Dame Chi Onwurah
MP for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West · Labour · United Kingdom
“An extraordinary debate is going on right now inside and outside AI companies about whether the possibility of AI destroying humanity is more or less than 10%. The European Union is moving ahead with a comprehensive AI regulatory framework, but the UK continues to rely on existing regulation.”
“The Pope also highlighted how the billions of online digital twins constitute an unprecedented concentration of power in the hands of a small number of men. Among the many consequences of the 40 years of neoliberalism repeatedly called out by the Prime Minister is a libertarian attitude to technology.”
“But this stealth digital twinning violates the integrity, uniqueness and very personhood of our constituents and of all of us. Digital twins can take many forms, from content creation algorithms and deepfakes to chatbots that reflect aspects of our personalities back at us. It is particularly worrying when children are the target.”
“The automated version of our kids will grow with them, using the power of AI to target advertising and products at them, and worse. The Science, Innovation and Technology Committee has heard about some of the tragic consequences of online grooming by algorithms and chatbots—a vulnerable boy persuaded to kill himself; a vulnerable girl fed…”
“In the arts, entertainment and tech industries, many performers are agreeing to the creation and use of digital replicas as part of their work—think of ABBA Voyage. But performers increasingly encounter unauthorised digital replicas of themselves, which pose a threat to their career, livelihood and reputation.”
“Since then, deepfakes have proliferated. The hon. Member for Mid Norfolk (George Freeman) was shown crossing the Floor in Parliament to join Reform, to his constituents’ consternation and his own—it was a fake. Then there were the horrendous photos of naked women and girls that Elon Musk’s AI created on demand.”
The complete record
Every one of 5,139 lines we hold for Dame Chi Onwurah, in date order, each linked to its source. Free to read, in full, without an account. Page 19 of 103.
“Successive Conservative Governments have sat on the scandal, but he has made real progress in moving us to a place where we can see that justice is in sight. I acknowledge that. I also welcome the update on the March announcement that, as Labour has repeatedly called for, the 505 litigants will receive the compensation payments that they are entitled to. However, I emphasise that, as I am sure the Minister will acknowledge, it is unacceptable that it has taken so long when the right course of action was always clear. There really was no need for victims to have spent so long in limbo. At the core of this unforgivable scandal is the belief that workers were dishonest and technology was infallible. Perhaps that is not surprising, given the Government’s track record on defending the rights of working people.”
“I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement and for keeping the House informed of progress. The Horizon scandal is perhaps the greatest miscarriage of justice in our country’s history. Its victims have waited for justice for far too long. I pay tribute to the Justice for Subpostmasters Alliance for its tireless work and acknowledge the work of colleagues on both sides of the House who have gone to considerable lengths to highlight the plight of their constituents. In particular, I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), whose commitment to the cause has been unwavering, and to Lord Arbuthnot in the other place. I also pay tribute to the Minister—and I do not say that lightly.”
“She looks confused, but this is a real issue for women, who will now be criminalised if they are pregnant and miscarry.”
“Like many, I feel personally targeted by this attack on women’s bodily autonomy and deeply distressed by the impact it will have on women’s health in the United States. It is in part the consequence of a right-wing Government politicising women’s bodies in the pursuit of so-called culture wars, and I hope the Minister will take note. The ruling also means that whether a woman is pregnant becomes a matter of criminal liability. Therefore, insight into that, through health data, location data, what a woman buys, where she shops and who she visits, may become evidence for the prosecution. Yet that data is freely trafficked by multinational companies. Will the Minister set out how she will address that and the conversations she will have with her American counterparts to prevent that from happening?”
“My right hon. Friend is making excellent points. Does he agree that the excessive delays in the justice system, in particular for rape, have a huge mental health impact on the victims yet our mental health system is also failing to respond quickly to those needs?”
“I thank the Chief Secretary for giving way. Is it his view that 10 years of austerity economics, which slashed the capacity of both central and local government to spend, left our Government’s public services with the resilience to meet the demands of the covid crisis, and the cost of living and inflation crisis?”
“The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Rwanda is an excellent opportunity to promote trade with the Commonwealth. As chair of the all-party group on Africa, I am well aware of the important role that diaspora communities can play in growing trade, where familial and friendship links are so important. Newcastle, like many cities and towns in this country, has a number of Commonwealth diaspora communities. What specific help can people in Newcastle expect from this Department to trade with the countries they, their parents or their grandparents may have come from?”
