Baroness Kidron:

Moved by Baroness Kidron

58: After Clause 132, insert the following new Clause—“Sovereign data assets(1) The Secretary of State may by regulations define data sets held by public bodies and arm’s length institutions and other data sets that are held in the public interest as sovereign data assets (defined in subsection (6)).(2) In selecting data sets which may be designated as sovereign data assets, the Secretary of State must—(a) have regard to—(i) the security and privacy of United Kingdom data subjects;(ii) the ongoing value of the data assets;(iii) the rights of United Kingdom intellectual property holders;(iv) ongoing adherence to the values, laws and international obligations of the United Kingdom;(v) the requirement for public sector employees, researchers, companies and organisations headquartered in the United Kingdom to have preferential terms of access;(vi) the need for data to be stored in the United Kingdom, preferably in data centres in the United Kingdom;(vii) the need to design Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) as bridges between each sovereign data asset and the client software of the authorized licence holders;(b) consult with— (i) academics with expertise in the field;(ii) the AI Safety Institute;(iii) those with responsibility for large public data sets;(iv) data subjects;(v) the Information Commissioner.(3) The Secretary of State must establish a transparent licensing system, fully reflecting the security and privacy of data held on United Kingdom subjects, for use in providing access to sovereign data assets.(4) The Secretary of State must report annually to Parliament on the ongoing value of the sovereign data assets, in terms of—(a) their value to future users of the data;(b) the financial return expected when payment is made for the use of such data in such products and services as may be expected to be developed.(5) The National Audit Office must review the licensing system established by the Secretary of State under subsection (3) and report annually to Parliament as to its effectiveness in securing the ongoing security of the sovereign data assets.(6) In this section—“sovereign data asset” means—(a) data held by public bodies and arm’s length institutions of government;(b) data sets held by third parties that volunteer data to form, or contribute to, a public asset.(7) Regulations under this section are to be made by statutory instrument.(8) A statutory instrument containing regulations under this section may not be made unless a draft of the instrument has been laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.”Member’s explanatory statementThe UK has a number of unique publicly-held data assets, from NHS data to geospatial data and the BBC’s multimedia data. This amendment would create a special status for data held in the public interest, and a licensing scheme for providing access to them, which upholds UK laws and values, and ensure a fair return of financial benefits to the UK.

My Lords, I will speak to both amendments in this group. Amendment 58, which is in my name and those of my noble friend Lord Tarassenko, and the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Clement-Jones, seeks to ensure that the value of our publicly held large datasets is realised for the benefit of UK citizens. A full explanation of the amendment can be found at col. 162GC of Hansard. Amendment 71 is new and has a different approach to many of the same ends.

The speed at which the Government are giving access to our data is outpacing their plans to protect its financial or societal value. As we have seen over the last 24 hours, in which $1 trillion was wiped off the US AI sector and China provided a next gen proposal for AI—at least for the moment—technology moves at pace, but data is still the gold dust on which it rests.

Amendment 58 would require the Government to act as custodian of that vital asset. For example, they would need to decide the criteria for assigning publicly held data sets as a sovereign data asset, secure a valuation for that asset, and then be accountable for the decisions they took to protect that value and generate a return, both financial and societal, on behalf of the British public.

When that idea was proposed at Second Reading, the Minister said the Government’s proposal for a national data library would address those concerns. However, despite requests for further information from noble Lords in Committee, the Minister did not elaborate. That is a source of considerable frustration, given that in the same period no fewer than seven recommendations for the national data library in Matt Clifford’s AI action plan were fully accepted and widely trumpeted by the Government—including giving away BBC assets for free without asking the BBC.

If the national data library is to be central to the way the Government manage publicly held data sets, then the basis on which it is established should be subject to insight and oversight from Parliament. I have been struck in recent meetings that officials, academics and the public all agree that there is a lack of trust in both government and tech motives, yet the Government repeatedly refuse our amendments that try to set out the contours of a deal with data owners, whether creatives as before or, in this case, citizens.

Amendment 71 tries to address that need directly. It would require the Government to consult on and lay before Parliament regulations setting out the basis on which the NDL would exercise its functions and powers in relation to data use and access. There is a long list in the amendment of issues that the Government would have to consider when drafting the national data library, including, but not limited to: protecting UK data subjects’ personal data; the UK’s economic and national security interests; setting out the basis for extraterritorial data access and transfers; the transparency of onward use of sovereign data assets; data hygiene, to keep it accurate, up to date and free from bias; when consent may be required; how it will value and license the datasets; what process the Government will use to ensure maximum value to the public purse; whether to prioritise UK-based entrepreneurs and researchers; and the mechanisms through which the national data library will be governed and managed.

