will have met social media companies, including X. Will the Minister please clarify what actions will now be taken, as we move forward, to ensure that social media is not used to perpetuate and amplify antisemitic and anti-Muslim hatred?

Secondly, one of my last acts as Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy was to instruct officials in the Department to start reviewing and refreshing the Government’s digital inclusion strategy, and to present options. The timing of the general election prevented that work from making progress, but there is no reason why it cannot continue now. Will the Minister confirm that she will continue that work? Will she commit to ensuring that the necessary funds are put aside, so our public services are more digitally inclusive? Conservatives recognise the importance of making our public services truly accessible. As the last review occurred 10 years ago, will she commit to ensuring that the review is carried out in a timely manner? If our public services are to be truly inclusive, they must be digitally inclusive, and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s response.

I am also keen to know what happened to the AI Bill, the legislation that the Secretary of State promised so often when he was in opposition, and what he intends to do about AI regulation. Perhaps the Minister can tell us what assessment she has made of the number of AI companies that will be created as a result of his plans, how much investment will be generated, and how many new jobs there will be. Why was the AI Bill not ready for the King’s Speech?

Let me now turn to the Secretary of State. He has had a very busy summer, but whether it was productive is another question. Countries across the world are brimming with ambition, investing in some of the most exciting and transformative technologies, such as artificial intelligence, and ensuring that they are at the forefront of global technological innovation. Let there be no doubt that this is a global race, and I fear that in its first few months in office the Labour party may already have done enough to ensure that this great nation of ours never comes close to winning that race.

The previous Conservative Government set out an ambition to be a science and tech superpower by 2030. I note that the Secretary of State has not shared that ambition, so imagine my surprise when I saw that in one of the Government’s first big moments, one of their first big acts was to cut £1.3 billion of investment in supercomputer capability and related research funding. The Secretary of State talks about being a partner to the tech industry. Well, on hearing the news of the cutting of exascale funding, one tech entrepreneur said to me, “With friends like these, who needs enemies?”

Perhaps the Secretary of State—or the Minister, on his behalf—could clarify whether he fought against that decision or endorsed it. Was he able to stand up to the Chancellor, or was he so intimidated by her that he lost his voice? We know that the Prime Minister was unsettled by that portrait of Margaret Thatcher, so perhaps the Secretary of State was similarly unsettled by the Chancellor. Did he even bother to fight for Britain’s AI and tech entrepreneurs, or were the trappings of ministerial office so enticing that he forgot to defend the single most important investment that would have ensured that we maintained our top position in the global AI race for decades to come?

But let me offer the hand of friendship. [Laughter.] I assure the Secretary of State that the hand of friendship exists. If he is worried about standing up to the Chancellor, we on this side of the House will of course support him. He does not need to be afraid. We believe in economic growth, so we will help him to stand up to the Chancellor. After all, his successes will be the nation’s successes, and that is our priority.

Let me move on from exascale. Over the summer, it became clear that the Labour Government had capitulated to the junior doctors and given them inflation-busting pay rises without asking for any modernisation or efficiency improvements in return. Before that decision, did the Secretary of State meet the Health Secretary and insist on efficiency improvements or better use of technology, or was giving in to Labour’s trade union paymasters more important? He did say that they were joined at the hip, so perhaps he will be able to show what he did to fight for the tech entrepreneurs of this country. I note that my right hon. Friend the Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Holden) asked him a question that he did not answer.

I also note that the Government have been silent on the NHS productivity review, which was backed by more than £3.4 billion. Again, he did not answer a question, asked on this occasion by my hon. Friend the Member for Hinckley and Bosworth (Dr Evans). Can the Minister now confirm that that funding is safe, or is it part of the Chancellor’s “black hole” calculations? Our plan and our review were backed by the NHS and would have saved 13 million clinician hours. What, actually, are the Labour party’s plans?

