Lords
Proceedings
16 June 2026
Online Hate Speech
My Lords, social media is where many people and most young people get their news, but it is owned or controlled by a handful of tech billionaires whose views are shared disproportionately and who represent an existential risk to democracy—as we saw when Elon Musk, the owner of X, tweeted in support …
Lords
Proceedings
16 June 2026
Artificial Intelligence: National Security Implications
I thank the Minister for that response. President Trump gave less than 90 minutes for Anthropic to make Mythos and Fable unavailable to any non-US citizens. In doing so, the White House went from a position of no AI regulation at all to 100% control. These systems are extremely powerful and anticipa…
Lords
Proceedings
5 June 2026
Artificial Intelligence: Impact on Human Relationships and Society
My Lords, I too thank the most reverend Primate for her wonderful introduction, and indeed acknowledge the intervention of His Holiness Pope Leo, who I had the privilege of meeting at the Vatican on this subject some months ago.
The relationship between humanity and AI is often described through th…
Lords
Proceedings
1 June 2026
Sovereign AI Fund
Representatives of the sovereign AI unit have repeatedly said that the companies it funds or supports with compute must comply with “applicable UK law”, including when copyright law applies to their training activity. However, they have been unwilling to say whether they will fund or support compani…
Lords
Proceedings
19 May 2026
King’s Speech
My Lords, imagine if, this morning, a child could go to school in the United Kingdom knowing that the technology in their classroom was designed to support their learning rather than simply to harvest their data and that their personal information, whether their educational record or visits to the s…
Lords
Debate
28 April 2026
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I thank the Minister for her kind words and for the statement. I thank the Government for their active engagement in the matter of social media, albeit rather last-minute, and for making a binding commitment to impose some form of age or functionality restrictions for children under 16, to…
Lords
Debate
27 April 2026
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I will speak to my Amendment C1, but I will start with Amendments A1 and A2. The House may be relieved to hear that I am pretty much lost for words in responding to the Government’s position. In the face of overwhelming evidence of a need for urgency to act, most recently from court cases …
Lords
Debate
20 April 2026
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I largely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, who brings all the rigour that you would expect from an MBA from Harvard Business School to the analysis of this problem. Ultimately, it is a business issue. These companies are making a vast amount of money from, basically, monetising…
Lords
Debate
16 April 2026
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
Leave out from “House” to end and insert “do insist on its Amendments 360, 368, 369, 370, 371 and 372.”
My Lords, the supporters of Motion V1 have decided, in the interest of time, not to speak, but they are very keen to indicate that there is passionate support across the House for what I will say now. Also, I have cut my speech very short, so that we can get to the vote. I am grateful to the Ministe…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
25 March 2026
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I am not trying to deprive other noble Lords of the chance to speak, but the idea that we go to the Front Benches because we have all heard these arguments before is not fair, because the Government have put before us the widest set of proposals that are completely new and came out of nowh…
My Lords, to sum up this debate briefly, I have nothing new to add. I merely agree with certain noble Lords who have already spoken. As for the Government’s approach, Henry VII’s son is all over it, and that is never a good thing for a Bill. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, on that. The ap…
Lords
Debate
25 March 2026
Crime and Policing Bill
I add my support to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, puts her finger on it: enforcement is key here, and it is key because we all know that without serious enforcement, these companies, which will be acting in breach of the law, will simply not comply. What will make t…
Lords
Proceedings
18 March 2026
Digital ID: Public Consultation
I very much welcome the deliberative aspect of this consultation. It is good to see the Government doing that, and I hope it goes into other areas. I want to associate myself with many of the questions that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, asked. Hopefully over this consultation period they will …
Lords
Debate
18 March 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I will speak to all the amendments in this group in my name and those of the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Clement-Jones, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan.
I will first speak briefly to government Amendment 429B, which will give a power to the …
My Lords, I thank the Minister for his words and his roll-call of that incredible list of speakers who supported the amendments. That was a wonderful list of people from all sides of the House, who did indeed have slightly varying reasons to support the amendment, but they were all positive. I also …
Lords
Debate
11 March 2026
2 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I will speak to Amendments 404, 405, 431 and 432. In the light of the hour and the spirit of my conversations with the Minister, I will not go through my amendments in detail, nor the very long journey it has been to get here. In short, they concern earlier agreements that, in cases where …
I thank all noble Lords who have supported this, not just tonight but on previous occasions, and I thank the Minister. Earlier this afternoon, we were looking for the perfect words. When she stood up, she said “clearly irrelevant” to the death of a child, and that would have been the perfect phrase …
Lords
Debate
10 March 2026
2 contributions
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, I added my name to Amendment 14, alongside that of my noble friend Lord Russell, and he has adequately explained the gap.