These are not trivial matters. If the national data library lies at the heart of the Government’s AI strategy then Parliament and the public, who may claim rights to that data, must be on board with their strategy. The amendments propose the sorts of actions that engender trust. Although I will definitely not press the issue tonight, I ask the Minister to make a commitment to bring the Government’s plans before Parliament so that we and those in the other place can review and approve their plans before the NDL takes charge of one of the UK’s most valuable assets. I ask him to reassure us at the Dispatch Box that the Government will not give access to those same data assets to those who are circling our most precious data—the NHS—without consideration of these matters.

For the second time today, I mention DeepSeek. It is a timely reminder that the market will change repeatedly. However, the response from the titans of AI today has been not about values or alternative visions of the world but to release sooner, build faster and bet everything on being the winner.

I am not alone. Indeed, swathes of those inside the sector think there is a role for AI that will be a smaller, higher-quality, problem-solving technology that will power real-world businesses, innovations and an information ecosystem of the future. It is that growth opportunity that lies within the capability and the datasets of the UK. I beg to move.

My Lords, I speak in support of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, on Amendment 58, to which I have also put my name. Given the time, I will speak only about NHS datasets.

There have been three important developments since the Committee stage of this Bill in mid-December: the 43rd annual J P Morgan healthcare conference in San Francisco in mid-January, the launch of the AI Opportunities Action Plan by the Prime Minister on Monday 13 January and the announcement of the Stargate project in the White House the day after President Trump’s inauguration.

Taking these in reverse chronological order, it is not clear exactly how the Stargate project will be funded, but several US big tech companies and SoftBank has pledged tens of billions of dollars. At least $100 billion will be available to build the infrastructure for next-generation AI, and it may even rise to $500 billion in the next four years.

The UK cannot match these sums. The AI Opportunities Action Plan instead lays out how the UK can compete by using its own advantages: a long track record of world-leading AI research in our universities and some unique, hugely valuable datasets.

At the JP Morgan conference in San Francisco, senior NHS management had more than 40 meetings with AI companies. These companies all wanted to know one thing: how and when they could access NHS datasets.

It is not surprising, therefore, that it was reported in November that the national federated data platform would soon be used to train different types of AI models. The two models mentioned were Open AI’s proprietary ChatGPT and Google’s medical AI, Med-Gemini, based on Google’s proprietary large language model, Gemini. Presumably, these models will be fine-tuned using the data stored in the federated data platform.

Amendment 58 is not about restricting access to UK datasets by Open AI, Google or any other US big tech company. Instead, it seeks to maximise their long- term value, driven by strategic goals rather than short-term, opportunistic gains. By classifying valuable public sector datasets as sovereign data assets, we can ensure that the data is made available under controlled conditions, not only to public sector employees and researchers but to industry, including US big tech companies.

We should expect a financial return when industry is given access to a sovereign dataset. A first condition is a business model such that income is generated for the relevant public body, in this case the NHS, from the access fees paid by the companies that will be the authorised licence holders.

A second condition is signposted in the AI Opportunities Action Plan, whose recommendations have all been accepted by the Government. In the third section of the action plan, “Secure our future with homegrown AI”, Matt Clifford, the author of the plan, writes that

“we must be an AI maker, not just an AI taker: we need companies … that will be our UK national champions … Generating national champions will require a more activist approach”.

Part of this activist approach should be to give companies and organisations headquartered in the UK preferential terms of access to our sovereign data assets.

These datasets already exist in the NHS as minimum viable products, so we cannot afford to delay. AI companies are keen to access data in the federated data platform, which is NHS England’s responsibility, or in the secure data environments set up by the National Institute for Health and Care Research, NIHR.

I urge the Government to accept the principles of this amendment as they will provide the framework needed now to support NHS England and NIHR in their negotiations with AI companies.

I have signed Amendment 58. I also support the other amendment spoken to by the noble Baroness, although I did not get around to signing it. They both speak to the same questions, some of which have been touched on by both previous speakers.

My route into this was perhaps a little less analytic. I used to worry about the comment lots of people used to make, wittily, that data was the new oil, without really thinking about what that meant or what it could mean. It began to settle in my mind that, if indeed data is an asset, why is it not carried on people’s balance sheets? Why does data held by companies or even the Government not feature in some sort of valuation? Just like oil held in a company or privately, it will eventually be used in some way. That releases revenue that would otherwise have to be accounted for and there will be an accounting treatment. But as an accountant I have never seen any company’s assets that ever put a value on data. That is where I came from.

A sovereign data approach, which labels assets of value to the economy held by the country rather than a company, seems to be a way of trying to get into language what is more of an accounting approach than perhaps we need to spend time on in this debate. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, has gone through the amendment in a way that explains the process, the protection and the idea that it should be valued regularly and able to account for any returns it makes. We have also heard about the way it features in other publications.

