Chris Bryant MP: speeches

Speeches

• 22 Apr 2025 · Automation: Economic Benefits · Hansard source

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  Finally, somebody speaks up for the robots. We have been waiting for centuries. The robots have been clamouring outside, waiting for the moment when somebody would speak up for them, and I am sure that they will be delighted about the way that my hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (John Slinger) has done so today. My hon. Friend made a point right at the beginning about the cultural aspects of how we view the word robotic, which was interesting, was it not? If we say that a politician is robotic, we somehow dismiss them and think that that is inappropriate. Instead, it might actually mean that they are accurate, precise and do things on time. In addition—I suppose this is because I am the Minister for the creative industries—it makes me think of “Hamlet”. Are robotics good or bad? Well, as it says in “Hamlet”: “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.” I think that is part of the problem we have here. For some reason or other, we have decided that automation is bad, but actually my hon. Friend is quite right to say that in so many different regards it can only possibly be good. Often, robotics can take away the drudgery from a repetitive process that a human being might find difficult to maintain in as accurate a way as a robot. It can enhance productivity; several Members who are not even obsessed with this matter are none the less interested in how we can improve our productivity in the UK, because it is one of the ways in which we fail economically. Robotics can also improve the quality and reliability of a product. So, a business that significantly invests in automation can end up, despite the up-front capital costs, recouping that investment much faster than it would if it had relied on other means of producing its goods. Automation is not about stealing jobs; it is about enabling humans to do other things, including other jobs where human creativity and human ability and the relationship of one human to another may be more important than the repetitive element of the work. My hon. Friend referred to running the London marathon and asked whether robots can run a marathon for us. I do not think that is the point of a marathon. The point of a marathon is that it is far too long; it is a preposterously lengthy race. I have run the London marathon three times. I had decided that I was not going to race against anybody else; I was just racing against myself, to get to the end. That is my advice to him about how to run a marathon. It was all going swimmingly until I got to the very end—to the last 200 yards—and two women dressed as Bakewell tarts overtook me. Then, I was very upset and decided that I was going to beat the tarts, and I did. However, the point is that there are things where only we humans can compete and where only we can make a difference. Robotics can also provide solutions to pressing social problems, including autonomous vehicles for transport, which we have not referred to yet, and robotic maintenance and monitoring, supporting clean energy transition. Robotic innovations can also enhance social care, which might be a very significant part of improving productivity and the quality of the care that can be provided, so that the personal human involvement is not about doing the drudgery. Robotics can also help with surgery in hospitals. It is depressing that we have lagged behind many other countries in bringing, for instance, laparoscopic robotics into hospitals up and down the land. I had two such operations last year; if tea is poured into me, it just pours out as if I were a colander. The significant improvement in the amount of time, the accuracy, the safety and the lack of infection that laparoscopic robotics can provide in surgery is absolutely significant. For instance, as in my case, the ability to remove a melanoma from inside a lung—collapsing the lung and then removing the melanoma—is quite extraordinary and would never have been possible unless we brought automation into the system. However, that requires capital investment. My hon. Friend is absolutely right that we are not a world leader in automation; I wish we were. I have slightly different figures from his—mine might be a year out of date—but I think that, according to the International Federation of Robotics, we were 24th in the world in 2023, but it may be that in 2024 we were 23rd in the world. My hon. Friend pointed out that we are not in the top 10—we are the only G7 country not to be, which is an embarrassment for us. This country has innovated in so many areas, although once we have innovated we have sometimes found it difficult to take things to market and get them invested in—other countries have been better at that—so that is one of the things that the Government need to address. That is shameful. As several Members said, it is part of the problem with our productivity. If we could only get to par with others in the top 10, we would improve our productivity by roughly 20%. British Ministers have been dreaming of that kind of significant improvement in productivity for the past 15 or 20 years, because that would enable the economy to grow far more significantly. My hon. Friend had a different figure for the significant improvement that we could see in gross value added. My figure