Speeches by Aldridge.

“Is it a cross-departmental project or is it led specifically by your Department?”

“What I am trying to drill down to is how we are differentiating for different communities and needs. You are talking about AI practitioner apprenticeships and AI skills boost. They are really great, but I know that in my constituency the need is different. There is not currently a mechanism to differentiate those needs…”

“This is happening in Barnsley.”

“We have covered most of this, but there is something about small and medium-sized enterprises and adoption rates. When we were in Canada with this Committee taking evidence, Canadian SME uptake was worse than ours. We are doing something right, but it is far from good enough. In places such as Weston-super-Mare—we look…”

“Could I pull you in on the open source stuff? It is not well understood what that means and why it can be part of a vision for the country. Do you mind expanding a bit on that?”

“That feels really clear from both of you that it is about devolving trust to the people who know how to do it, with that spine of knowledge that runs through.”

“Hundreds of constituencies in the UK sit outside city regions and combined authorities, and skills needs, the employment mix and digital inclusion all take a different perspective—I am thinking very much of my own constituency in Weston-super-Mare. All of these can be drags on the diffusion of AI. What specific interve…”

“Weston-super-Mare is perfectly primed for this.”

“We have also heard evidence through our ongoing inquiries into artificial intelligence that it is delaying young people’s entry into the labour market. How can we bridge that gap for young people? We are seeing increasing numbers of young people not in employment, education or training, and seeing it take longer to get…”

“Julia, what are you hearing from teachers about this?”

“It was about how AI is being utilised by organisations to engage with their staff and how staff are being brought on board and engaged. Do you have any specific examples of organisations or sectors that are doing it well?”

“I am not sure whether it is an interest I need to declare, but I worked for the British Computer Society as the head of policy and public affairs beforehand, and we are joined by Julia Adamson from the British Computer Society—just to put that out there. I will go to Julia and Lauren first, and come to Phil and Will af…”

“In recent months, we have seen some significant geopolitical interventions at the highest level. We have seen the Pope’s recent encyclical. We have seen Yoshua Bengio leading the UN’s work. The Pope’s encyclical sets out a clear analysis and framework for AI, which really asked for leadership vision and political actio…”

“We are looking for a bit of specificity, if it is possible, so we can look up those case studies and find out where things are being done.”

“Many heads were banged for a long time to get to this point.”

“Thanks, panel. You have talked a lot about one of my pet passions: participation and engagement when it comes to frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence. One thing that we are really interested in is the role of employees in organisations. To what extent does successful AI deployment depend on employee bu…”

“Are Government responsive to that?”

“I am concerned about tariffs, but I am probably more concerned by the moral question here. It is reassuring that you will be publishing the responsible business conduct review. That would be fantastic.”

“Thank you for coming, Secretary of State. Six months have passed since the high street strategy was announced, and witnesses to this Committee have highlighted persistent barriers to regeneration, including fragmented ownership of vacant properties, poor public realm, limited community access to assets, and lack of loc…”

“In June, the US found that the UK had failed to effectively enforce a ban on forced labour imports. Will you and your Department commit to publishing the findings of the responsible business conduct review?”