When the Transport Secretary capitulated to the transport unions, did this Secretary of State meet her? Did he insist on better use of technology to improve our transport system, so that he could benefit consumers and protect taxpayers, or did he just watch from the sidelines and drink the Kool-Aid? This may have passed him by, but so far, in its first two months in office, the Labour party has already handed out £14 billion to its trade union paymasters in no-strings-attached public sector pay deals. So it is all well and good for the Secretary of State to grandstand at the Dispatch Box, but the facts are painting a different picture. I just hope that he can find his voice and stand up for the tech sector before it is too late.

Let me explain why this is so important. We have already heard the Secretary of State repeat the farcical claims about the Chancellor’s “black hole”, having inherited a tech economy that was the third most valuable in the world; a tech economy that was being recognised across the world for its ability to nurture more tech unicorns—that is, more companies valued at £1 billion—than France, Germany and Sweden combined; a tech economy that was growing and creating millions of jobs annually, and attracting billions of pounds-worth of investment.

If the Secretary of State did make the decision to cut the £1.3 billion of exascale funding and now talks down that same tech economy, and in doing so undermines those very tech entrepreneurs who will help to fund our public services for decades to come and makes it less attractive for investors to invest, he cannot sincerely stand at the Dispatch Box and argue that he believes in economic growth—not if his first major economic act was one of economic mutilation. I implore him to go back to the Chancellor and challenge this decision. He should not let the Chancellor’s political games undermine him or the tech industry, which has so much potential. It is in his power to ensure that we nurture tech innovation so that the tech start-ups of today can become the tech giants of tomorrow. I say to the Secretary of State that he should not squander this opportunity. Otherwise, his legacy will be defined by what he did not do, rather than what he did do.

AI Seoul Summit

Saqib Bhatti Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2024 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Saqib Bhatti)]

With permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I shall make a statement on the AI Seoul summit, which the Government co-hosted with the Republic of Korea earlier this week.

The AI Seoul summit built on the legacy of the first AI safety summit, hosted by the UK at Bletchley Park in November 2023. At Bletchley, 28 countries and the European Union, representing the majority of the world’s population, signed the Bletchley declaration agreeing that, for the good of all, artificial intelligence should be designed, developed, deployed and used in a manner that is safe, human-centric, trustworthy and responsible. The same set of countries agreed to support the development of an international, independent and inclusive report to facilitate a shared science-based understanding of the risks associated with frontier AI.

At the same time, the UK announced the launch of our AI Safety Institute, the world’s first Government-backed organisation dedicated to advanced AI safety for the public good. World leaders, together with the leaders of the foremost frontier AI companies, agreed to the principle that states have a role in testing the most advanced models.

Since Bletchley, the UK has led by example with impressive progress on AI safety, both domestically and bilaterally. The AI Safety Institute has built up its capabilities for state-of-the-art safety testing. It has conducted its first pre-deployment testing for potential harmful capabilities on advanced AI systems, set out its approach to evaluations and published its first full results. That success is testament to the world-class technical talent that the institute has hired.

Earlier this week, the Secretary of State announced the launch of an office in San Francisco that will broaden the institute’s technical expertise and cement its position as a global authority on AI safety. The Secretary of State also announced a landmark agreement with the United States earlier this year that will enable our institutes to work together seamlessly on AI safety. We have also announced high-level partnerships with France, Singapore and Canada.

As AI continues to develop at an astonishing pace, we have redoubled our international efforts to make progress on AI safety. Earlier this week, just six months after the first AI safety summit, the Secretary of State was in the Republic of Korea for the AI Seoul summit, where the same countries came together again to build on the progress we made at Bletchley. Since the UK launched our AI Safety Institute six months ago, other countries have followed suit; the United States, Canada, Japan, Singapore, the Republic of Korea and the EU have all established state-backed organisations dedicated to frontier AI safety. On Tuesday, world leaders agreed to bring those institutes into a global network, showcasing the Bletchley effect in action. Coming together, the network will build “complementarity and interoperability” between their technical work and approaches to AI safety, to promote the safe, secure and trustworthy development of AI.

