Speeches by Onwurah.

“Thank you very much for inviting me, Dame Karen. It is a great pleasure to be here on behalf of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee. I am afraid that I will try to get into what you have already called the boring technology choices, because they will drive whether this actually works in practice. We have h…”

“I recognise that. How significant is the technological effort for the Government to create digital ID? Does making it mandatory increase the significance of that? Are there key technological choices that influence how difficult that is? That is a big question; it would be helpful to have short answers.”

“T4. The north-east is a vital hub for clean energy supply chains, and my constituents in oil and gas want to be part of that transition, but years of under-investment by the Tories mean that many North sea ports cannot host modern turbine manufacturing. As the Government prepare their plan for the future of the north-e…”

“But you are not opposed to a Government digital ID scheme in principle?”

“Just to follow up on that, I have set out my concerns about digital IDs, but you seem to be saying that any form of digital ID is concerning—you seem to be opposed to any form of digital ID. It has to be said that paper-based systems, which is what the Windrush system was originally, involve big concerns and have cause…”

“Laura Foster, do you want to add to that?”

“The concerns that you have raised on this panel are ones that I know are echoed by my constituents. I wonder what kind of safeguards might help to reassure you, and my constituents, about a digital ID scheme, which has its advantages. Can you think of examples that would help? We have talked about the option to delete …”

“I have two quick follow-ups on that. You are saying that we have in place the building blocks, but my understanding is that for a lot of the legacy systems—the Government’s definition of a legacy system is anything that is not on the cloud, but there are probably legacy systems on the cloud as well—we do not know wheth…”

“Just to say on that, they promised us a plan. The blueprint is a very high level. We were promised a plan, but we do not have a plan yet, do we?”

“I wonder about the time it will take to do that, but let us move on. Alexander Iosad, do you have anything to add? You talked about open source as a solution. How much of open source is being used right now in Government to support this?”

“Actually, I would not recognise that for two reasons. First, the trust framework is not certified to the European levels that you were talking about, and it is the European levels that address things like deepfakes and so on. The current trust framework certainly cannot be considered, I don’t think, to be best practice…”

“That is not going to be easy, so that is a concern. I would like to talk briefly about legacy systems and how they amplify the challenge involved. Do you agree?”

“You say that digital ID complements—sits on top of—the digital transformation, so the challenge of digital transformation is part of the challenge of digital ID.”

“I am a little surprised by your response. You talk about digital ID being a problem that has been solved because we have digital ID attributes, but this is about every Government Department using the same process—using the same data fetch, accessing on the same platform or however it is implemented—and you have not tal…”

“My right hon. Friend is right to seek to bring order to the chaos at our borders—chaos instituted by the Tories—which undermines trust in our state and imposes such costs on communities. She is also right to address the pull factors that lure migrants to their deaths in our channel, with claims of cushy lives in five-s…”

“The Minister says that the Government are looking deeply into this issue, but as part of my Committee’s inquiry into misinformation and algorithms, we heard conflicting evidence from Ministers and Ofcom as to whether generative artificial intelligence is covered by the Online Safety Act. The Government have refused to …”

“Under 14 years of Tory misrule, workers in the north-east saw their average annual earnings fall, causing a cost of living crisis for families across the region. We have fantastic, passionate and productive workers. Will the Minister promise to continue to turn back on Tory failure by investing in the industry of the n…”

“11. What fiscal steps she is taking to help increase the incomes of working families in Newcastle.”

“I have visited the hotel in Newcastle where up to 400 asylum seekers are living. I have listened to local community concerns. I have spoken to the asylum seekers, the hotel owners, the programme managers, the police, and local stakeholders. It is clear that the policy of housing asylum seekers in hotel accommodation, i…”

“The ceasefire has been one of the few positive achievements in what has been an unending tale of misery, violence, and horrific suffering, and all those involved in achieving that ceasefire deserve the gratitude and recognition that has been received. Now as Israel continues to kill Gazan children, and Hamas refuse to …”