I was delighted to take part in a debate in the House of Lords highlighting the work of our Select Committee on AI. Our original report, AI in the UK: ready, willing and able?, was published in 2018 and made a large number of recommendations to the government. A follow up report was published in …
Category archives: The House of Lords
What does the Schools Bill offer for disabled students?
On Monday (23 May 2022) the Schools Bill had it’s second reading in the House of Lords. This was the first time myself and colleagues had an opportunity to discuss the Bill in detail and ask the Government any questions. Stats, chat and a question I wanted to draw attention to the educational attainment gap …
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Elections Bill Amendments: Accessibility, Inclusivity, Independence and Secrecy
The Elections Bill has just passed, including my amendments which will enable blind voters to vote independently and secretly. Tonight, Monday 25th April, the Elections Bill passed its final stage, Third Reading, in the House of Lords. The Bill will soon receive Royal Assent and pass into law. Until now, for so many citizens, …
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Blockchain APPG Evidence Meeting – Government, Democracy and Voting
The All Party Parliamentary Group on Blockchain held an evidence session considering how distributed ledger technologies (DLT) could support democracy. Chaired by Martin Docherty-Hughes MP, I was delighted to join the discussion and sit on a virtual panel alongside other witnesses: Dr. Luke Riley, Head of R&D, Quant Network Dr. Robert Herian, Associate Professor of …
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Report into Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA)
Report published I am, today (Wednesday 9th March 2022), publishing a report into the Disabled Students’ Allowance. What is DSA and is it working? As the name suggests DSA is a scheme to support students with a disability to thrive in higher education. It’s a gem of a policy and when it works well, it …
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The Disabled Students’ Allowance Scheme is not working
What is the Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA)? Entering higher education is not easy, harder still during Covid, harder by multiple factors if you happen to be a disabled student. The Disabled Students’ Allowance was set up to enable, to empower disabled students to fulfil their potential alongside their non disabled colleagues. The scheme could cover …
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Social Value in Government Procurement
Government procurement teams are responsible for managing billions of pounds of public expenditure, in fact, every year £300 billion is spent on contracts for public services. What is value? Thinking about how the Government gets ‘value for money’ out of this procurement spending is an important exercise. Value has previously perhaps been too narrowly defined …
Resolving Insolvency
The Rating (Coronavirus) and Directors Disqualification (Dissolved Companies) Bill is currently in the House of Lords. It is clearly a Bill in two parts. The first part deals with business rate valuations in the light of Covid-19 and the second provides for the investigation and disqualification of the former directors of dissolved companies. As this …
British Paralympic Association appoints Chair
It is tremendous today to see that Professor Nick Webborn has been appointed Chair of the British Paralympic Association. Nick has extensive experience of so many aspects of the Paralympic Games, Paralympic sport, sports medicine and so much more. He has attended eleven Paralympic Games in various roles. I first met Nick when he was …
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