AI Safety
Shockat Adam Excerpts(6 days, 6 hours ago)
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Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Butler. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) for securing this vital debate.
Artificial intelligence is here, and here to stay. It has the potential to do incredible good: it is going to save us time and mental energy, and it will save lives. I am sure of that. The question is not whether to halt its progression, but what we can do to ensure that it is safe. As a pioneer in the world of AI asked, how do we change the wheel of a moving car? My concern is that AI is not a moving car—it is a racing car. To understand how difficult this is going to be, we must heed the lessons from California. Regulating the beast is going to be extremely difficult. Home to Google, Meta, Anthropic and OpenAI, the state tried to regulate it, but despite four in five Americans—along with engineers, scientists and safety experts—supporting a Bill that would have mitigated the risks of catastrophic harm, intense lobbying killed that Bill. We are going to face the same issues here.
In regulating AI, the Government must ensure that safety and security are given equal importance. It appears that the Government have decided to change the remit of the AI Security Institute from safety to security—shifting the focus away from broader safety issues such as algorithm bias, discrimination, human rights and freedom of expression to concentrate solely on cyber-crime, biohacking and national security harms. Of course those are important, but by narrowing the remit, the Government risk creating a false sense of security, fortifying the system against external attacks while overlooking the harms that can be built directly into the systems.
The previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Richmond and Northallerton (Rishi Sunak), understood that. At the Bletchley Park summit, he made it clear that the AI companies cannot be allowed to mark their own homework, and that independent safety evaluations are not optional.
Like the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Dame Chi Onwurah), I fear that the Government have not learned from previous legislative failures. We all remember that deepfake pornography, one of the most disturbing and harmful uses of AI, was a glaring omission in the Online Safety Act 2023; only now, years later, is it being addressed in the Crime and Policing Bill. Regulation that arrives years after the technology has proliferated is not regulation; it is damage control. That is why it is profoundly disappointing that no AI Bill will be introduced in this Session.
The United Kingdom has the chance, ability and responsibility to lead. We hosted the world’s first AI safety summit. We can and should use our global influence to shape standards, champion ethical safeguards and ensure that the public are protected from both immediate and long-term harms. The Government must restore safety to the heart of AI policy. We need independent oversight, a strengthened statutory remit for the AI Security Institute, and a comprehensive AI Bill that brings transparency, accountability, reversibility and fairness to the centre of our national approach. Humanity depends on it.
Listed Places of Worship Scheme
Shockat Adam Excerpts(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Shockat Adam (Leicester South) (Ind)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Western, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) on securing the debate. I come from a different angle as I was very much unaware of it, so I thank the Very Reverend Karen Rooms of Leicester cathedral for bringing it to my attention. Leicester cathedral is the cathedral where, when we found King Richard III in a carpark, we reinterred him, and many in our city believe that is what led to Leicester City winning the premiership the season after, so it is absolutely vital to us.
Cathedrals are more than places of beauty, religion and art. I, as a Muslim, volunteer for a Sikh charity serving food in a Christian church for the whole community. Reflecting what has been said, churches and cathedrals are places of community cohesion. I also come from a culture in which we do not own places of worship; we are simply their custodians. We are custodians of our churches and cathedrals.
Sir Roger Gale
The hon. Gentleman makes a very fair point. It has been raised earlier in this debate, and it worried me. Our parish churches are, of course, important, but is it not true that our cathedrals are also monumentally expensive to maintain? Is not the grant every bit as valuable to, for example, Canterbury cathedral in the see of the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Shockat Adam
I agree wholeheartedly. They are our heritage and we must save them for our future generations. The scheme should not just be extended; it should be made permanent and accessible to many places of worship.
Matt Western (in the Chair)
I call on the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, and I would appreciate it if her speech could be reduced to around nine minutes.