is that £150 billion could be added to our GVA by 2035 if we seize hold of the opportunities that robotics and automation provide. My hon. Friend referred to some of the problems. As I said earlier, I think one of the problems is reluctance. That is partly due to an ethical question: how do we ensure that people do not lose jobs but find different jobs in which they are more effective, productive and engaged? There are also some moral anxieties about robotics—perhaps some of the films that we have produced over the years, which he wittily referred to, have not entirely helped in that. Another issue is access to cash—in particular, to capital financing. In the discussions I have had as a Department for Science, Innovation and Technology Minister, people from the industry have repeatedly said to me, “It is easier if you are in London and the south-east than it is if you are in the rest of the United Kingdom.” That is another aspect that we need to change. These issues are about automation not just here in London but throughout the United Kingdom, and in so many different sectors. I have responsibility for space, and obviously robotics and automation are a key part of delivering an ambitious space programme in future years. I believe we can be a world leader if we focus on the things that we are particularly good at, and where we have a unique contribution to make, but I am conscious that we need to get the security aspects right. There are things that we are already doing. As my hon. Friend knows, the Government have a Made Smarter adoption programme, whose budget we doubled to £16 million a year, starting from 1 April 2025. That will undoubtedly make a difference. As he said, we are developing an industrial strategy. Members might think that the country should always have an industrial strategy, a bit like they might think that we should always have a digital inclusion strategy. Those two things have to go hand in hand. We are developing an industrial strategy and, just as in space, we are rightly focusing on the things where we have a unique capability. Through the Department for Business and Trade, we have decided to focus on sectors where we think there is an opportunity for economic growth and where the UK has something special to offer. I am really glad that the advanced manufacturing plan includes work on robotics, which is key to several elements of advanced manufacturing. I am slightly in danger here, because I have read it and I cannot tell my hon. Friend what is in it given that we will be publishing it later, but it has not got to its final draft yet. I think that a lot of things that he has been saying will be reflected in that document. My hon. Friend said that this was not about AI, but sometimes robotics and automation are referred to as “embodied AI”. Obviously, there are significant elements of robotics that work best when they include a learning capacity. That is why I am really proud of the AI opportunities action plan that we launched earlier this year. It has 50 different proposals. We are taking action in relation to all 50, and have been consulting on two. That includes looking at the AI skills gap—a significant aspect, which hon. Friend mentioned. We need to make sure that we have the skills in the UK to develop automation. Likewise, we have to look at whether we have enough AI graduates coming out of universities, or even starting in that education process. That too is not just a matter for one part of the country; it is a matter for economic growth throughout the country. We also need to increase the diversity of the talent pool that comes into that world. It is not just in one industry, such as automotives, where that might be significant, but a whole series of industries—nearly every one—and also lots of our public services that could be better delivered using embodied artificial intelligence. Similarly, we need to look at the education pathways into AI, and therefore into robotics as well. Part of DSIT’s funding to UK Research and Innovation goes to Innovate UK, which is responsible for the catapult centres. That includes the one to which my hon. Friend has already referred, the high value manufacturing catapult. DSIT is providing £8.8 billion to UKRI in this financial year; Innovate UK will receive £948 million of that. The high value manufacturing catapult is a strategic research and innovation hub for industry, commercialising the UK’s most advanced manufacturing ideas. The seven centres help businesses to transform the products they sell, the way they make them and the skills of their workforce, to remain competitive globally. I am delighted that, as has been mentioned, we have had a historic debate on automation. I hope I have not provided a robotic answer to my hon. Friend’s questions. I very much hope that when we produce our industrial strategy in the next few weeks and months, he will be proud to say that we are embracing and fully behind this drive for greater productivity through greater automation, while always holding on to the belief that it is not about replacing people’s jobs. It is about enabling people, with that human element, to play the human role they need to play in whatever industry it may be, whether the creative or automotive or other. My final thought is that the marathon is far too long a distance. I wish him well. I hope he comes in at more than three hours and 24 minutes. Question put and agreed to .

