Question to the Department for Business and Trade:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business and Trade, what steps his Department has taken to ensure that human oversight of automated decisions is (a) substantive and (b) effective.

The Department does not currently have tools, products or processes that rely on automated decision-making. Reforms to the solely automated decision-making provisions in the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 make clear that such decisions are those made without meaningful human involvement, helping to prevent 'rubber stamping' of decisions. The Information Commissioner's Office guidance states that human involvement must be active and not merely a token gesture to be meaningful. Adoption of that type of approach in the Department would comply with legal requirements and associated guidance through amendments to existing governance processes.