On 17 July 2024, the new Labour government set out its legislative priorities in the King of the United Kingdom's speech to Parliament.
What's the issue?
There were some legislative casualties at the end of the last Parliament, notably for digital businesses, the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill. There were then rumours that elements of the Bill would be picked up by Labour and that the new government would look to legislate in areas which the previous government had not focused on, in particular, AI.
What's the development?
The King's Speech and background briefing notes announced some key legislation in the digital space although oddly there were elements like AI legislation which were mentioned in the speech itself but not listed as a Bill in the briefing notes, and legislation that was listed in the briefing notes but not mentioned in the speech itself, notably relating to data protection and cyber security.
AI
In a shift away from previous policy, the King's Speech set out the new Labour government's plans to "seek to establish the most appropriate legislation to place requirements on those working to develop the most powerful AI models”. The Prime Minister recently said that AI “must be within a regulated framework” but details of what the legislation might cover are thin on the ground.
Rumours have persisted that the Conservative government was working on AI legislation which was widely expected to make mandatory the currently voluntary commitments by leading developers of large language models/general purpose AI to submit algorithms to a safety assessment process.
There were also suggestions that the UK would consider amending copyright legislation to allow organisations and individuals to opt out of allowing LLMs to scrape their content. In the speech itself, AI legislation was mentioned straight after an employment Bill – does this suggest it might cover use of AI in the workplace? If legislation was indeed being prepared before the general election, we may see an AI Bill sooner rather than later even though the briefing notes did not list AI-specific legislation.
Digital Information and Smart Data Bill
This aims to harness the power of data for economic growth. Among other things, it will:
- Preserve many of the reforms to the ICO's governance structure proposed under the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill (which did not pass before the general election).
- Include “targeted reforms to some data laws….where there is currently a lack of clarity”. No specific mention of the GDPR is made and it seems likely that some of the more controversial aspects of its predecessor and, in particular, many of the changes to the UK GDPR, will be dropped.
- Allow scientists to ask for broad consent for areas of scientific research and allow legitimate researchers doing scientific research in commercial settings to make equal use of the UK's data regime.
- Establish digital verification services – to support secure digital-ID products and services from certified providers.
- Make changes to the Digital Economy Act to enable government to share data about businesses using public services.
- Apply information standards to IT suppliers in the health and social care system.
- Set up a data preservation process that coroners can initiate to support their investigations into a child's death by gaining access to their online information.
- Set up smart data schemes which allow secure sharing of customer data with authorised third party providers.
Cyber Security and Resilience Bill
This will protect public services and infrastructure by expanding the remit of existing regulation, putting regulators on a stronger footing and increasing reporting requirements, including in relation to ransomware attacks. It is widely expected to bring the current NIS Regulations more in line with the EU's NIS2 Directive.
Product Safety and Metrology Bill
This aims to update product safety law including to help enable the UK to keep pace with technological advances such as AI and deal with safety issues associated with e-bikes and lithium-ion batteries. Among other things, the Bill will cover the role of online marketplaces in product safety, particularly where non-UK products are placed on the UK market via them.
The legislation will ensure the law can be updated to recognise new or updated EU product regulations including CE marking and end recognition of EU product regulations where it is in the best interests of UK businesses and consumers to do so. The compliance and enforcement regime will also be updated to reflect challenges associated with digital borders.
Advertising
Measures which look broadly to have survived the change in government include:
- The Tobacco and Vapes Bill.
Although it remains to be seen whether changes will be made to what was proposed by the previous government.
What does this mean for you?
Much of this legislation was expected but we will obviously need to wait for the Bills themselves to fully understand their impact. There were, however, some notable omissions. Online safety was not explicitly covered despite the pre-speech statements by the government which suggested it does plan to take action in this area, although some of the announced legislation (for example the Children's Wellbeing Bill) may eventually touch on it. There was also no mention of gambling reform which was in progress under the previous government, and while planning reforms were announced, there was no detail around the manifesto commitment to build data centres.
It is striking that the tone of the Speech is very different from recent ones in terms of EU alignment. Whereas the previous government tended to emphasise departing from EU regulation, the plans around the cyber security and product safety legislation mention the need to keep up with EU standards. On that basis, it would be surprising to see significant revisions to the UK GDPR quite apart from the issue of needing to maintain EU adequacy. The UK may even align on AI regulation although we do not anticipate any forthcoming UK legislation will be as comprehensive as the EU's newly enacted AI Act.