I started, unfortunately, looking at child sexual abuse in 2012. Unfortunately, in the period since then, I have had the misfortune to look at a great deal of child se…
My Lords, I join the Minister’s fan club and thank her for her engagement on this, which has really helped get this to a better place. I am grateful for that. I believe we will hear from her what the Government’s plan is, but can she also assure me on a couple of points?
First, whatever the new pro…
Lords
Debate
2 March 2026
7 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Cotes, and the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Clement-Jones, for adding their names. I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for trying to add her name. Such was the enthusiasm that there was no space.
As already discussed, the Governme…
If I was in the same meeting as the Minister, officials were unable to say that LLMs and generative models would be covered by that amendment. Indeed, they said that the policy of the Government was chatbots only. Chatbots are the subject of another amendment that I have tabled, which we will come t…
+5 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
11 February 2026
5 contributions
Victims and Courts Bill
My Lords, I support Amendment 61, to which I have added my name, and associate myself with the noble Baroness’s words on Amendment 62. I was sitting here thinking that if I was guilty of the total creative expression that I have consumed, I would have to be locked up for life. It was moving to hear …
My Lords—
+3 more contributions in this session
Lords
Debate
3 February 2026
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, I too added my name to Amendment 215 but, like my noble friend Lord Hampton, I have spoken on this issue quite a lot and anyone who would like to know my view can find it in Hansard —reams of it.
However, I want to ask the Minister a few questions about the Government’s current position. …
My Lords, Amendments 238 to 240 are in my name and those of my noble friends Lady Cass and Lord Russell. I support Amendment 227 in the name of my noble friend Lord Tarassenko. I start by thanking the Minister and her officials for the engagement that we have had since Committee. These amendments, u…
Lords
Debate
27 January 2026
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Barran and Lady Morgan, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for their support.
It is heartbreaking to be here again. I first raised this issue over four years ago after witnessing Senior Coroner Walker’s difficulties in obtaining data from US tech fi…
On that point, does the Minister have the number of children over five who die in other ways, just so the Committee can understand how much of a burden that might be?
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Debate
21 January 2026
2 contributions
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
My Lords, it is an absolute pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate, because I am going to mirror his words in many ways. Before I start, I thank our warm-up act, the noble Baroness, Lady Penn. It is a fantastic result. I hope that the Minister gives her all that she wants. She should be proud…
I am sorry but the noble Viscount is misreading what I said. I said exactly that.
Lords
Proceedings
14 January 2026
Social Media: Non-consensual Sexual Deepfakes
My Lords, I was in the other place when the Secretary of State made her Statement. I commend her for the strength of her words, but we are beyond words now. We are living in a country where any woman or child can be stripped to a bikini and turned into abuse material, as the price and entry point of…
Lords
Oral Questions
8 January 2026
2 contributions
AI Systems: Risks
My Lords, I also want to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Fairfax of Cameron, on securing this question for short debate on such a timely issue. AI is an incredible development for many reasons—R&D, innovation, economic growth, productivity, faster health diagnoses and many other areas. However…
I thank the noble Baroness for that; I respect her interest and work in this area. It would take me at least 20 minutes to cover most of what was asked. There were points about regulation at different levels, about AI and copyright and about the Sovereign AI Unit’s funding of £500 million. We need t…
Lords
Debate
9 December 2025
3 contributions
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin. I share much of her frustration about us being here discussing this again and hearing that litany of powerful images—that I would rather unhear—from the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin. I do not propose to add to them, except to sa…
I want to ask the Minister about the timing. Her tone is exceptionally welcome— I will leave the substance of her response to the noble Baroness, Lady Bertin—but I am watching facial recognition, edtech and AI being rolled out by the Government with impunity. Even earlier today, at Questions, the to…
+1 more contribution in this session
Lords
Oral Questions
3 November 2025
AI: Workforce Training
I thank the noble Baroness for the work that she has done in this area. The Government are not sacrificing the contribution made by the creative sector. AI offers significant opportunities, including for creators, who are already using it to enhance their work. I know of designers and artists using …
Lords
Debate
16 October 2025
Crime and Policing Bill
My Lords, hers is never an easy act to follow but I want to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, so much for her work. I say to her: “Back at you”, as I will be supporting her work in this Bill as well. I also welcome the Minister to this House—what an asset she will be to it and the Government. I…