• 3 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I would be more than happy to meet my hon. Friend. I know that a lot of work has gone in to try to get that back up, to get actors back on the stage and to get audiences back in. I hope that we can arrange a meeting as soon as possible.

• 3 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I understand the disappointment for some people who want to get into the package, as it were. My hon. Friend has three organisations in his constituency that will receive in the region of £500,000 this year under the national portfolio system. The problem we have is that we are in the middle of a spending review that will affect the next four years and, on top of that, we are doing a review of Arts Council England. We need to have profound change in the Arts Council so that it really works for arts organisations up and down the country, and that is what we will do.

• 3 Apr 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Copyright law stands firmly behind the creative industries today, and will in the future. We will do absolutely nothing to undermine the fact that this country is one of the few great countries in the world that is able to boast of itself as a content superpower, and anything we do in relation to artificial intelligence and copyright will proceed only if we can make sure that the creative industries have more control and more remuneration at the end of that process, rather than less.

• 3 Apr 2025 · Promoting Coastal Britain · Hansard source

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  I am very keen to integrate the creative industries far better into our visitor economy. My hon. Friend will know in her own patch that it is not just the Aldeburgh festival, which has been going since 1948; she has Maggi Hambling living down the road in Saxmundham, and there is a lively artistic community. We need to build that far more into our coastal offer around the country. I want us to get to 50 million international visitors to the UK by 2030. We will only be able to do that if more of them do not just visit London.

• 3 Apr 2025 · Promoting Coastal Britain · Hansard source

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  I think the hon. Gentleman is talking about the GREAT campaign budget, and it is certainly true that finances have been tough. We are looking at precisely what money we may be able to source into that fund for the next year. I am very serious about wanting to develop a UK-wide visitor economy strategy. I think it might be valuable if the hon. Gentleman and I sat down at some point and he gave me some of the ideas that are rocking around in his brain, and we will see whether any of those can be incorporated into our plan.

• 3 Apr 2025 · Promoting Coastal Britain · Hansard source

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  It is a bit shameful to accuse the poor shadow Minister of wimping out on cold water swimming —I am sure he would have done it if it had been available. I am very keen that we have a national tourism strategy for the whole country by the end of this year, and I am working with the Visitor Economy Advisory Council to deliver that. That has to address the problems that many of our coastal areas have faced, including in Northern Ireland. Again, I make the point that the creative industries in Northern Ireland are vital to the tourism economy.

• 3 Apr 2025 · Promoting Coastal Britain · Hansard source

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  Britain, as everybody will have noted, is an island nation, so our coastline is a vital part of what defines us as a visitor destination. I am really glad that the “Starring GREAT Britain” campaign, which we launched earlier this year, features many coastal areas, but we need to ensure that people get an opportunity to see our amazing beaches, eat our amazing food and enjoy the perfectly sensible summer weather that we have.

• 3 Apr 2025 · Supporting Musicians · Hansard source

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  I want every child to have a chance to learn how to play a musical instrument or take part in music, and I want every musician to be able to make a living out of their career. I am working on better support for small venues across the UK and better remuneration for legacy artists, songwriters and session musicians.

• 3 Apr 2025 · Supporting Musicians · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member makes a good point—obviously, we need more songs from Runrig to get us back to the top of the charts. To make a serious point, it is absolutely essential for new and emerging artists in particular that they have the opportunity to tour across the whole of Europe. I am determined to get this over the line. It is one of the things that we need to renegotiate with the European Union. We have a key meeting coming up in the next few weeks, and I hope we will be able to make some progress.

• 3 Apr 2025 · Supporting Musicians · Hansard source

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  As the hon. Member knows perfectly well, a consultation is ongoing and will close on 4 April. It was a manifesto commitment of ours to ensure that the secondary ticketing market works for everybody. If someone is not able to turn up to a gig for whatever reason—family reasons, a funeral or whatever—they should be able to sell the ticket on. We have asked specifically whether people should only be able to sell it at face value or face value plus 10%, 20% or 30%. I note his response to the consultation. I hope he has responded to all the other issues in the consultation as well.