As part of the network, participants will share information about models, and their limitations, capabilities and risk. Participants will also monitor and share information about specific AI harms and safety incidents, where they occur. Collaboration with overseas counterparts via the network will be fundamental to making sure that innovation in AI can continue, with safety, security and trust at its core.

Tuesday’s meeting also marked an historic moment, as 16 leading companies signed the frontier AI safety commitments, pledging to improve AI safety and to refrain from releasing new models if the risks are too high. The companies signing the commitments are based right across the world, including in the US, the EU, China and the middle east. Unless they have already done so, leading AI developers will now publish safety frameworks on how they will measure the risks of their frontier AI models before the AI action summit, which is to be held in France in early 2025. The frameworks will outline when severe risks, unless adequately mitigated, would be “deemed intolerable” and what companies will do to ensure that thresholds are not surpassed. In the most extreme circumstances, the companies have also committed to

“not develop or deploy a model or system at all”

if mitigations cannot keep risks below the thresholds. To define those thresholds, companies will take input from trusted actors, including home Governments, as appropriate, before releasing them ahead of the AI action summit.

On Wednesday, Ministers from more than 28 nations, the EU and the UN came together for further in depth discussions about AI safety, culminating in the agreement of the Seoul ministerial statement, in which countries agreed, for the first time, to develop shared risk thresholds for frontier AI development and deployment. Countries agreed to set thresholds for when model capabilities could pose “severe risks” without appropriate mitigations. This could include: helping malicious actors to acquire or use chemical or biological weapons; and AI’s potential ability to evade human oversight. That move marks an important first step as part of a wider push to develop global standards to address specific AI risks. As with the company commitments, countries agreed to develop proposals alongside AI companies, civil society and academia for discussion ahead of the AI action summit.

In the statement, countries also pledged to boost international co-operation on the science of AI safety, by supporting future reports on AI risk. That follows the publication of the interim “International Scientific Report on the Safety of Advanced AI” last week. Launched at Bletchley, the report unites a diverse global team of AI experts, including an expert advisory panel from 30 leading AI nations from around the world, as well as representatives from the UN and the EU, to bring together the best existing scientific research on AI capabilities and risks. The report aims to give policymakers across the globe a single source of information to inform their approaches to AI safety. The report is fully independent, under its chair, Turing award winner, Yoshua Bengio, but Britain has played a critical role by providing the secretariat for the report, based in our AI Safety Institute. To pull together such a report in just six months is an extraordinary achievement for the international community; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports, for example, are released every five to seven years.

Let me give the House a brief overview of the report’s findings. It recognises that advanced AI can be used to boost wellbeing, prosperity and new scientific breakthroughs, but notes that, as with all powerful technologies, current and future developments could cause harm. For example, malicious actors can use AI to spark large-scale disinformation campaigns, fraud and scams. Future advances in advanced AI could also pose wider risks, including labour market disruption and economic power imbalances and inequalities. The report also highlights that, although various methods exist for assessing the risk posed by advanced AI models, all have limitations. As is common with scientific syntheses, the report highlights a lack of universal agreement among AI experts on a range of topics, including the state of current AI capabilities and how these could evolve over time. The next iteration of the report will be published ahead of the AI action summit early next year.

Concluding the AI Seoul summit, countries discussed the importance of supporting AI innovation and inclusivity, which were at the core of the summit’s agenda. We recognised the transformative benefits of AI for the public sector, and committed to supporting an environment which nurtures easy access to AI-related resources for SMEs, start-ups and academia. We also welcomed the potential of AI to provide significant advances to resolve the world’s great challenges, such as climate change, global health, and food and energy security.

The Secretary of State and I are grateful for the dedication and leadership shown by the Republic of Korea in delivering a successful summit in Seoul, just six short months after the world came together in Bletchley Park. It was an important step forward but, just as at Bletchley, we are only just getting started. The rapid pace of AI development leaves us no time to rest on our laurels. We must match that speed with our own efforts if we are to grip the risks of this technology, and seize the limitless benefits it can bring to people in Britain and around the world.

