AI and Creative Technologies (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Friday 13th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to be able to make a short contribution in the gap. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, and the members and staff of her committee on producing such an excellent report. I thought her opening remarks well encapsulated the issue we face. I also congratulate the two maiden speakers. They were of contrasting kinds, but they will make great contributions to the House in future, and I am sure that they both feel much better for having made them.

In some ways, this is a well-timed debate, with the comprehensive spending review on Wednesday; it would have been more helpful to have had it in the context of the industrial strategy that we are expecting, but that will come soon. I thought the report’s main thrust and conclusions have targeted something absolutely fundamental to the UK economy. There have been so many excellent speeches in today’s debate that I will recommend today’s copy of Hansard, because I think we should keep it to hand.

I came to make one point in this debate, and that is to connect it with others that are going on in the same way elsewhere in the House. I find that the noble Lord, Lord Willetts, who is not in his place at the moment, made exactly the point that I came here to make—that is part of the trouble of speaking at the end. I should add that we work together on the Foundation for Science and Technology, and in the declaration of interests I declare mine as president of the Parliamentary and Scientific Committee.

The point I want to make is that other debates are going on that directly bear on today’s. Take the House of Commons Select Committee on Science and Technology’s report earlier this year on engineering biology. That is an amazingly exciting area, which might in the future, for example, enable us to grow sustainable aircraft fuel and so on. We were world leaders in what was called synthetic biology a decade ago, and we are now losing our lead. When our Science and Technology Committee produced a report earlier this year, our title was Don’t Fail to Scale, which is very much in line with one of the themes of today’s debate.

My second example is about space. We now have a space committee looking at aspects of the space economy, which will be extremely important to the UK in future. There are many different ways in which space is vital to the operation of the UK economy. Some of the things already being talked about for the future include, for example, growing antibodies in space, which, because of microgravity, are of such pure quality that they could be immensely more effective when brought back to earth and used in medical applications. Companies of the future may develop along those lines and we will be making a terrible mistake if we do not support them and scale them up.

The opportunities that emerge are now being looked at by the Science and Technology Committee, which is my final example. We are looking at what prevents this country being able to take a stage further forward the wonderful start-ups, incubators and other things we have heard about today. That will be the subject of a debate when we publish our report. We have taken fascinating evidence from venture capitalists and, only on Wednesday, a high-ranking scientist from DARPA.

We need to understand what leads companies such as Oxford Ionics to take the decision it has and be a loss to some extent a loss to this country. The Government’s Mansion House reforms will be very important, and I was interested in what the noble Lord, Lord Massey, said about rebuilding our risk culture.

In conclusion, I hope that when we come to discuss the current report of the Science and Technology Committee, Members here today will come to that as well, because no matter what subtitle you pick—Less Talk, More Action or Don’t Fail to Scale—this is the central issue to the future of the UK economy.

Northern Ireland (Interim Arrangements) Bill

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 18th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, and I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in the gap and make one point, which is about the relationship of science to the Bill. I begin by associating myself with the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Caine, about Lord Brooke. It is right that his contribution and the work he did over many years is acknowledged in a debate of this kind.

Science, and the science community in Northern Ireland, needs an Assembly as much as any other community. Much excellent work is done on science in Northern Ireland, as well as elsewhere in the UK. It was no coincidence that on the recent visit of the President of the United States, he went to the University of Ulster to open the new premises, because good work is done in Ulster, as well as elsewhere.

I have reason to share the view of the scientific community that it needs a working Assembly. For many years, in a former capacity, with colleagues in the science community, I used to organise the science event known as “Science and Stormont”, which was held every year in Stormont with a working Assembly. Science is a refreshingly non-partisan area of endeavour, and at those meetings, year after year, representatives of all the major parties would come to this event to speak: we would have a sort of round table. Sometimes we went to listen to the Assembly in action later. These were very successful events and they mattered to the scientific community in Northern Ireland.

I understand entirely why the Bill is necessary, and I support it. Beyond that, I simply wanted to use my moment to make the point that science really matters, and science needs a working Assembly, and I very much hope that it will not be too long before we see that.

Northern Ireland Elections

Viscount Stansgate Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness and echo the comments about Dr Phoenix. I was present at a talk on the road to partition that he gave to the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly when I was briefly a member last year. It was an outstanding lecture and, of course, he played a great role in some of the work around the decade of centenaries in Northern Ireland from 2012 onwards.

The noble Baroness referred to opposition to the protocol. The Government have been very clear throughout that we do not regard opposition to the protocol as a justification for not being part of an Executive, just as, I hasten to add, we did not regard the Sinn Féin position between 2017 and 2020 as remotely justified. We have been pretty consistent on that.

The noble Baroness rightly referred to the problems in the NHS. I spoke of the £660 million black hole in the Executive’s finances and the impact it is having. It is why we will have to bring forward budget allocations and a budget Bill in Westminster. It is very regrettable. These are matters that should be dealt with in the Northern Ireland Assembly. However, we must provide some certainty and the ability to protect key public services at this time.

On the noble Baroness’s point about First Ministers and Deputy First Ministers, of course there will be ongoing engagement between Ministers and Northern Ireland political parties. At the moment, our first priority is to get the institutions back up and running. However, as I said in responding to the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, we are not against reforms and evolution of the institutions, so long as we proceed on the basis of agreement and sufficient consensus.

[Viscount Stansgate (Lab)]

My Lords, I welcome the Statement and the news that action will be taken to extend the legislative formation of the Assembly, and to enable time and space for the talks to be taken forward. Probably everyone in this House hopes that those talks succeed.

I hope the House will not mind if I make two observations. I have been to Northern Ireland and seen the Assembly in action on many occasions over years when it was in operation. I organised the annual “Science & Stormont” event, on which all the major parties in Northern Ireland co-operated to co-sponsor. I have seen the capacity of the Northern Ireland Assembly to work together for the good of the people of Northern Ireland.

I very much hope, as referred to later in the Statement, that progress can be made despite all the difficulties. I am mindful of the fact that it was possible for the Northern Ireland Assembly to meet when Her late Majesty the Queen died. There was a Speaker and tributes were paid from all sides of the Assembly. I would have thought—I hope the Minister agrees—that if it is possible to do that on the death of the Monarch, it is possible to restore the Assembly to the working order we all hope for in the future.

[Lord Caine (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Viscount for his comments and his long-standing involvement and commitment. He makes some pertinent points about the Assembly and the need to get it back up and running. As I say, the Government’s clear position is that the current situation is not justified and it would be far better for all if the Assembly was functioning in the way intended. He refers to people coming together; in the context of approaching the 25th anniversary of the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, this serves as a useful reminder of Northern Ireland’s huge potential, notwithstanding the current challenges we all face, to thrive and prosper when people work together on all sides.