Viscount Camrose
Main Page: Viscount Camrose (Conservative - Excepted Hereditary)(1 day, 17 hours ago)
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Lord Leong (Lab)
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 this year. We are working with the Department for Education and Skills England to map pathways into AI roles. We recently announced a joint commitment with industry to upskill some 7.5 million workers.
Viscount Camrose (Con)
My Lords, I draw attention to my interest as a director of Lumi Network, as set out in the register. Whether someone is building or using AI, it is far from clear that there is a finite set of teachable skills that keeps them productive in the workplace, or even employable, particularly given the pace of change of the technology itself. In light of the rapid evolution of skills requirements, can the Minister set out some of the Government’s thinking on how to create and maintain an AI workforce on an ongoing basis?
Lord Leong (Lab)
The noble Viscount has asked the same question that I answered when I replied to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones. We will be upskilling some 7.5 million workers right across the country. I can also share what we are doing with public sector workers: across the department we are working on AI adoption right across government. We back the Government Digital Service’s AI playbook and its 4,000-strong community of practice, which is helping teams use AI effectively and efficiently. We are skilling up early exemplars, such as AI tools for probation caseworkers and tax investigation, to demonstrate how AI can enhance services. A new £42 million fund will support frontier AI exemplars to boost productivity in HR, finance and policy. Through i.AI—the Incubator for Artificial Intelligence—we are also building reusable AI tools and upskilling civil servants right across the country.