The UK stands ready to work with France to ensure that the AI action summit continues the legacy that we began in Bletchley Park, and continued in Seoul, because this is not an opportunity we can afford to miss. The potential upsides of AI are simply immense, but we cannot forget that this is the most complex technology humanity has ever produced. As the Secretary of State said in Seoul, it is our responsibility to ensure that human wisdom keeps pace with human knowledge.

I commend the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister for all the work they have done on the issue, and I commend this statement to the House.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the shadow Minister.

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the Minister for advance sight of his statement.

I hope this is in order, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I note that the Minister for Employment, the hon. Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill) is on the Front Bench, and that she is not standing at the general election. I know she has been very cross with me on occasions over the past few years—she is probably still cross with me now. [Interruption.] As the Minister says, she is only human. On a personal note, as we have both been cancer sufferers—or survivors—and have both had more than one rodeo on that, it is sad that she is leaving. I am sure she will continue to fight for patients with cancer and on many other issues, and I pay tribute to her. It has been a delight to work with her over these years; I hope she will forgive me one day.

The economic opportunities for our country through artificial intelligence are, of course, outstanding. With the right sense of mission and the right Government, we can make the most of this emerging technology to unlock transformative changes in our economy, our NHS and our public services. Let us just think of AI in medicine. It is a personal hope that it might soon be possible to have an AI app that can accurately assess whether a mole on somebody’s back, arm or leg—or the back of their head—is a potential skin cancer, such as melanoma. That could definitely save lives. We could say exactly the same about the diagnosis of brain injury, many other different kinds of cancer and many other parts of medicine There could be no more important issue to tackle, but I fear the Government have fluffed it again. Much as I like the Minister, his statement could have been written by ChatGPT.

I have a series of questions. First, let me ask about the

“shared risk thresholds for frontier AI development and deployment”,

which the Minister says Governments will be developing. How will they be drawn up? What legal force will they have in the UK, particularly if there is to be no legislation, as still seems to be in the mind of the Government?

Secondly, the Secretary of State hails the voluntary agreements from the summit as a success, but does that mean companies developing the most advanced AI are still marking their own homework, despite the potential risks?

Thirdly, the Minister referred several times to “malicious actors”. Which “malicious actors” is he referring to? Does that include state actors? If so, how is that work integrated with the cyber-security strategy for the UK? How will that be integrated with the cyber-security strategy during the general election campaign?

Fourthly, the Government’s own artificial intelligence adviser, Professor Yoshua Bengio, to whom the Minister referred, has said that it is obvious that more regulatory measures will be needed, by which he means regulations or legislation of some kind. Why, therefore, have the Government not even taken the steps that the United States has taken using President Biden’s Executive order?

Next, have the commitments made six months ago at the UK safety summit been kept, or are these voluntary agreements just empty words? Moreover, have the frontier AI companies, which took part in the Bletchley summit, shared their models with the AI Safety Institute before deploying them, as the Prime Minister pledged they would?

Next, the Government press release stated that China participated in person at the AI Seoul summit, so can the Minister just clear up whether it signed the ministerial statement? As the shadow Minister for creative industries, may I ask why there were no representatives of the creative industries at the AI summit? Why none at all, despite the fact that this is a £127 billion industry in the UK, and that many people in the creative industries are very concerned about the possibilities, the threats, the dangers and the risks associated with AI for remuneration of creators?

The code of practice working group, which the Government set up and which was aiming at an entirely voluntary code of conduct, has collapsed, so what is the plan now? The Government originally said that they would still consider legislation, so is that still in their mind?

I love this next phrase of the Minister’s. He said, “We are only just getting started”. Clearly, somebody did not do any editing. What on earth has taken the Government so long? A Labour Government would introduce binding regulation of the most powerful frontier AI companies, requiring them to report before they train models over a capability threshold, to conduct safety testing and evaluation and to maintain strong information security protections. Why have the Government not brought forward any of those measures, despite very strong advice from all of their advisers to do so?

