AI: International Co-operation

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

We are indeed co-operating with many like-minded allies and countries —for example, the G7 and the OECD, to which the noble Lord referred—on taking forward the AI principles. Those agreed standards are vital for the governance and the effective adoption of AI in all countries. As I mentioned in reference to the question from the noble Earl, we are not a member of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization. I did review its membership before answering this Question, so I am aware of that. This is a global technology; it is providing opportunities and threats globally. It is very important that, in respect of the UK, we provide advice to our companies and the public sector, so that we can be prepared both for the risks and the opportunities.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

My Lords—

[Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)]

My Lords, we will hear from the Labour and then the Conservative Benches.

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

My Lords, I hope we will raise our sights above some of our traditional disputes. The threat we face is a worldwide one, as is recognised with what happened with the attack on Hugging Face by OpenAI. This is truly a threat to the whole world, regardless of where we come from politically, and we must therefore look to get the maximum co-operation, on a worldwide basis, that we can secure. Could we, as a starter, start to write out what principles and what guidance we should seek to put into AI that should be minimum standards for a world application?

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

As I mentioned, the Government co-operate with others in numerous multilateral forums. We have taken forward the OECD principles in many of these and they include some of aspects to which my noble friend referred. We will continue to talk to allies about all these aspects. On risks, it is important to emphasise that we are both providing advice to companies on what measures they can take to improve their resilience and taking new powers, through the Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill, to protect our essential services from attacks, wherever they emanate from.