“After many years working in both the public and private sectors in many countries around the world, I cannot think of a single instance where the behaviour of someone in a leadership position obliged a person responsible for giving ethical or standards advice to resign twice in succession and yet the person in the leadership position remained in place. Does the Minister agree that my constituents will conclude that the Prime Minister finds it hard to maintain a working relationship with ethical advice, and how many resignations of ethical advisers will it take before the Prime Minister does resign?”
“Last week I finally received a response to an immigration query that my office sent last August. I have an asylum seeker who has waited 18 months just for an interview, which he still has not had, and many constituents are desperately looking for passports that have failed to arrive. The Home Secretary is spending millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money on a policy that is as unworkable as it is inhumane. Why does she not put the work in and fix the issues in her Department of process and resource, instead of hiding her incompetence behind desperate refugees?”
“British business depends on British science for long-term national growth, and the No. 1 issue facing British scientists right now is our participation in the world’s largest science funding programme—the European Union’s £95 billion Horizon programme. Since 2007, British scientists have won over £14 billion from Horizon—more than we put in—but this is about more than money; it concerns international prestige. Horizon is a collaborative network of over 30 countries. Let us face it: this Government will never be able to replicate that. The Prime Minister said that he had an oven-ready Brexit deal; why is British science being left on the shelf?”
“My constituent queued for 20 hours to get into the Baron hotel; she was trying to protect her baby daughter from the Taliban, who were firing shots and using tear gas. She was evacuated, but her nightmare did not end there; her daughter’s emergency passport has expired, and her brother languishes in a Greek camp, seriously ill. He was a supreme court judge and he faces certain death if he goes back to Afghanistan. When I raise these issues with the Home Office, I get no response whatsoever. Can we not do better?”
“21. What recent assessment he has made of the impact of the court backlog on the wellbeing of victims of (a) sexual and (b) violent offences.”
“Under the leadership of Kim McGuinness, our police and crime commissioner, Northumbria police have invested heavily in victim support. But they cannot make up for the wholesale failure of the justice system, with victims telling us that they feel revictimised by the length of delays and the complexity of the process. Does the Minister acknowledge that his plan to get the backlog down to 53,000—still a huge number—will not significantly address the delays? What additional support is he putting in place for the mental health of victims during these long, long delays?”
“Bus services are critical transport infrastructure in Newcastle, but too often my constituents are left waiting for long periods at bus stops for high-priced bus services, not knowing when the buses are going to come. That is only getting worse, with price increases and service cuts. When—I want a date, not talk about the Bus Back Better fund, because that is not going to do it—will my constituents get bus services of the same affordability and quality as London’s? A date, please.”
“On Saturday, along with over 100 others, I took part in Newcastle’s Kidical mass cycle, and parents raised with me the challenges of getting kids to cycle to school and, related to that, the impact on air quality of cars idling outside schools. I got my cycling proficiency from Hill View Junior School. What are the Government doing to help children to learn to cycle, acquire cycles, and stop cars idling outside schools?”
“As the campaigner Jack Monroe has highlighted, and as Newcastle’s West End food bank sees in practice, the cruel truth is that the poorer you are, the higher the rate of inflation you face and the fewer choices you have. But the Government have choices, and my constituents are amazed and disgusted at the choices they make to protect windfall profits rather than working people. Why does the Secretary of State think it should be the poorest who pay the price of inflation?”
“Newcastle Tyne bridge is a critical part of our transport infrastructure as well as being an icon of the north-east. It is now peeling and rusting, and my constituents are also facing closures as the council assesses just how much money is needed to repair it. Can the Minister give assurances that all that disruption will not be in vain and that the Government will support the restoration of this icon of our engineering?”
“The levelling-up White Paper offered practically no new investment for the north-east, but it did have grandiose missions. Now we see from the draft Bill that those missions—and targets—can be changed at will by Ministers. Is not that a cheater’s charter, and are the missions worth the White Paper they are written on?”
“The Home Secretary has expressed her outrage and disgust at the crime and abuse that is to be found online. Why has her party done nothing about it for the past 12 years?”
“They look at our northern cities and see problems to hide from, not opportunities for investment. Whether we are talking about short-term or long-term planning, this Government are failing. Britain deserves better and I look forward to a Labour Government who are on the people’s side.”
“The metaverse poses significant risk to children, with virtual reality chatrooms allowing children to mix freely with adults. Labour has long campaigned for stronger online protections for children and the public in order to keep them safe, to protect their prosperity from scams and online fraud, to secure our democracy, and to ensure that everyone is treated with decency and respect. Governments can act. This one refuses to do so. To be competitive in the global age, we need to empower everyone to be confident digital citizens. That is an economic imperative. An investment now will bear fruit for decades to come. The Government have failed to rise to the challenge of the digital age, just as they failed to rise to the cost of living crisis, and failed to rise to the challenges of covid, of climate change, and of child poverty.”