Finally, does the Minister agree that artificial intelligence is there for humanity, and humanity is not there for artificial intelligence?

[Saqib Bhatti]

I share the sentiments that the hon. Gentleman expressed about my hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds (Jo Churchill). It was a very sweet thing that he said—the only sweet thing he has said from the Dispatch Box. My hon. Friend has been a great friend to me, giving me advice when I became a new father. Many people do not see the hard work that goes into the pastoral care that happens here, so I am personally very grateful to her. I know that she was just about to leave the Chamber, so I will let her do so. I just wanted to place on record my thanks and gratitude to her.

I am a bit disappointed with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), although I have a lot of time for him. Let me first address the important matter of healthcare. We obviously hugely focus on AI safety; we have taken a world-leading position on AI safety, which is what the Bletchley and the Seoul declarations were all about.

Ultimately, the hon. Member’s final statement about AI being for humanity is absolutely right. We will continue to work at pace to help build trust in AI, because it can be a transformative tool in a number of different spheres—whether it is in the public sector or in health, as the hon. Member quite rightly pointed out. On a personal note, I hope that, as a cancer survivor he has the very best of health for a long time to come.

Earlier this week, the Prime Minister spoke about how AI can help in the way that breast cancer scans are looked at. I often talk about Brainomix, which has been greatly helpful to 37 NHS trusts in the early identification of strokes. That means that three times more people are now living independently than was previously possible. AI can also be used in other critical pathways. Clearly, AI will be hugely important in the field of radiotherapy. The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence has already recommended that AI technologies are used in the NHS to help with the contouring of CT and MRI scans and to plan radiotherapy treatment and external therapy for patients.

The NHS AI Lab was set up in 2020 to accelerate the development and the deployment of safe, ethical and effective AI in healthcare. It is worth saying that the hon. Member should not underestimate the complexity of this issue .Earlier this year, I visited a start-up called Aival, which the Government helped to fund through Innovate UK. The success of the AI models varies depending on the different machines that are used and how they are calibrated, so independent verification of the AI models, and how they are employed in the health sector specifically, is very important.

In terms of malicious actors, the hon. Member will understand that I cannot go into specific details for obvious reasons, but I assure him, as someone who sits on the defending democracy taskforce, led by the Security Minister, that we have been looking at pace at how to protect our elections. I am confident that we are prepared, having taken a cross-governmental approach, including with our agencies. It is hugely important that we ensure that people can have trust in our democratic process.

The hon. Member is right that these are voluntary agreements. I was surprised by his response, because we said clearly in our response to the White Paper that we will keep the regulator-led approach, which we have invested money in. We have given £10 million to ensure that the regulator increases its capability in a whole sphere of areas. We have also said that we will not be afraid to legislate when the time is right. That is a key difference between what the Opposition talk about and what we are doing. Our plan is working, whereas the Opposition keep talking about legislating but cannot tell us what they would legislate for.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

We just told you. You should have listened.

[Saqib Bhatti]

There is no robust detail. I see that has exercised the hon. Member, who is chuntering from a sedentary position. The Opposition just have no serious plan for this.

The results speak for themselves. Around two weeks ago, we had a number of significant investments and a significant amount of job creation in the UK, with investment from CoreWeave, and almost £2 billion—[Interruption.] Those on the Opposition Front Bench would do well to listen to this. We had £2 billion of investment. Scale AI has put its headquarters in the UK. That shows our world-leading position, which is exactly why we co-hosted the Seoul summit and will support the French when they have their AI action summit. It goes to show the huge difference in our approach. We see safety as an enabler of growth and innovation, and that is exactly what we are doing.

The work goes on with the creative industries. It is hugely important, and we will not shy away from the most difficult challenges that AI presents.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)]

I thought the shadow Minister was wise to draw attention to the potential benefits of AI in particular for health research and treatment—notably brain injury, a subject in which he and I share a passionate interest—but foolish, if I might say so, to be churlish about the steps that the Government have already taken. The Government deserve great credit for taking a lead on this internationally, and establishing the first organisation dedicated to AI safety in the world.

