Chi Onwurah MP: speeches

Speeches

• 12 Feb 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I thank the Secretary of State for setting out the reasons why the Bill is so important. I welcome the measures that will help to make people’s lives easier and unlock the full power of data to deliver the Government’s missions, including the important mission of growing our economy. After two false starts with data Bills in the previous Parliament, it seems that the third time is the charm. That may be a consequence of our particularly charming Front Bench, as pointed out earlier, but it is certainly right that we have before us a data Bill that addresses the way in which data has increasingly become fundamental to our society and our economy. It really is fantastic to see the Government leading the way on action to make the most of data’s potential. Some 85% of businesses handle digitalised data and the British data economy represents around 7% of GDP. I use those two statistics to emphasise that data is not remote and abstract; it is part of our everyday lives and of our businesses’ lifeblood, and that is precisely why the Bill promises to be so transformative. I want to emphasise that we are all walking data generators—we all generate data, all the time. That does not mean that we have to be wearing a Fitbit or some sort of smart device, though we all have two or three, generally; we all generate data. When the Select Committee that I have the good fortune to chair was looking at the algorithms of social media companies as part of our inquiry into those algorithms and the Southport riots, it was clear that social media advertisers and others are effectively generating digital twins of us all. The thing with a digital twin, which represents us in data, is that there is not just one and it certainly is not under our control. Many companies and organisations, and all those who wish to understand their potential customers or users, have data on us and are tracking data, including that which we generate. Therefore, to have a Government who lead the way in ensuring that that data is managed, generated, stored and shared in the interests of the general public, and that it is better understood by Government and the public services for which they are responsible, is so important. Driving higher productivity through the smart use of data not only will grow the economy but, as the Secretary of State set out, will make all our lives easier. In an era when we increasingly interact with public services online, the measures in the Bill will enable a modern digital Government, which will save people time. Boosting our public sector productivity, which has been stubbornly low in recent years, will help to deliver the efficient, effective public services that our constituents expect and deserve. That includes freeing up to 1.5 million police and 140,000 NHS staff hours a year to focus on protecting us, saving lives and providing better NHS treatment and all the other services that need to be people driven. An important part of the Bill is that it recognises that freeing up administrative effort through better joined-up data sharing, collection, storage and so on gives people greater opportunity to deliver services for others. I particularly welcome the national underground asset register. Before I became an MP, as I may have mentioned at some point, I worked as a chartered engineer in what my constituents continue to call “a proper job”. As the head of technology for Ofcom, I spent an amazing amount of time trying to work out what BT had underground. I thought that, in part, it was BT being reluctant to share their knowledge of their underground cables and systems—part of that was their ducts and so on—because of that opening them up to competition. I eventually realised, however—this is some time ago, so I hope they will not mind me saying this now—that they did not know what they had underground and their own systems did not reflect what was under the ground or what their assets were. When it came to repairing a fault or improving or upgrading to a new network, therefore, not only was there the additional cost of trying to find out what was there, but systems were designed slowly or wrongly. The Secretary of State referred to traffic jams being caused by roads being dug up in the wrong place. That is a fundamental example of the impact of not having simple, accessible and secure data on our assets. It seems amazing that I was working on the issue as a regulator 15 or 16 years ago, and that only now under this Labour Government are we addressing that essential national asset. I will also briefly mention advances in digital identity, which will deliver tangible benefits to the public, making tasks such as opening a bank account, starting a new job or renting a flat that much easier. I will not go into the debate on whether digital ID should be mandatory, but I will certainly say that it should be available and accessible to everyone. I have a constituent who was obliged to take a photograph of himself with the The Chronicle , the local newspaper of the day, in an attempt to prove to the Department for Work and Pensions that he existed because he was disabled and could not go into the jobcentre. That was the only way open to him for verification, because he did not have a passport or a driving licence. I hope the measures set out in the Bill will enable digital ID to be accessible to those who need it. The Bill also promises an approach to data that is, in some quite literal ways, cradle to grave, including for patient passports, electronic registration of births and deaths, and critical services such as benefits and so on, which I have referred to. It is therefore vital that the public have confidence in our country’s data protection regime. I have long argued—and it was great to hear the Secretary of State say essentially the same thing—that we can unlock the benefits of data only if there is public trust. Often, my constituents feel that advances in technology are done to them, rather than with them and for their benefit. Critically, our constituents need to feel they have agency over the way in which data impacts their lives. Rather than feeling empowered by digital innovation, too many feel the opposite: disempowered, undermined, dehumanised, tracked and attacked. As an engineer with 20 years’ experience before entering Parliament, I found it deeply disturbing to follow the trajectory of tech from boring but incredibly useful, which was how it was when I started my career, to exciting but exploitative, which is how too many of my constituents view it now. I always say that I came into politics for the same reason I went into engineering, which was to make the world work better for everyone. I think the Bill can significantly contribute to that, with its emphasis on high standards for protecting personal data, including the strengthened role for the Information Commissioner and the new measures to protect the data of children. Delivering the improvements promised by the Bill must therefore go hand in hand with respecting the rights of citizens to control and manage their data. So important is data that already, in the first few months of its existence, the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, which I chair, has extensively discussed many of the issues being addressed by the Bill. In our session with the Secretary of State, we discussed the problems of legacy systems and inconsistent standards for information in the NHS. It is good to see that the Bill looks at addressing that. The Secretary of State made it clear that he understood the scale of the challenge, and I think he has delivered on his pledge to us to deliver a Bill that safeguards data. We also discussed the considerable unmet demand for digital ID, which the Bill will meet, and the need to focus on outcomes, with the chief scientific adviser echoing in her session with us the idea that data gathering must be proportionate, seeking to answer specific questions and not hoovering up data willy-nilly. This Bill is in that spirit, taking a pragmatic approach that seeks to use data to solve problems, not to needlessly extend the role of Government or big tech in our lives. We have heard about the exciting ways that data can help solve problems right across Government. In the Committee’s session yesterday, the Science Minister, Lord Vallance, spoke about the importance of data to the Health Secretary’s ambition to move from cure to prevention in the NHS, and the role that genomics and the revolution in life sciences could play in transforming healthcare. I hope the Minister will address in his closing comments the single data health record for the NHS. It is important to have a consistent, safe, secure and shared understanding of a patient’s treatment, and I ask him to address how the evolution of the role of genomics and the detailed personal data in any genomics record will be reflected in the provisions of the Bill. In the Committee’s session on the Budget, we also discussed the data environment, the infrastructure around data, and how that is critical to our future success in supporting private sector growth and delivering modern public services. I welcome that the Government have made data centres part of our critical national infrastructure. That recognises a reality that has been there for some years now. Last week the Committee launched our inquiry into the “digital centre of government”—a change in the machinery of government that the new Labour Government made, centring digital transformation and digital government in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology in order to enable the revolution in public service delivery that is part of the Labour Government’s ambitions. The effective implementation of this Bill is essential to the rewiring of data in a digital Government. It is also critical that there is the political will to ensure that the effective sharing of data across Government serves the Bill’s intentions of supporting public trust, consistency of standards and consistency of data formatting. When the Minister responds to the debate, will he say a little more about the role of open standards and open source? The Secretary of State has already spoken about transparency, but will the Minister talk about the role of open standards and open source in ensuring that we have a consistent framework for data sharing across Government? I look forward to engaging with Ministers in the Department in the months ahead on the Committee’s inquiry and on the progress of the Bill, which marks an important and overdue step in delivering a digital Government fit for the future.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Secretary of State on this Bill, and on setting out the importance and ubiquity of data; the current confusion on data sharing, data formats, data processing and data usage; and the lack of action by the previous Government to address some of these issues. Given the evolution of AI technology, its simply being a method of processing data and its growing importance and applications, can this Bill possibly address all future issues? Is this Bill the Government’s last word on data, or is it their first word?