“It is also mind-numbingly depressing that the Government are repeating their mistakes of a decade ago, ignoring emerging harms, algorithms, artificial intelligence, the internet of things, bossware and data dominance. There is nothing in the Bill that addresses the decentralisation inherent in web 3.0 reflected in the use of blockchain as part of the future architecture of the web. Although distributed ledger technology has many strengths, there is also a libertarian dogmatic view that the blockchain can replace regulation in Government. That is a lie, and the Government need to show that they understand that—but, clearly, they do not. We also need more emphasis on people’s rights, on access to algorithms and their regulation.”
“The Bill needs to tackle disinformation online, and to close the loophole that means people are not properly protected from online fraud by ensuring that all platforms take a proactive approach to preventing scams. The data reform Bill, also in the Queen’s Speech, seems to be more about taking away protections than about giving new digital rights, and the digital markets Bill has no proper enforcer. This Government are constructing a piecemeal, ad hoc and, at times, kneejerk online legislative framework when what we need is a comprehensive, cross-departmental, evidence-based, forward-looking review of digital rights and responsibilities so that we can have a regulatory framework that is fit for the future. This is the security and the respect that the British public deserve in the digital age.”
“Come 2013, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government chose to ignore the many calls, from me and many others, to do something similar. It is no surprise that the former Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister is now Facebook’s president of global affairs, justifying the online harms that deliver billions of pounds of revenue to that company. The Online Safety Bill in the Queen’s Speech will not be in place before 2023, so Conservatives have left my constituents unprotected and insecure online for more than a decade. The much-delayed Bill still fails in so many ways. It fails to strengthen child protection across the entire internet; to properly address the harmful impact that social media can have on young people’s mental health; and to ensure a voice to victims of abuse and harm online.”
“They did that while actively cutting the parts of the state—such as the police and trading standards—the job of which it is to protect people. We now see the same dogmatic approach in the Government’s attitude to the cost of living. They refuse to take action, such as by introducing a windfall tax, and instead cut programmes, such as the green homes scheme—axed just six months after it was announced—that could help. Nevertheless, it is possible for Governments to take action. The Labour Government at the time saw the fast-evolving communications landscape of the late ’90s, consulted widely and put in place forward-looking regulation in the form of the Communications Act 2003, which set out a regulatory landscape fit for the next decade.”
“Online harms are not some future threat but an established current reality about which successive Conservative and Liberal Democrat Governments have done absolutely nothing, because they have believed in and, indeed, promoted the silicon valley libertarian lie that Governments could do nothing about the internet. They have thereby allowed monopolistic platforms to acquire more money and power than many Governments have. That power is used to deny workers’ rights in silicon valley and to delay and minimise regulation here. Successive Conservative and Liberal Democrat Governments chose to leave it to the market, blinded by their belief that the state was too slow or too stupid to regulate to keep people safe and secure online.”
“I want to show how it can be different by looking at one Bill that was actually mentioned in the Queen’s Speech and that really highlights the point, and by looking at where the Government are creating growth: in online crime. Online, the Conservatives are the party of no law and total disorder. The Home Secretary did not even bother to defend her Government’s record when I challenged her earlier. I am an engineer and a passionate advocate for technology and innovation. It has truly distressed me to see technology go from being boring but useful to exciting but exploitative. Our constituents fear that tech is managing them, tracking, monitoring and analysing their every move, and then serving them up to be trolled, exploited, scammed, groomed or just bombarded with advertising and misinformation.”
“Each of those decisions make it even harder for my constituents to deal with rising costs. The problem is that this Government do not believe that government can make a positive difference to people’s lives. That leaves my constituents with stagnating wages; the north-east regional economy without the investment it needs; hard-working Geordies facing massive technological and economic change without the skills they need; and the Tyne bridge peeling and our buses infrequent and overpriced. It does not have to be this way, because government can be a force for good. Governments can look ahead and plan—although not this Government, obviously.”
“Some 61% of children in Elswick in my constituency are growing up in poverty—this is in 2022! What is the Government’s response? This Queen’s speech is remarkable for what is not in it, not what is: there is no emergency budget, with a windfall tax to get money off people’s bills, as Labour has called for; and it contains no employment Bill, although the Government promised one. We needed a real plan for growth to get our economy firing on all cylinders, with a climate investment pledge, and a commitment to buy, make and sell more in Britain. Instead, the Government hike national insurance; cut universal credit; have real-terms pay cuts for public sector workers; freeze the rate of local housing allowance; and freeze the cap on childcare costs that UC claimants are entitled to.”