I want to take a slightly different part of the AI Opportunities Action Plan, which talks about data and states:

“We should seek to responsibly unlock both public and private data sets to enable innovation by UK startups and researchers and to attract international talent and capital. As part of this, government needs to develop a more sophisticated understanding of the value of the data it holds, how this value can be responsibly realised, and how to ensure the preservation of public trust across all its work to unlock its data assets”.

These are very wise words.

I end by saying that I was very struck by the figures released recently about the number of people who opted out of the NHS’s data collection. I think there are Members present who may well be guilty of such a process. I of course am happy to have my data used in a way that will provide benefit, but I do recognise the risks if it is not properly documented and if people are not aware of what they are giving up or offering in return for the value that will be extracted from it.

I am sure we all want more research and better research. We want research that will yield results. We also want value and to be sure that the data we have given up, which is held on our behalf by various agencies, is properly managed. These amendments seem to provide a way forward and I recommend them.

My Lords, I support Amendments 58 and 71, which address what I consider to be a fundamental oversight in our nation’s stewardship of public data assets.

While these amendments embrace intentionally broad definitions of sovereign data assets and a national data library, their purpose is precise: to recognise, protect and optimise the public value of these critical national resources for generations to come. The amendments’ dual emphasis on robust consent mechanisms and a transparent licensing framework—one that provides preferential access to UK entities—strikes a careful balance between fostering public trust and safeguarding our national interests.

Central to these amendments is the requirement for the Secretary of State to provide comprehensive reporting on both the current value and projected returns from these assets. This addresses a striking accountability gap in our governance framework. While the National Audit Office maintains rigorous oversight of our physical infrastructure, previous Administrations have failed to adequately account for the taxpayers’ substantial investment in public data infrastructure and intangible or knowledge assets.

Consider this striking disparity: Ernst & Young’s 2019 analysis projected that a curated NHS dataset could generate £5 billion annually for the UK, while delivering £4.6 billion in patient benefits through enhanced infrastructure. Yet we lack robust mechanisms to track whether these substantial benefits materialise or are captured and flow back into our healthcare system. This speaks directly to the Tony Blair Institute’s prescient call last year, endorsed by none other than the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Vallance, for the establishment of an NHS data trust or comparable stewardship vehicle.

As we navigate an AI revolution, we must shift our focus from simply managing risks to proactively harnessing opportunities for social impact and economic growth. This raises two fundamental questions. How can we leverage this technological transformation to maximise public benefit, and how will Parliament effectively scrutinise future trade agreements, particularly with nations like the United States, without established evaluation methodologies or transparent licencing systems of our valuable data assets?

The British public, already bearing a significant tax burden to fund public services, deserves assurance that our valuable digital assets will not be transferred today, only to be transformed into expensive treatments tomorrow, benefiting companies that pay tax overseas. Amendments 58 and 71 provide essential safeguards against the inadvertent undervaluation or transfer of these critical national assets. They ensure proper stewardship of our digital resources for the public good, and I therefore support the intentions behind these amendments.

My Lords, I very much encourage the Government to go down this road. Everyone talks about the NHS just because the data is there and organised. If we establish a structure like this, there are other sources of data that we could develop to equivalent value. Education is the obvious one. What works in education? We have huge amounts of data, but we do nothing with it—both in schools and in higher education. What is happening to biodiversity? We do not presently collect the data or use it in the way we could, but if we had that, and if we took advantage of all the people who would be willing to help with that, we would end up with a hugely valuable national resource.

HMRC has a lot of information about employment and career patterns, none of which we use. We worry about what is happening and how we can improve seaside communities, but we do not collect the data which would enable us to do it. We could become a data-based society. This data needs guarding because it is not for general use—it is for our use, and this sort of structure seems a really good way of doing it. It is not just the NHS—there is a whole range of areas in which we could greatly benefit the UK.

My Lords, all our speakers have made it clear that this is a here-and-now issue. The context has been set out by noble Lords, whether it is Stargate, the AI Opportunities Action Plan or, indeed, the Palantir contract with the NHS. This has been coming down the track for some years. There are Members on the Government Benches, such as the noble Lords, Lord Mitchell and Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who have been telling us that we need to work out a fair way of deriving a proper financial return for the benefits of public data assets, and Future Care Capital has done likewise. The noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, has form in this area as well.

The Government’s plan for the national data library and the concept of sovereign data assets raises crucial questions about how to balance the potential benefits of data sharing with the need to protect individual rights, maintain public trust and make sure that we achieve proper value for our public digital assets. I know that the Minister has a particular interest in this area, and I hope he will carry forward the work, even if this amendment does not go through.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for moving her amendment. The amendments in this group seek to establish a new status for data held in the public interest, and to establish statutory oversight rules for a national data library. I was pleased during Committee to hear confirmation from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, that the Government are actively developing their policy on data held in the public interest and developing plans to use our data assets in a trustworthy and ethical way.