• 12 Feb 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Will my hon. Friend give way?

• 12 Feb 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I thank the Minister for his excellent comments. I want to point out that I welcomed the strengthening of the Information Commissioner’s role.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman very much for giving way. I did not include this point in my own contribution, because I did not realise that the AI copyright issue would be such a big part of the debate, but I just want to let him and the House know that the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee and the Culture, Media and Sport Committee sat together with creatives and technologists to discuss how the technology solutions the Minister is looking for could address the exact point that he is making: supporting copyright and providing access to data. Google and OpenAI refused to take part, because they said their response to the consultation was ongoing. As an engineer, I think that you should always be able to explain what you are doing in the midst of you doing it, but that was their position. However, the technologists who were there had a view that technology could—there was not a consensus—support that, although not necessarily immediately.

• 12 Feb 2025 · Improving Access to Public Services · Hansard source

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  The Government’s determination to embrace AI to transform public services and pull through procurement opportunities for British businesses is very welcome, but many public service users and others may have been concerned by the Government’s failure to sign the Paris AI summit declaration, which sought to ensure that AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy. A Government spokesperson said that there were concerns about progress on global governance and national security. Will the Secretary of State elaborate on that?

• 6 Feb 2025 · Low-income Countries: Debt Cancellation · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for the work he has done in this incredibly important area over a long time. He talks about the impact of rising interest rates on low-income countries, to which could be added the impact of covid and dealing with climate change, and the private sector operators. Does he agree that when countries such as the UK choose to forgive sovereign debt, speculators and private sector operators should not profit from that but should follow this country’s lead?