• 3 Apr 2025 · Supporting Musicians · Hansard source

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  The Bunker looks absolutely amazing. It is a not-for-profit organisation—apart from anything else—that gives young people and others an opportunity to learn how to play, perform and record. That is precisely the kind of venue we want to be able to support, which is why I am determined to get this voluntary levy over the line as soon as possible, so we can put millions of pounds into small venues. The last time I was in Sunderland was for P!nk at the Stadium of Light. Perhaps a helpful line from her is: “What about all the plans that ended in disaster?” I am determined that that is not going to be one of them.

• 3 Apr 2025 · Tourism Outside Cities · Hansard source

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  Or some of the armour, because there was a time when it was fine for a man to wear a brooch; perhaps that time will come again. I pay tribute to Burnby Hall gardens and museum, and it would be amazing if we were able to get it back into full use. The gardens are amazing—apparently there are 80 different kinds of wild water lily—but it would be good if we could get the whole museum going, and I pay tribute to the volunteers who are trying to make that happen.

• 3 Apr 2025 · Tourism Outside Cities · Hansard source

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  Not only are we an island economy, but I would argue that our towns and villages are just as important for our visitor economy as our great cities. I recently spent a pleasant weekend in Chipping Campden, and many international visitors were wandering up and down Broadway. The right hon. Gentleman has some extraordinarily beautiful villages in his constituency, which I expect he is about to tell us about.

• 3 Apr 2025 · Tourism Outside Cities · Hansard source

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  Not every village in Britain suffers the problems of Midsomer, but I know of the work that people are trying to do in Pocklington. The right hon. Gentleman refers to Professor Alice Roberts and her wonderful work in this area, and everything I have seen about the hoard in Pocklington is absolutely amazing. I slightly expected that the right hon. Gentleman would turn up wearing some of the bling—

• 3 Apr 2025 · National Insurance: Creative Industries · Hansard source

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  As the right hon. Gentleman knows, a large proportion of the creative industries are constituted as small and medium-sized enterprises, and the vast majority of those are protected from the increase in national insurance contributions. Importantly, as many of them have said to me, they fully understand the need for greater expenditure on our public services, and that has to be matched by finding the money from somewhere.

• 3 Apr 2025 · National Insurance: Creative Industries · Hansard source

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  No, we have just taken it out of the Bill for the precise reason that we do not think it would make the blindest bit of difference to the financial support provided to creative industries today. That is why we are not supporting the amendment.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Digital Landlines: Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  That was a long intervention and I am not sure what precise elements of data the right hon. Gentleman is referring to. What I am saying is that one of the things the operators needed to have was a full list of all vulnerable customers. It is never going to be 100% perfect, because there are some people who had telecare devices but have moved on to a different system, and so on, but in the main the people who know who their vulnerable customers are—those who might be relying, for instance, on a telecare or similar device—are local authorities and local health trusts or boards, or whatever the pattern may be in different parts of the United Kingdom. We have got to a place where 85% of local authorities are now reliably providing that information. I have not had any further complaints from the operators, but we keep on pressing the point with them. In November, we also introduced the non-voluntary migration checklist, which means that nobody will be moved from one system to another without having had a visit, without having had the system explained to them, and without it being made sure that the new telecare device, or whatever it may be, would work under the new system. That has substantially reduced the dangers that there may be to individuals. The right hon. Member for East Hampshire referred to the subject of working between Departments. We have been working closely with the Department of Health and Social Care, and that has led to the new telecare national action plan, which was announced a few weeks ago. That, too, was a result of the consultations that we started last July, September and November about trying to make sure that every person in the country who could be at risk because of an outage, an electricity failure, or the simple transition from one system to another, would be covered, and that they would have a system that worked as efficiently and effectively under VoIP as it would have done under the copper system. I do not think we have any choice about whether we transition from copper, because copper will simply not survive for the next five to 10 years. I am happy to write to the right hon. Member for Tatton (Esther McVey) on the specifics if she wants.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Digital Landlines: Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  Yes, I have facts. I would be happy to write to the right hon. Lady if she would like me to. I remember that last July, my anxiety was that somebody would end up having a telecare device not working because of VoIP. Since that time, the number of failures has increased far more in relation to when copper has failed, rather than in relation to VoIP. That is the precise fact that we have to deal with. The former Minister, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire is right; it is an industry-led process and it always has been. We have to deal with the practicalities of the fact that the copper system is not going to last forever. The other former Minister over there, the right hon. Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay), is looking cross with me. I am not saying that the civil service briefed me to that effect.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Digital Landlines: Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  And therefore I am not, I am afraid, going to give way again.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Digital Landlines: Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  I did not. I will finish my point. All of industry briefed me about that point—they were grateful because they said that everybody was, frankly, complacent about the issue until we came to power.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Digital Landlines: Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  That is literally the point that I made two sentences ago, so I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for reiterating it. The point is that we need to be able to get broadband to every single home in the country. We are working on Project Gigabit to deliver that as far as possible. I am aware—not least because I am a Welsh MP in Wales—that there are some places in the UK where it is going to be phenomenally difficult to get to every single home with gigabit-capable broadband. That is where other solutions, such as fixed mobile and potentially satellite, are going to have to come into play. We will need to develop new technology to—

