Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to work with financial regulators to develop the use of AI-specific stress testing in financial services.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government’s ambition is to make the UK a global leader in AI, leveraging our dual strength in financial services and AI to drive growth, productivity, and consumer benefits. Encouraging safe adoption is an essential part of realising that ambition.
HM Treasury works closely with the UK financial regulators to monitor evolving risks from new technologies, and ensure that the opportunities AI presents can be realised in a safe and responsible way.
Stress testing is a key tool the Bank use to ensure the financial system is sufficiently resilient to a wide range of potential scenarios. The Bank intends to consider the macroeconomic and core financial market consequences of AI adoption under various scenarios. This will enable it to form a view on the range of outcomes that need to be encompassed by future stress tests, in order to capture the potential severe but plausible risks associated with the range of potential AI outcomes.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the effectiveness of UK financial oversight arrangements in the context of the rapid adoption of AI tools by banks and insurers; and what are the implications for consumer protection and financial stability.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government’s ambition is to make the UK a global leader in AI, leveraging our dual strength in financial services and AI to drive growth, productivity, and consumer benefits. Encouraging safe adoption is an essential part of realising that ambition.
HM Treasury works closely with the UK financial regulators to monitor evolving risks from new technologies, and ensure that the opportunities AI presents can be realised in a safe and responsible way.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what impact the increase in foreign direct investment in the UK has on their policy for artificial intelligence innovation, if any.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
The Government welcomes the increase of foreign direct investment into the UK economy. In 2024, the UK AI sector received £15bn worth of FDI across 51 different investment deals, creating over 6,500 jobs. This ensures the sector continues to grow and maintains its place as the largest AI sector in Europe and the third largest in the world.
In the AI Opportunities Action Plan, this Government set out its ambitions to make the UK an AI-maker. We are backing British businesses through our £500 million Sovereign AI Fund and acting as first customers to promising British chip companies in our Advanced Market Commitment. Foreign investment is helping us scale our ambitions, building out large-scale infrastructure as AI Growth Zones, but this has not altered our policy to make the UK a global leader in the development of AI.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to ensure the safe, transparent and accountable use of AI in public services under the partnership with Google DeepMind, in particular with regard to (1) the proposed automated materials science laboratory, and (2) collaboration with the AI Security Institute.
Answered by Baroness Lloyd of Effra - Baroness in Waiting (HM Household) (Whip)
Google DeepMind will deepen its work with the UK AI Security Institute (AISI) through enhanced technical information exchange on frontier AI capabilities and their real-world impacts, including indicators of accelerating AI progress, and emerging security risks.
The partnership will advance joint research on AI safety, security and societal resilience, with Google DeepMind providing AISI with priority technical access to its frontier models. Google DeepMind will also collaborate with the UK government to explore AI-enhanced approaches to national cyber resilience, including initiatives to identify and remediate threats at scale.
The automated lab announced alongside the partnership is an independent Google DeepMind initiative and the UK Government is not involved in operation of the lab.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the use of AI forecasting tools by NHS trusts to manage demand for and waiting times in accident and emergency; and how the use of that AI is informing wider NHS digital transformation policy.
Answered by Baroness Merron - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department of Health and Social Care)
The 10-Year Health Plan was published on 3 July 2025 and sets out how the Government will ensure the National Health Service is fit for the future, and that artificial intelligence (AI) will play a fundamental role in this transformation. As part of the 10-Year Health Plan, the Government is supporting the use of AI-enabled appointment and scheduling tools to reduce the administrative burden on clinicians, with early trials showing an increase in productivity and clinician time saved.
An accident and emergency demand forecasting tool is now available to all NHS trusts and is already in use by 50 NHS organisations, helping them plan how many people are likely to need emergency care and treatment on any given day. While this tool does not schedule appointments specifically, it uses AI to predict emergency care demand, enabling trusts to plan staffing and resources more effectively and reduce pressure on services.
The tool forms part of a wider set of Government‑supported innovations in operational AI, which include technologies to streamline scheduling, automate administrative tasks, and enhance clinical workflows. These collectively aim to free up staff time, improve care quality, and reduce waiting times across the system.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of recent trends in venture capital investment and scale-up financing in the UK technology sector; and how those trends are informing policy to support fintech and AI innovation.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The UK has the third largest Venture Capital (VC) market in the world behind the US and China, and the largest in Europe. The latest edition of the British Business Bank (BBB) 2025 Equity Monitor found that the UK attracted £10.8 billion of VC investment in 2024, with £5.5 billion invested in the UK technology sector.
At the Budget in November 2025, we introduced measures to build on these strengths by expanding our enterprise tax reliefs to incentivise investment in scaling firms and support them to attract top talent, by targeting BBB investment towards scale-up companies, and by committing to public procurement reforms to make the UK government a better customer to innovative businesses.
HM Treasury will continue to monitor the implementation of Budget measures and analyse their impact on the UK technology sector, to inform future policy development.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the risks to consumers and financial stability of the current regulatory approaches to AI in financial services.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government believes that the safe adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) by the financial services sector is a major strategic opportunity, with the potential to power growth across the UK. As set out in the Government’s Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy, it is our ambition to make the UK ”the world’s most technologically advanced global financial sector”, leveraging our dual strengths in FS and AI to drive growth, productivity, and deliver consumer benefits.
The Government has been clear that we will strike the right balance between managing the risks posed by AI and unlocking its huge potential. The UK financial regulators take an outcomes-based approach to regulating AI within the financial sector, drawing on existing frameworks to ensure that firms uphold strong consumer, stability and market standards, whether they use AI or not. Our current assessment, shared by the regulators, is that this framework is capable of ensuring the effective regulation of the use of AI. However, we will continue working closely with the regulators as the technology evolves to monitor risks and ensure that AI adoption continues in a safe and responsible way.
The Government is carefully considering the Treasury Committee’s report on AI in financial services and will respond in due course.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to support and retain high-growth UK technology firms seeking to list on the London stock exchange.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government has delivered an ambitious programme of reforms to make it easier for all firms, including fintechs, to list and raise capital on UK markets. This includes overhauling the Prospectus Regime and Listing Rules, providing more flexibility to firms and founders raising capital on UK markets.
At her Mansion House speech last year, the Chancellor also announced the formation of a Listings Taskforce, to support businesses to list and grow in the UK, and the Financial Services Growth and Competitiveness Strategy, which sets out a comprehensive package of reforms to maintain the UK’s global leadership in Fintech. Officials and ministers regularly engage with industry leaders on sector developments.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the impact of investments by UK banks in stablecoin settlement companies on the UK's competitiveness as a global fintech hub.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises that cryptoassets, and tokenised payment and settlement instruments present both significant opportunities and risks for the UK and the rest of the world.
That is why the UK has worked closed with international partners through the Financial Stability Board to develop global standards for cryptoassets and stablecoin. It is also why the Government is creating a comprehensive UK regulatory regime for cryptoassets, including to regulate the issuance of stablecoin.
Asked by: Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated - Life peer)
Question to the HM Treasury:
To ask His Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of global trends in stablecoin settlement, and the implications for UK fintech regulation and financial infrastructure.
Answered by Lord Livermore - Financial Secretary (HM Treasury)
The Government recognises that cryptoassets, and tokenised payment and settlement instruments present both significant opportunities and risks for the UK and the rest of the world.
That is why the UK has worked closed with international partners through the Financial Stability Board to develop global standards for cryptoassets and stablecoin. It is also why the Government is creating a comprehensive UK regulatory regime for cryptoassets, including to regulate the issuance of stablecoin.