• 6 Feb 2025 · Low-income Countries: Debt Cancellation · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his generosity in giving way, as well as the excellent points he is making. As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Africa, I have noted with concern the language around the increased migration that we have seen over the last few years, and we are all concerned to see the way in which criminal gangs exploit vulnerable migrants. Does my hon. Friend agree with me that by allowing the extraction of so much value from countries in Africa, we are not aiding and supporting economic opportunities for Africans in their own countries and are therefore contributing towards increased migration?

• 5 Feb 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T2. My living wage intern starts next week, just as a Sutton Trust report shows that internships are critical entry points to careers, but that working-class graduates are 20% less likely to complete an internship than their wealthier peers and most internships are never advertised. What is my right hon. Friend doing to ensure that career success is based on hard work and talent, not parents’ social networks?

• 3 Feb 2025 · AstraZeneca · Hansard source

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  The UK Government are committed to growing the economy through increased R&D and advanced manufacturing. AstraZeneca tell us that it is committed to investing in the UK, which is where it is headquartered and where one of its largest customers—the NHS—is based. It is like hearing that two people are madly in love with each other, yet the wedding is off. I look forward to the Minister of State for Science explaining the background to this to the Select Committee when he appears before us next week. In the meantime, will the Minister confirm that the UK is committed to incentivising R&D investment? Will he set out the mix of R&D and manufacturing investment agreed to by AstraZeneca under the last Government, and to which it was committed when it dropped the deal? Finally, the deal, as well as growing the economy, would have made our pandemic supply chain more resilient by reducing our dependence on mRNA vaccines. Will he set out how he intends to address that?

• 29 Jan 2025 · Growing the UK Economy · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the Chief Secretary to the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on a plan for growth that is both concrete—shovels in the ground now—and forward-looking, building on our scientific and skills base to drive long-term jobs and higher living standards. Heathrow expansion will help businesses in the north-east, but for the sake of those of us who are not Manchester United fans, will the Chief Secretary to the Treasury make it clear that much of the investment in the Man U development will be private sector-based? Will he also set out how that will help the rest of the north, particularly Newcastle United fans such as myself?

• 28 Jan 2025 · Airport Expansion · Hansard source

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  Newcastle International airport tells me that Heathrow expansion would mean increased access to global markets for north-east businesses, new destinations for north-east tourists and easier access to our brilliant north-east universities for students from around the world. More broadly, given that air travel’s 5% of emissions are dwarfed by road travel emissions, does the Minister agree that the important work that his Department is doing to promote electric vehicles and the work that the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero is doing on the decarbonisation of the electricity network is fundamental to demonstrating to my constituents that addressing climate change is not about saying no to travel and transport, but about saying yes to an economy that works for people and the planet?

• 23 Jan 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Public sector procurement is a fantastic way to drive productivity, innovation and local value in public services, but too often, small businesses, start-ups and voluntary service providers in Newcastle tell me they have difficulty accessing public sector contracts; they do not have as many lawyers, consultants or project managers as bigger businesses. What steps is the Minister taking to ensure better access to public sector contracts?

• 23 Jan 2025 · Agricultural and Business Property Reliefs: OBR Costing · Hansard source

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  The people of Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West love the local produce provided by local farmers in our fantastic markets, such as Grainger market, and they enjoy the beautiful countryside of Northumberland, which has been shaped by generations of sustainable farming. However, we cannot help but be aware that most of that land is owned by, for example, the Duke of Northumberland, big landowners and those seeking to minimise their tax exposure, so does the Minister agree that, by keeping this loophole open for so long, the country has pushed up land prices and pushed out the next generation of young farmers?

• 22 Jan 2025 · Competition and Markets Authority Chairman · Hansard source

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  I should declare an interest, having worked for a competition regulator for a number of years before entering Parliament. I suggest that the Minister does not take any competition policy lessons from the Conservatives, who oversaw the re-monopolisation of the broadband network, the consolidation of power within tech networks on an unprecedented scale, and the rise of crony capitalism on a scale not seen before. Some rumours around this appointment have suggested that it is a signal of a flight away from competition regulation. Can I urge him to quash those rumours and confirm that this Government believe that competition drives investment, innovation and growth, and that this country is open for investment and new market entry by as many companies as possible?

• 16 Jan 2025 · Makin Review · Hansard source

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  2. What steps the Church has taken to respond to the recommendations set out in the Makin review, published on 18 October 2024.

• 16 Jan 2025 · Makin Review · Hansard source

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  I pay tribute to my ecclesiastical co-worker, the Right Reverend Helen-Ann Hartley, Bishop of Newcastle, for her leadership and courage in championing the voices of victims in the wake of the Makin review. Newcastle is proud of her. Are the Church Commissioners aware of her ongoing concerns about the implementation of the review? In particular, what can they do to ensure that dioceses have the resources necessary to implement a high standard of safeguarding and to ensure that the Church is focused on the interests of the victims and the vulnerable, rather than the career interests of leading clergy?