“It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds East (Richard Burgon) and his passionate calls for action. I have become accustomed to feeling disappointment, dismay, despair and, at times, disgust in response to Government pronouncements, but this Queen’s Speech is a new low. The people of my constituency deserve better than this low-growth, high-tax and, increasingly, high-inflation Government. Under Labour we had growth on average of 2% each year, but under the Tories it is averaging 1.5% and is forecast to go negative. The cost of living crisis brought about by this Government has my constituents flocking to food banks. The choice between eating and heating is real in my constituency. Child poverty rates in the north-east rose by more than a third, to 37%, between 2015 and 2019.”
“A successful slush syrup manufacturer in my constituency recently reformulated its recipe to reduce sugar, replacing it with glycerine as the anti-freezing agent. As a result of the war in Ukraine and covid, glycerine has become unobtainable, or obtainable only at absolutely exorbitant prices. Will the Minister urgently meet me to discuss how we can make sure that that successful manufacturer keeps manufacturing?”
“In 2019 the all-party parliamentary group on Africa, which I chair, published a detailed and damning report on the visa application centres. Many of the points we made on outsourcing, TLScontact, digitalisation, scanning, data reconciliation, training and resourcing have clearly not been addressed, and now Ukrainians fleeing war and my constituents who want to help them—I have many such constituents—are paying the price. Exactly how will the Minister ensure that visa processing is immediately speeded up? Given that he will not reduce the requirements of the process, as Labour has been calling for, can he confirm that that means that visa applicants from other places in the world will see further delays?”
“That contradicts the lived experience of many girls and women who love maths, such as myself, and research from many organisations and institutions such as the Institute of Physics, the all-party group on diversity and inclusion in science, technology, engineering and maths, which I chair, and, most importantly, the Government’s own stated policy on encouraging girls in STEM. Can you, Mr Speaker, advise me: given that we are proroguing today I cannot lay any written questions, so how can I ascertain whether the Government have changed their policy on encouraging girls into STEM?”
“On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Yesterday, in evidence to the Select Committee on Science and Technology, the chair of the Government’s Social Mobility Commission said that “physics isn’t something that girls tend to fancy. They don’t want to do it, they don’t like it…I just think they don’t like it. There’s a lot of hard maths…The research generally…just says that’s a natural thing”. She said she was “certainly not out there campaigning” for more girls to do physics, adding: “I don’t mind that there’s only 16%”.”
“I have repeatedly raised with the Minister the impact on Newcastle United fans of the Premier League’s arrogance and lack of accountability, so I welcome his recognition of the need for reform. Will he confirm whether this further delay is at the behest of the Premier League? Does he agree that it is unacceptable for the Premier League to stand in the way of football fans, and that it is particularly distasteful given its policy director’s recent fine for partying while football fans, and indeed the rest of the country, were in lockdown?”
“During the recent British-American Parliamentary Group trade and security delegation to the US, we received the unequivocal message that any US-UK trade deal would have to be worker-centric. We also heard that the Secretary of State had said during the Baltimore dialogues that levelling up was the British equivalent of worker-centric and that therefore any levelled-up trade deal would have workers at its heart. Can she confirm whether that is the case and, if so, how she will ensure a worker voice at every trade meeting and discussion?”
“Between 2015 and 2020, the number of asylum applications decided early stayed constant at about 30,000, but the proportion decided within the Secretary of State’s six-month target plummeted from 80% to 17%, despite doubling the number of caseworkers. Is it not the truth that her asylum processing system is broken—sending refugees to Rwanda will not fix that—and that she is using those fleeing from the worst atrocities of war as a shield for her incompetence?”
“Many Newcastle upon Tyne Central residents have contacted me to share precious moments missed, and have charged me with holding the Prime Minister to account. They do not accept his apology, because they thought long and hard about the difficult decisions they had to make, weighing up the huge personal cost against the terrible consequences of spreading the virus. They made the right decision. The Prime Minister did not, apparently because he is too stupid to understand his own regulations. If he is so much stupider than my constituents, why—how—can he claim to lead them and the nation?”
“As such, will he say how many are affected and provide a timescale for when all compensation payments will have been made? Labour has called for all those involved to be held accountable, so will he update the House on what investigations are ongoing into the role of Fujitsu? Will he commit to regularly updating the House on the progress of the scheme? This has been one of the greatest miscarriages of justice this country has ever seen. Every day’s delay only compounds that injustice. I hope the Government can finally start to right these wrongs for good.”