We of course agree that we need to get this policy right, and I understand the Government’s desire to continue their policy development. Given that this is an ongoing process, it would be helpful if the Government could give the House an indication of timescales. Can the Minister say when the Government will be in a position to update the House on any plans to introduce a new approach to data held in the public interest? Will the Government bring a statement to this House when plans for a national data library proceed to the next stage?

I suggest that a great deal of public concern about nationally held datasets is a result of uncertainty. The Minister was kind enough to arrange a briefing from his officials yesterday, and this emerged very strongly. There is a great deal of uncertainty about what is being proposed. What are the mechanics? What are the risks? What are the costs? What are the eventual benefits to UK plc? I urge the Minister, as and when he makes such a statement, to bring a maximum of clarity about these fundamental questions, because I suspect that many people in the public will find this deeply reassuring.

Given the stage the Government are at with these plans, we do not think it would be appropriate to legislate at this stage, but we of course reserve the right to revisit this issue in the future.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, for Amendments 58 and 71, one of which we also considered in Committee. I suspect that we are about to enter an area of broad agreement here. This is a very active policy area, and noble Lords are of course asking exactly the right questions of us. They are right to emphasise the need for speed.

I agree that it is essential that we ensure that legal and policy frameworks are fit for purpose for the modern demands and uses of data. This Government have been clear that they want to maximise the societal benefits from public sector data assets. I said in the House very recently that we need to ensure good data collection, high-quality curation and security, interoperability and ways of valuing data that secure appropriate value returns to the public sector.

On Amendment 58, my officials are considering how we approach the increased demand and opportunity of data, not just public sector data but data across our economy. This is so that we can benefit from the productivity and growth gains of improvements to access to data, and harness the opportunities, which are often greater when different datasets are combined. As part of this, we sought public views on this area as part of the industrial strategy consultation last year. We are examining our current approach to data licensing, data valuation and the legal framework that governs data sharing in the public sector.

Given the complexity, we need to do this in a considered manner, but we of course need to move quickly. Crucially, we must not betray the trust of people or the trust of those responsible for managing and safeguarding these precious data assets. From my time as chair of the Natural History Museum, I am aware that museums and galleries are considering approaches to this very carefully. The noble Lord, Lord Lucas, may well be interested to see some of the work going on on biodiversity datasets there, where there are huge collections of great value that we actually did put value against.

Of course, this issue cuts across the public sector, including colleagues from the Geospatial Commission, NHS, DHSC, National Archives, Department for Education, Ordnance Survey and Met Office, for example. My officials and I are very open to discussing the policy issues with noble Lords. I recently introduced the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, to officials from NHSE dealing with the data side of things there and linked him with the national data library to seek his input. As was referred to, yesterday, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, the noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones, Lord Tarassenko and Lord Stevenson, and the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, all met officials, and we remain open to continuing such in-depth conversations. I hope the noble Baroness appreciates that this is an area with active policy development and a key priority for the Government.

Turning to Amendment 71, also from the noble Baroness, I agree that the national data library represents an enormous opportunity for the United Kingdom to unlock the full value of our public data. I agree that the protection and care of our national data is essential. The scope of the national data library is not yet finalised, so it is not possible to confirm whether a new statutory body or specific statutory functions are the right way to do this. Our approach to the national data library will be guided by the principles of public law and the requirements of the UK’s data protection legislation, including the data protection principles and data subject rights. This will ensure that data sharing is fair, secure and preserves privacy. It will also ensure that we have clear mechanisms for both valuation and value capture. We have already sought, and continue to seek, advice from experts on these issues, including work from the independent Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology. The noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, also referred to the work that I was involved with previously at the Tony Blair Institute.

The NDL is still in the early stages of development. Establishing it on a statutory footing at this point would be inappropriate, as work on its design is currently under way. We will engage and consult with a broad range of stakeholders on the national data library in due course, including Members of both Houses.

The Government recognise that our data and its underpinning infrastructure is a strategic national asset. Indeed, it is for that reason that we started by designating the data centres as critical national infrastructure. As the subjects of these amendments remain an active area of policy development, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

I am grateful for a breakout of agreement at this time of night; that is delightful. I agree with everything that the Minister said, but one thing we have not mentioned is the incredible cost of managing the data and the investment required. I support the Government investing to get the value out, as I believe other noble Lords do, and I would just like to put that point on record.

We had a meeting yesterday and thought it was going to be about data assets, but it turned out to be about data communities, which we had debated the week before. Officials said that it was incredibly useful, and it might have been a lot quicker if they had had it earlier. In echoing what was said in the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, there is considerable interest and expertise, and I would love to see the Government move faster, possibly with the help of noble Lords. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 58 withdrawn.