Record STMT-W774031Aspirational

Government response to House of Lords Artificial Intelligence Select Committee’s Report on AI in the UK: Ready, Willing and Able?

Report State lawNorthern Europe · GBadopted

This document is the UK Government's official response to the House of Lords Artificial Intelligence Select Committee report titled AI in the UK: Ready, Willing and Able? It details the government's positions, ongoing initiatives, and commitments regarding artificial intelligence development, ethics, data trusts, skills, healthcare deployment, and regulation. The response outlines how the government is implementing its Industrial Strategy and establishing key bodies such as the Office for Artificial Intelligence and the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation.

Summary and content fields are drawn from the document text and are pending editorial review.

Who issued it

Department for Science, Innovation and TechnologyGovernment

Lead issuer

Legal forceAspirational

Under whose authorityState law

Judged fromfull text

Who it governs

National governmentRegulatorsPublic sector bodiesCompaniesAI developers and providersAI deployers and usersResearchers and academics

Policymakers, researchers, industry stakeholders, and regulators seeking to understand the UK government's strategy and policy commitments regarding artificial intelligence.

Sectors

Cross-sectorHealthcare · health and social careResearch and science · artificial intelligence research and development

What the document contains

What's covered

The document addresses government responses to recommendations concerning public narratives on AI, data access and governance through Data Trusts, algorithmic transparency and intelligibility, addressing societal bias in training data, investment in research and commercialisation, skill pipelines including PhDs and visas, digital infrastructure rollouts, public sector procurement of AI, and legal liability and regulation.

What's missing

The document does not provide a definitive binding legal framework or code of conduct for AI developers, instead pointing to future consultations and the establishment of advisory bodies such as the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation and the AI Council.

Key takeaways

The Government welcomes the House of Lords Select Committee report and highlights AI as a core component of the Industrial Strategy.
Data Trusts and the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation will be established to facilitate ethical data sharing and protect privacy.
The Government rejects blanket AI-specific regulation at this stage, favoring sector-specific regulators operating within existing legal frameworks like GDPR.
Investments are being scaled up for AI skills, including expanded PhD places, master's conversion courses, and teacher training.
Public procurement frameworks and challenges like the GovTech Catalyst will be utilized to drive AI adoption across the public sector.

Outline

· Introduction
· General understanding, engagement and public narratives
· Everyday engagement with AI
· Designing artificial intelligence
· Developing artificial intelligence
· Working with artificial intelligence
· Living with artificial intelligence
· Healthcare and artificial intelligence
· Mitigating the risks of artificial intelligence
· Shaping artificial intelligence

Issued28 June 2018

Length16,795 words

FormatNot recorded

Scopenational

How it scores

Pending review

Each score is backed by a quote verified against the document text. Editorial review has not yet confirmed them.

Accountability

4/5

Clear responsibility for AI outcomes

The Act includes the necessary safeguards such as the right to be informed of automated processing as soon as possible and also the right to challenge an automated decision

Paragraph 10

screening score · 2026-10-23

Fairness

4/5

Non-discrimination and equitable treatment

We recommend that a specific challenge be established within the Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund to stimulate the creation of authoritative tools and systems for auditing and testing training datasets

Paragraph 121

screening score · 2026-10-23

Human Dignity

0/5

Respect for the inherent worth of persons

screening score · 2026-10-23

Human Oversight

4/5

Humans remain in control of consequential decisions

This includes informing the data subject that a decision has been taken and provides them with 21 days to ask the controller to reconsider the decision or retake the decision with human intervention.

Paragraph 12

screening score · 2026-10-23

Privacy

4/5

Protection of personal data and private life

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is being brought into UK law through the Data Protection Act 2018, will support automated processing including the use of personal data

Paragraph 9

screening score · 2026-10-23

Transparency

4/5

Openness about how AI systems work and are used

DHSC’s recommended approach is to focus on techniques that can mitigate or bypass the black box problem, including the use of counterfactuals and explanation of the weighting of the different inputs

Paragraph 28

screening score · 2026-10-23

Enforcement

4/5

Consequences and compliance mechanisms with real force

The powers that the CMA has are that it is able to stop anti-competitive agreements or abuses of a dominant position within a market.

Paragraph 33

screening score · 2026-10-23

Impact Assessment

2/5

Required assessment of an AI system's risks/impacts before or during use

Further research is required to understand what model(s) are appropriate in different contexts.

Paragraph 23

screening score · 2026-10-23

Topics

Physical AI Governancecontext

artificial_intelligence industrial_strategy data_ethics skills_and_training public_procurement regulation