Lord Clement-Jones — Hansard — Westminster Brief

Lords Oral Questions 3 November 2025

AI: Workforce Training

The noble Lord made several points there; I will address the point about AI gaps in the workforce. The Government are actively assessing AI skills gaps and taking action to close them. My department regularly reviews the AI labour market and has commissioned new research, due to be released later th…

Lords Proceedings 30 October 2025 3 contributions

Protection of Children Codes of Practice

My Lords, this is a regret Motion, and one of my regrets today is that we are debating it so long after it was tabled back in May this year. The Online Safety Act 2023 was born from tireless campaigning over a long period, and when I look around the Chamber, I see a number of those who were heavily …

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for initiating this debate, and I agree with almost everything he has just said. I applaud the enormous work that Ofcom has put into creating and implementing the children’s codes. I am pleased to hear that they have already led to a huge reduct…

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Lords Oral Questions 21 October 2025

Amazon Web Services

I thank the noble Lord for those points. The Government are aware and are taking cybersecurity seriously. That is why we have published a number of strategies and are working with the National Cyber Security Centre, as I mentioned earlier. The noble Lord also mentioned procurement and the service pr…

Lords Debate 16 October 2025

Crime and Policing Bill

My Lords, I also support much of this Bill. The Home Secretary introduced the Bill to drive her Government’s safer streets mission and to halve violence against women and girls in a decade, so I welcome the tightening of the law in Clauses 84 and 85 around voyeurism and criminalising exposure intend…

Lords Proceedings 14 October 2025

Digital ID

My Lords, the introduction of compulsory digital ID represents another fundamental error by this Government. The Liberal Democrats strongly oppose this proposal, which is a serious threat to privacy, civil liberties and social inclusion. We thank the Minister for bringing the Secretary of State’s St…

Lords Oral Questions 15 September 2025 2 contributions

Online Safety Act 2023: Virtual Private Networks

My Lords, the Government and Ofcom are monitoring the potential impact of circumvention techniques on the effectiveness of the Online Safety Act, especially since the child safety duties came into effect in July 2025. Services promoting VPN use to bypass age checks could face enforcement action. The…

My Lords, the Online Safety Act places very clear duties on platforms to protect children, including tackling methods of circumvention. The use of VPNs to bypass safeguards is a known risk, and platforms must act decisively. They are already required to assess such risks and implement proportionate …

Lords Oral Questions 11 September 2025

Merck Research Site

I thank the noble Lord for raising the VPAG scheme. The VPAG scheme, which was negotiated under the previous Government, turned out with a figure of 23%, which was completely unexpected on both sides. The industry entered the scheme jointly with government, negotiated it and that is the number it ca…

Lords Proceedings 10 September 2025

Jaguar Land Rover Cyberattack

My Lords, I express my appreciation of the work of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, which the Minister mentioned, and I wish her well in her non-ministerial capacity. Given reports that the attack has been claimed by hacker groups linked to Scattered Spider, which I believe is also responsible for re…

Lords Debate 5 September 2025

Space Industry (Indemnities) Bill

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for introducing this Bill, which, although a Private Member’s Bill, received the support of the previous Conservative Government; I understand that it has the support of the current Government as well. I do not want to sound the slightest bit grinchy in the midst o…

Lords Oral Questions 4 September 2025

European Framework Programme 10

We have got the money for the first two years of the programme in the spending review so, assuming that we associate, the money is there for those first two years, which covers the period of the spending review. The timelines for FP10 are in the hands of the EU, which has not yet defined what the pr…

Lords Oral Questions 3 September 2025

Open Artificial Intelligence Service

As the noble Lord rightly says, the open AI approach—I mean the general approach to openness, not the company—has been an important part of how this has progressed so rapidly and will be an important part of what we do going forward. We need partnerships where necessary in order to access existing m…

Lords Oral Questions 1 September 2025

Civil Service: Artificial Intelligence Productivity Gains

I thank the noble Lord for his question. I have a full Question on sovereign AI on Wednesday, when I will answer that question in more detail, but in the meantime let me say that there is not a some inbuilt bias against that; it is just that many of the large language models are, of course, from US …

Lords Debate 23 July 2025 2 contributions

Employment Rights Bill

My Lords, it is extremely disappointing that we are debating something of this order of importance at this time of day and at the fag-end of this Bill. However, unusually, I shall try to ingratiate myself with the House by being as brief as possible. First, I want to thank the noble Lord, Lord Katz…

My Lords, I am going to be extremely brief because it is now 11.20 pm. We need to finish these proceedings at least before midnight, but that may be an ambition too far. I declare an interest, as I should have done in the last group, as chair of the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society. It wou…

Lords Statutory Instrument 22 July 2025 4 contributions

Enterprise Act 2002 (Mergers Involving Newspaper Enterprises and Foreign Powers) Regulations 2025

Perhaps the noble Lord has never been on the board of a public limited company. There is a huge difference between a 5% and a 15% ownership stake.