I thank and congratulate the Minister on that, but in balancing the advantages and risks—the costs and benefits—will he be clear that the real risk is underestimating the effect that AI may have? The internet has already done immense damage, despite the heady optimism at the time it was launched. It has brutalised discourse and blurred the distinction between truth and fiction, and AI could go further to alter our very grasp of reality. I do not want to be apocalyptic, but that is the territory that we are in, and it requires the most considered treatment if we are not to let those risks become a nightmare.

[Saqib Bhatti]

I completely agree with my right hon. Friend. We recognise the risks and opportunities that AI presents. That is why we have tried to balance safety and innovation. I refer him to the Online Safety Act 2023, which is a technology agnostic piece of legislation. AI is covered by a range of spheres where the Act looks at illegal harms, so to speak. He is right to say that this is about helping humanity to move forward. It is absolutely right that we should be conscious of the risks, but I am also keen to support our start-ups, our innovative companies and our exciting tech economy to do what they do best and move society forward. That is why we have taken this pro-safety, pro-innovation approach; I repeat that safety in this field is an enabler of growth.

[Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)]

I would like to thank Sir Roger Gale, who has just left the Chair. He has been excellent in the Chair and I have very much enjoyed his company as well as his chairing.

I thank the Government for advance sight of the statement. My constituents and people across these islands are concerned about the increasing use of AI, not least because of the lack of regulation in place around it. I have specific questions in relation to the declarations and what is potentially coming down the line with regulation.

Who will own the data that is gathered? Who has responsibility for ensuring its safety? What is the Minister doing to ensure that regard is given to copyright and that intellectual property is protected for those people who have spent their time and energy and massive talents in creating information, research and artwork? What are the impacts of the use of AI on climate change? For example, it has been made clear that using this technology has an impact on the climate because of the intensive amounts of electricity that it uses. Are the Government considering that?

Will the Minister ensure that in any regulations that come forward there is a specific mention of AI harms for women and girls, particularly when it comes to deepfakes, and that they and other groups protected by the Equality Act 2010 are explicitly mentioned in any regulations or laws that come forward around AI? Lastly, we waited 30 years for an Online Safety Act. It took a very long time for us to get to the point of having regulation for online safety. Can the Minister make a commitment today that we will not have to wait so long for regulations, rather than declarations, in relation to AI?

[Saqib Bhatti]

The hon. Lady makes some interesting points. The thing about AI is not just the large language models, but the speed and power of the computer systems and the processing power behind them. She talks about climate change and other significant issues we face as humanity; that power to compute will be hugely important in predicting how climate change evolves and weather systems change. I am confident that AI will play a huge part in that.

AI does not recognise borders. That is why the international collaboration and these summits are so important. In Bletchley we had 28 countries, plus the European Union, sign the declaration. We had really good attendance at the Seoul summit as well, with some really world-leading declarations that will absolutely be important.

I refer the hon. Lady to my earlier comments around copyright. I recognise the issue is important because it is core to building trust in AI, and we will look at that. She will understand that I will not be making a commitment at the Dispatch Box today, for a number of reasons, but I am confident that we will get there. That is why our approach in the White Paper response has been well received by the tech industry and AI.

The hon. Lady started with a point about how constituents across the United Kingdom are worried about AI. That is why we all have to show leadership and reassure people that we are making advances on AI and doing it safely. That is why our AI Safety Institute was so important, and why the network of AI safety institutes that we have helped to advise on and worked with other countries on will be so important. In different countries there will be nuances regarding large language models and different things that they will be approaching—and sheer capability will be a huge factor.