“In a week in which we have had plenty of warm words from the Government on their commitment to British workers but little by way of action, it is vital that the Government get this right. Hard-working, honest people had their lives torn apart because of a misguided belief that workers are dishonest and technology infallible. Today’s announcement is warmly welcomed on the Labour Benches. I thank the Minister for his work on this issue; his commitment has been unquestionable throughout. However, I do want to press him in saying that speed is now vital. The Government have delayed far too long in getting to this point, and there can be no further delays for all those affected to get the compensation that will go some way towards making amends for this appalling injustice.”
“I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr Jones) for securing this urgent question and for his tireless efforts in standing up for all those affected by the Horizon scandal. I pay tribute to all the postmasters who fought for justice, and especially to the efforts and determination of the 555 litigants whose civil case paved the way for convictions to be quashed and compensation finally delivered. Labour has consistently called for all those affected by the Horizon scandal to be able to access the compensation they deserve. It was simply unacceptable that those who led this slow march to justice had been excluded from the historical shortfall scheme.”
“This appalling act of institutionalised degradation was committed against a black child and the report highlights the racism inherent in the adultification of black children. Does the Minister understand that seeing black children as adults is, just as seeing black men as more likely to be criminal or seeing black women as more likely to be troublesome, part of institutionalised, systemic anti-black racism and that his inability to say what he is going to do about it says that he is prepared to continue to tolerate it? Does he also understand that we can never have trust in our policing services with a Minister who is unable to say anything?”
“10. What steps he is taking to improve the (a) quality and (b) affordability of bus services in Newcastle as part of the Government’s levelling-up agenda.”
“The levelling-up White Paper promises to bring local public transport connectivity closer to London standards by 2030—so not as good as London, just less worse and not for another eight years. Newcastle needs affordable and accessible bus services now, not the cuts we are seeing. Transport North East’s bus service improvement plan sets out the improvements we need. Will the Minister fund it?”
“I am wearing the colours of my football team, Newcastle United, and it is important to say that in utterly condemning this atrocious, horrific massacre, I speak for many, many of my constituents and Newcastle United fans. Does the Minister agree that whereas football fans have no control over or influence in the ownership of their beloved clubs—especially in a premier league awash with dirty money—the UK Government have both control over and influence in who they trade with and engage with? The Minister has said what she is not going to do, but what is she going to do with that control and influence? Is she going to make it absolutely clear that sportswashing is not an option?”
“T4. Residents of Newcastle’s west end are sick and tired of wading through litter. Despite swingeing cuts to Newcastle City Council’s budget, it found extra money for street cleaning, but council tax payers should not bear the whole burden. The producers of litter should also pay, so why has the extended producer responsibility scheme been delayed? Has the Minister looked at the impact on Newcastle streets and will she compensate the council?”
“I thank the Secretary of State for updating us on the UK’s actions in support of the Ukrainians’ heroic defence of their country. He will have noted that his update was received much more warmly than that given by the Home Office yesterday, and with good reason—I do hope that Home Office Ministers have noted that as well. We must act on all fronts. The need for humanitarian assistance is overwhelming. Will the Secretary of State say a little more about the 1,000 UK troops who I understand from his statement are still on stand-by to provide humanitarian assistance? Where are they and under what circumstances will they be deployed?”
“Germans are waiting in Berlin Central station to offer Ukrainian refugees their homes and their hearts. The people of Newcastle Central are no less generous, yet their Government greets war-traumatised families who have already crossed a continent with a demand that they go to Brussels or Paris for an unspecified amount of time, apparently because the Minister thinks they could be KGB agents. Will he say how long he expects Ukrainian refugees to wait in Brussels or Paris? What support is he offering, financially and in terms of transport, so that they can meet his ridiculous demands?”
“I thank my hon. Friend for the excellent comments she is making in emphasising the importance of hearing the voices of survivors of sexual assault. Will she join me in congratulating my constituent Anna Robinson, who has written a play about her experience of sexual assault and going through the criminal justice system with the many failings and delays in it? The play, which is touching and moving, and also funny, is playing at the Alphabetti theatre in Newcastle right now and is a marvellous example of the victim finding a voice.”
“My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. She mentions food banks. We have seen a huge increase in food bank usage in Newcastle Central, and had the third highest increase in child poverty in the country between 2015 and 2019; it was almost 13%. Some 100,000 of the children living in poverty across the north-east live in families where one parent is working, and we see that reflected in food bank usage. Does she agree that we have to ensure that parents have enough to feed themselves and their children without going to food banks, and that the Government have been failing on that?”