If a company has a series of 5% ownership stakes it will have a plurality of shareholders and therefore a mix of influence, but if you own a 15% stake you have a much higher share in the company and are probably entitled to a single board member.

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Lords Debate 21 July 2025 2 contributions

Employment Rights Bill

My Lords, Amendment 111ZA seeks to introduce a requirement for workplace AI risk and impact assessments. This amendment is focused on addressing the profound and rapidly evolving impact of artificial intelligence systems on the modern workplace. There are many opportunities for its adoption but also…

The noble Baroness nearly won me over at that point. I thank her. I feel like someone who was expecting a full meal but receives a rather light snack. I will explain why as we go through. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. I feel that I am somewhat upstaging him by putting an amendment at the fro…

Lords Oral Questions 21 July 2025

Artificial Intelligence: Legislation

I agree that this is an urgent issue, and it is changing day by day. The urgency is reflected in the work that has already taken place through the Online Safety Act, the Data (Use and Access) Act and, of course, the Crime and Policing Bill. But the need to get the legislation right for a more widesp…

Lords Committee Stage 15 July 2025 4 contributions

Online Safety Super-Complaints (Eligibility and Procedural Matters) Regulations 2025

My Lords, I want to add a few comments to the discussions on these regulations. I am sorry; I was a little slow off the mark. I want to say from the outset that I believe we are going to need much more oversight to protect everyone —in particular our children and other vulnerable groups —from tech,…

The only information that I have is that we are anticipating that the report would be published and available in early 2028—so, obviously, it would need to start well before then. The noble Lord will know that setting up ombudsman schemes is not a simple process. However, we look forward to the outc…

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Lords Oral Questions 9 July 2025

Fujitsu: Government Contracts

The noble Lord makes an incredibly important point. Yesterday, we saw the first volume of Sir Wyn Williams’s 160-page report, based on 2 million pages of evidence, which included 19 recommendations, and we will come back to it in due course. The Government are committed to responding in full to the …

Lords Oral Questions 8 July 2025 3 contributions

ARIA: Scoping Our Planet Programme

ARIA fully complies with its responsibilities under the Environmental Information Regulations. ARIA is committed to transparency; it publishes regular information on its programmes in its annual reports and accounts, in the corporate plan and through the quarterly transparency disclosures on its web…

I thank the noble Lord for his question. I know that he is prone to shaking his head when Ministers answer. I fear that I may give him a neck injury during this answer. Of course we are committed to transparency, but we have no plans to bring ARIA into the scope of the FoI Act. ARIA is a unique org…

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Lords Debate 24 June 2025 3 contributions

Employment Rights Bill

My Lords, I will see my noble friend Lord Fox tomorrow and I will tell him what he has been missing. I think the noble Lord, Lord Leong, is already making history by using the phrase “very, very soon”—or was it “very, very, very soon”? In my experience, I do not think I have heard that, so it is pro…

Can the Minister say what the status is of the consultations she mentioned? She offered very reassuring words and said there was a consultation on employment status. Is that under way? Would that mean the idea is to eventually have an Employment Rights (No.2) Bill, which we would all look forward to…

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Lords Debate 16 June 2025 3 contributions

Employment Rights Bill

My Lords, I declare an interest as chair of Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society. I rise to speak to Amendments 301 and 302, which aim to provide vital protections for freelance workers in the UK. It was a pleasure to hear the introductions from the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, and the noble Earl…

My Lords, the Minister has noticed the strength of feeling across the House in terms of support for some of the freelance amendments. I very much appreciate what the noble Lord, Lord Sharpe of Epsom, said earlier. However, across the Benches there is very strong support for further protection for fr…

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Lords Proceedings 13 June 2025

AI and Creative Technologies (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

My Lords, I declare my interests in early-stage technology ventures as set out in the register. I thank my noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston for securing and leading this important and timely debate. I felt genuinely sad to be reminded that she will no longer be chairing this important and effect…

Lords Debate 11 June 2025

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I thank noble Lords for their contributions. I repeat again our absolute commitment to the creative sector and our intention to work with it to help it flourish and grow. This is London Tech Week. All Ministers, including me and my colleagues, have been involved in that, showcasing the UK’…

Lords Debate 5 June 2025 2 contributions

Employment Rights Bill

My Lords, first of all, I must make my apologies that this is my first contribution to the Bill. I have waited until day 7—I am not quite sure that that is entirely my fault—but it is a pleasure to speak in this group, particularly as I know that the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, is on the same page, eve…

My Lords, I thank the Minister. That is probably the most comprehensive statement about the Government’s intentions on AI regulation that I have heard in this Parliament, so I thank her and her officials for taking the time and trouble to set out their approach. The noble Lord, Lord Sharpe, talked …

Lords Oral Questions 5 June 2025

AI Opportunities Action Plan

AI sovereignty is a crucial issue. It ranges from questions of what infrastructure and companies we need in this country to what public work we need to do to make sure that we can access the AI required. AI sovereignty is very much part of the AI action plan; the spending review is under way and the…