• 13 Jan 2025 · Artificial Intelligence Opportunities Action Plan · Hansard source

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  I welcome the Government embracing AI and the Secretary of State’s leadership in accepting every single one of Matt Clifford’s recommendations —I hope he will be as receptive in accepting the recommendations of my Committee. Does the Secretary of State agree that those who say this plan is irrelevant to the challenges of economic growth in public sector financing that we are facing fundamentally misunderstand the nature of the opportunities that AI represents, its presence everywhere in our lives already, the frenetic pace of its implementation and its ability to drive growth? Most importantly, however, they misunderstand the nature of business confidence. Having a Government who understand how to drive these opportunities into every home, business and public sector service in the land is a reason for business confidence.

• 9 Jan 2025 · Public Finances: Borrowing Costs · Hansard source

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  We thought we knew the dire economic situation when the general election was called, but on entering government, we found the real consequences of the previous Tory Government’s addiction to unfunded spending announcements. The people of Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West are paying the consequences for the Truss-Kwarteng economic crash. With the imminent entry into the White House of a President also committed to significant unfunded tax cuts, the economic stability of the UK becomes even more important. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that this Government are absolutely committed to fiscal responsibility and rising living standards, and that the plan for growth will deliver both?

• 8 Jan 2025 · NHS Diagnostic Processes: Technological Innovation · Hansard source

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  Last month, the Select Committee brought festive cheer by hearing how British science is advancing the eradication of diseases such as cervical cancer, HIV/AIDS and malaria, through innovative and exciting new treatments and diagnostics. We also heard about the challenges of driving innovation through the NHS. Newcastle company AMLo Biosciences said that adoption is much quicker in the US, and others criticised bureaucratic procurement processes and a culture of inertia. Successive Governments have struggled with this challenge, so what specific steps is the Secretary of State taking with the Health Secretary to ensure that British patients benefit from innovation?

• 18 Dec 2024 · Copyright and Artificial Intelligence · Hansard source

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  The UK is in a unique position—second in the world in the creative industries, and in the top three for AI innovation—so getting the right solution to protect and support our intellectual property, while supporting and incentivising AI innovation, is uniquely important to our cultural and economic life. I am a former regulator and chartered engineer, so I welcome the Minister’s decision to go with regulatory technology as the solution, and to challenge the tech sector to come up with technology to ensure we can have both the reservation of rights and the transparency of inputs to large language models, both of which are critical. The tech sector too often spends less time protecting people and property than maximising profit, but the language of the consultation is a bit vague. The Minister talked about arriving at a plan rather than a solution, so will he make it absolutely clear that any text and data mining exemption is contingent on the technology being deliverable, implementable and workable, and that if the technology fails, the exemption fails?

• 18 Dec 2024 · Provisional Local Government Finance Settlement · Hansard source

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  Fourteen years of Tory austerity and fiscal mismanagement have halved the central Government funding for Newcastle city council, sucked the blood vampire-like from our local economy, and left local businesses and families drowning in uncertainty, so I welcome this increased funding and the specific commitments on housing and social care. However, can the Minister reassure me that there is further light at the end of the tunnel, because this Government’s work on reforming public services, local funding, business rates and innovation investment will mean that the people of Newcastle and the north-east will have the power and the resources to build the public services and the economy that we choose?

• 16 Dec 2024 · Water (Special Measures) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  Does the Secretary of State share my amazement that under the previous Conservative Government organisations had to campaign to have sewage-free rivers, lakes or seas, as if it were some kind of privilege rather than a right for everyone? Does he have any idea of the amount of money that was taken out of the sector, and out of the infrastructure we needed, in profits and bonuses under that Government?

• 12 Dec 2024 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  T7. Last week, research published by Sage showed that 84% of small businesses in the north-east plan to increase their investment in technology next year. As the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee launches its inquiry into innovation, growth and the regions, how will the Business Secretary ensure that the industrial strategy boosts adoption of technology—particularly British-developed technology—to boost growth across all our regions?

• 12 Dec 2024 · Building Homes · Hansard source

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  Following 14 years of neglect, indifference and, at times, downright obstruction by the Conservatives, housing in Newcastle is the No. 1 issue that constituents bring to me, and my inbox is full of heartrending stories of families unable to put a roof over their children’s heads. I therefore welcome the statement, and look forward to working with Newcastle city council to build the homes that my constituents need so much. Will the Minister explain in a bit more detail how he will ensure that these homes are of the quality that my constituents deserve, and that the necessary infrastructure, particularly schools, will be built alongside them?