• 2 Apr 2025 · Digital Landlines: Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  There is a big point about broadband generally, and I will come to mobile because I think that several Members’ points have not been about PSTN at all today; they have been about mobile connectivity. That is an important issue of resilience as well. I could speak for the whole day about that, not least because of the reports today—I think in The Telegraph —that all of Ofcom’s previous announcements on mobile coverage are rather wide of the mark when it comes to what people are really able to achieve. The hon. Gentleman referred to 2 megabits per second; a telecare device will work on 0.5 megabits per second, so that is not the issue. The issue is whether someone has a router that has a back-up battery that will survive long enough if there is an electricity cut.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Digital Landlines: Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  In truth, the advice I have had so far from the industry is that in the main in those kinds of instances, people would be using their mobile phone to— [ Interruption. ] Well, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire got cross with me when I was not listening to him earlier, so I will get cross with him back. There is a legitimate point here: how do we make sure that we have the resilience for mobile technology as well? The point that I have made many times is that Ofcom reports 97% coverage for all mobile operators in many constituencies, but we all know from our lived experiences that that simply is not true. I think that that is partly because its expectation of mobile coverage is 2 megabits per second, whereas to be able to do anything reliably, a mobile signal today needs 5 megabits per second. There are also still areas with notspots—where there is simply no mobile signal. In my own semi-rural constituency in the south Wales valleys, there are many areas like that. We need to make sure that the industry providing the mobile signal is able to deliver greater resilience in its masts. I am sure that other Members will have had the experience that I have had in my constituency, where people have set fire to masts because they believe that they do medical damage and things. If there is no mobile signal, people do not have any ability to make calls. The vast majority of people now do not rely on their home landlines to make emergency phone calls; they rely on mobiles.

• 2 Apr 2025 · Digital Landlines: Rural Communities · Hansard source

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  I will not give way for the moment; I want to make a few points first, if that is okay. It was also preposterous to me that still very few people had any understanding of what was happening in their own home and that most operators had no proper connection with a list of vulnerable patients or customers, despite the fact that local authorities, health boards and a whole series of other public sector bodies have precisely that information. As I said, the very first thing I did was to stamp my foot and we got everybody round the table—I think it was in July last year, and we had another meeting later in September. I was forceful with all the operators in this field. First, I wanted to make sure that every single local authority was written to and told that they must provide that list of vulnerable customers to the operators. They started saying things about GDPR and I said, “No, you know perfectly well that we are able to get round these issues for this specific purpose.” Secondly, I was trying to make sure that there was much greater resilience in the system—the point that several Members have made. Thirdly, of course the Ofcom rules say batteries only need to have one hour of back-up, but it is not just Vodafone that offers more than that; BT, KCOM and Zen Internet have all announced, following discussions I had with them back in September and November, that they will now have a battery power of between four and seven hours. Of course, that is not perfect—if there is a flood or something that will knock out the systems for several days—but that is when other resilience measures from local authorities really need to kick in. I have acted in all those different areas from the beginning. I say this as gently as I can to the former Minister, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds): the briefing that I had was that previous Ministers were utterly complacent in this area, and that is why I was determined to act.