[Matt Hancock (West Suffolk) (Ind)]

I pay tribute to the Government for their approach on AI. The growth of AI, and its exponential impact, has really not yet landed with most people around the world. The scale and impact of that technology is truly once in a generation, if not once in history. Ensuring that we work around the world to harness that incredibly powerful force for good for humanity is vital. It is good to see the UK playing a leading role in that and, frankly, it is good to see a cross-party approach, because this is bigger than party politics. Will all those involved—the Minister, Lord Camrose, the Secretary of State and the Prime Minister—ensure that the agenda of empowering the development of AI and putting guardrails in place is absolutely at the centre not just of UK policy but of policy across the world?

[Saqib Bhatti]

I put on record my personal thanks to my right hon. Friend for all that he has done. We worked very closely together on the introduction of the integrated care board when he was Health Secretary, and it continues to be hugely beneficial to my constituents. He raises important points about the opportunities of AI and the building of trust, which I have also spoken about. However, he mentioned a “cross-party approach”. I am not sure that the Opposition are quite there yet in terms of their approach. I say to the Opposition that there is a great tech story in this country: we are now the third most valuable economy in the world, worth over $1 trillion; we have more unicorns than France, Germany and Sweden combined; we have created 1.9 million more jobs—over 22% more—than at pre-pandemic levels; and, as I have said, just over £2 billion of investment has come in just the last fortnight. We believe in British entrepreneurs, British innovation and British start-ups. The real question is: why do the Opposition not believe in Britain?

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I welcome the Minister’s statement. He is right to say that many Members across the Chamber support the Government’s clear goals and objectives. The continued focus on the Bletchley declaration is to be welcomed, and I welcome the drive to prevent disinformation and other concerns. However, although information and practice sharing will be almost universal, we must retain the ability to prevent the censorship of positions that may not be popular but should not be censored, and ensure that cyber-security is a priority for us nationally, primarily followed by our international obligations.

[Saqib Bhatti]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that AI will play a huge role in cyber-security. We recently launched our codes of practice for developers in the cyber-security field. AI will be the defining technology of the 21st century—it is hugely important—and his questions highlight exactly why we have taken this approach. We want our regulators, which are closest to their industries, to define and be on top of what is going on. That is why we have given them capacity-building funds and asked them to set out their plans, which they did at the end of April, and we will continue to work with them.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

It sounds as if there was a fair bit of discussion at the summit about AI in healthcare, particularly on its use as a medical device. The Minister will know that it has great potential, and I heard his exchanges just a moment ago. To give just one example, AI can support but not replace clinicians in mammography readings. Does he agree that we must follow the strong lead of the US in this area by ensuring that the regulatory landscape is in the right place to assist this innovation, not get in the way of it?

[Saqib Bhatti]

My hon. Friend makes a hugely important point. I refer him to what I said earlier. It was insightful for me to see how transformative AI can be in health. When I visited Aival, for example, I gained insight into the complexity of installing AI as a testing bed for different machines depending on who has manufactured and calibrated them. The regulator will play a huge role, as he can imagine, whether on heart disease, radiotherapy, or DeepMind’s work in developing AlphaFold.

[Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)]

I congratulate the Minister on all his enthusiastic work on AI. In his statement, he referred to the frontier AI safety commitments, and 16 companies were mentioned. One of those was Zhipu AI of Tsinghua Daxue—Tsinghua University in China—which is, of course, one of the four new AI tigers of China. How important is the work that the Minister is doing to ensure China is kept in the tent when it comes to the safety and regulation of AI, so that we do not end up with balkanisation when it comes to AI?

[Saqib Bhatti]

My hon. Friend makes a really important point. I will not try to pronounce the name of that university or that company; what I will say is that AI does not recognise borders, so it is really important for China to be in the room, having those conversations. What those 16 companies signed up to was a world first, by the way: companies from the US, the United Arab Emirates, China and, of course, the UK signed that commitment. This is the first time that they have agreed in writing that they will not deploy or develop models that test the thresholds. Those thresholds will be divined at the AI action summit in France, so my hon. Friend is exactly right that we need a collaborative global approach.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I thank the Minister for his statement.