Speeches by Aldridge.

“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?”

“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.”

“Can I look forward to a high street innovation squad in Weston-super-Mare soon?”

“We have both of those and it has been fantastic. The issue for us is that, while the legislative tool is there around taking control back of high street stores that rogue landlords are not using, the problem is the resource within local authorities to be able to do anything about it. That is where the problem is. The p…”

“Are you saying that that is at risk by removing Palantir from the system?”

“The question we do not have time to go into now is around the values at the heart of it. Whatever either of you say, where is the truth? That is what we need to get to.”

“When it comes to the NHS and the controversy around Palantir, one of the issues that it had been brought in to try to fix was that legacy technology; the legacy data architecture. Is the public sector limited in its capacity to adopt widespread AI by some of these issues? One of the things I really want to unpick is, w…”

“That rolls off the tongue.”

“Is there an issue around scale and national mission on this?”

“Is it not 130,000?”

“Can we build on that slightly with the assurance piece? Does NatWest have an assurance process around utilising AI, and is that going to build into what the UK Government do around assurance?”

“The growth potential and lowering the barrier for entry was mentioned earlier. As constituency MP for Weston-super-Mare, which I would imagine has lower levels of AI adoption than others, it strikes me that the risk is that we leave communities behind. What is the role for Government in that and what is the role for or…”

“You have pointed to the significant responsibility of public institutions and public servants in this space. One of the questions that I am really interested in is what the biggest constraints for our public bodies are in adopting AI. The Local Government Association highlighted a number of significant problems around …”

“There is a hell of a lot there. There are about 19,000 elected councillors and however many hundreds of thousands of people working on this. Are there enough leaders driving this? We could argue that with the 650 MPs that we have here, we do not have sufficient leadership at the scale we need to drive some changes. Do …”

“Hi; thank you all for being here. Over the years Government and government agencies have funded lots of digital and technology adoption schemes. Thinking about outcomes of that, what has worked and what has not worked? Building on that, we know that the current Government have started to move into the AI assurance spac…”

“The strategy does not mention the primary threats to UK supply. Christopher Vandome from Chatham House talked about how the strategy shies away from the inherently geopolitical challenge presented by critical minerals. In your view, what are the UK’s most pressing dependencies here?”

“You mean here in the UK.”

“I appreciate that. You have touched on this slightly, but is there a cross-Government strategy for de-risking supply chains? I know you are having conversations with specific Departments, such as the MOD when it comes to UK defence capabilities and specifically Chinese export controls.”

“The one area where I would push slightly is around having a specific plan for de-risking those supply chains. Does the Department have that? Is there a co-ordinated plan on that? Is it something that is happening incidentally? It would be useful to know explicitly, if that is the case.”

“I want to pull something out about the co-ordination and diplomatic follow-through. In a previous session it has been raised that other countries have put a lot of heavy weight into the diplomatic relations. The Department for Business and Trade has seen cuts to its overseas staffing. I wonder whether you are seeing th…”