Department for Science, Information and Technology: Abolition

Lord Dixon of Jericho Excerpts

Tuesday 21st July 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises a genuinely valid point, but this is about how we mainstream everything and put this at the heart. Everything we are talking about is AI-enhanced reindustrialisation. I appreciate that there are many times when we use “AI” as shorthand for tech or science, just because of how quickly the technology is moving on. I reassure the noble Lord that we will continue to make sure that AI and science and technology are at the heart of the eight industrial priority sectors.

[Lord Dixon of Jericho (LD)]

My Lords, there are five areas where a country or a company can lead in artificial intelligence: people, chips, models, infrastructure and deployment. The leading global companies are spending about £500 billion this year on it; our spending as a country will be roughly 0.3% of that. Given the scale of our investment compared with others, do the machinery of government changes reflect the Government choosing to focus on an area where we can have stronger comparative advantage as a country, or do they mean that we will still continue to try to lead on all those areas?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

The noble Lord is right that we are talking about how technology and the advancements in it are going to fuel economic growth. That is a priority for the Government, as the Prime Minister has made clear. The prioritisation of that will come in the coming days, but our key here is about making sure that reindustrialisation, through these tools and using these levers, can work for every single corner of the United Kingdom, so that there is no longer a postcode lottery and that people have the opportunity to invest and make best use of these tools.

Foreign Interference in UK Democratic Processes

Lord Dixon of Jericho Excerpts

Wednesday 17th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I could not agree more with my noble friend. One of the most instructive things that we have seen in recent months was, when the Iranian regime turned off the internet in order to stop protests on its own streets, we saw how many online Twitter bots were no longer operational. We see that across the piece with state actors who are trying to sow division. There is therefore a responsibility on each and every one of us not to repeat their lies.

[Lord Dixon of Jericho (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as the chief executive of the Liberal Democrats. Earlier this week, the Liberal Democrat systems were, I am reliably informed, attacked by a hostile state in a sophisticated attack. Fortunately, the protections that we had in place were robust against this attack, and we had the full co-operation of the security services in helping us to withstand that attack. However, given the way that that foreign state is particularly targeting political parties, does the Minister think that the support given to all political parties across the spectrum is proportionate to the level of threat that we now face?

[Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)]

I am genuinely sorry that I did not know about the attack on the Liberal Democrat website. It brings home the fact that every democratic institution is under threat every day from those people who wish to sow division and to undermine our core values and, indeed, our United Kingdom. The National Security Secretariat co-ordinates the counter political interference and espionage action plan, but that is constantly under review on the basis of our doing what we need to do as and when we need to do it to make sure that the right protections are in place. If the noble Lord wants me to facilitate meetings with any of our officials on additional support, I am more than happy to do so.

I am not sure that there is time for me to be asked another question so, on that basis, I will just say, “Come on, England” for tonight.