Visa arrangements for UK musicians in the EU, the show must go on. I love music, it has got me through everything in life, the good, the bad, the lot. When I lost my sight it was a lifeline, music kept me going: Iron Maiden, Madonna, Magnum, more. Before competing at Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney, …
Technology for Essential Services
Yesterday, I was delighted to take part in a short debate on the risks and opportunities involved in the deployment of large scale technology for our essential services. “Would my noble friend the Minister agree that there are huge advantages for citizen and state, local and national government, to be gained through the considered, ethical …
21st Century Frictionless Trade – Lords debate UK EU Trade Agreement
“My Lords, there exists a need, there exists an opportunity, a pressing need, a potentially transformational opportunity. The need for a border fit for the 21st Century, the opportunity; a digitally enabled, free trade flowing, free trade growing border delivered by the best of our talent deploying the best of our technologies. Artificial Intelligence, Distributed …
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Obesity Crisis Meets Covid Crisis
Today I was pleased to take part in a short debate on the latest report from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Obesity: ‘The Future of Obesity Services’. The report was launched in November 2020 and makes several recommendations including that the Government: conduct research into the links between socioeconomic deprivation, ethnicity and obesity, provide …
Why do we still have a disability employment gap 25 years after the Disability Discrimination Act?
Why does the disability employment gap persist 25 years after legislation to end disability discrimination in employment was passed? What can be done?
21st Century Frictionless Trade: The UK can lead but govt. must act.
Today [Tuesday 15th September] I am delighted to publish a new Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) report on “Reducing Friction in International Trade” (RFIT). Using a combination of distributed ledger technologies and Internet of Things (IoT) devices the RFIT project demonstrates a comprehensive supply chain data management system for Australia/UK wine imports in which all the …
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Protecting Democracy
I sat down with BBC Cyber-security reporter Joe Tidy to discuss the recommendations of our House of Lords report into Democracy and Digital Technologies – and to try and answer the question posed by the webinar which was about how the UK Parliament is combatting online attacks on elections. It was a good opportunity to …
Fintech and covid: the good, the bad and the future
Covid-19 has been a hugely difficult experience for so many of us in so many ways, shattering for some, seriously challenging for many, and we are still in its midst. For all those who have been taken from us, for all those who have been hit so hard, we are duty bound to seek out …
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Wine prices set to soar – we can stop this.
This one is very clear, if we don’t stop a specific piece of (completely unnecessary and avoidable) red tape coming in on January 1st 2021, red wine and all its other delightful forms will suffer a serious price spike and the range available to us will significantly drop. In short, there’s a form, VI-1, which …
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