Peter Kyle – 2024 Speech at Labour Party Conference

The speech made by Peter Kyle, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, on 23 September 2024.

Let me start by introducing the team: Chris Bryant, Maggie Jones, Feryal Clark, Callum Anderson, and for his first Labour Party Conference – Patrick Vallance.

For 14 years, our country paid the price of a ConservativeGovernment.

Growth stalled; opportunities shrank; public services atrophied; inequalities deepened.

Of course, the Tories talked a good game about growth, but it was all mouth and no trousers.

Well, it was in Boris’s case – in Rishi’s it was all mouth and shorttrousers!

All across government we are clearing up their mess – in my department I’ve found projects worth millions announced by my predecessors, without a single penny put behind them.

Talk is cheap. And it was a cheap Tory trick.

But empty promises cost – they waste everyone’s time and effort, sap people’s energy and enthusiasm, and squander the opportunities for Britain to get ahead.

The Conservatives liked to wrap themselves up in our country’s flag, but time and time again, one failed Prime Minister after another, they never lived up to the values it represents.

That’s why Britain was crying out for change.

Once again, it falls to Labour in government, to repair the damage done under the Conservatives.

Just like Attlee and Wilson, Blair and Brown before them, Keir, Angela and Rachel are tasked with putting our divided, damaged, disunited Kingdom back together.

So, change begins.

Change requires us to put wealth creation and economic growth, at the core of our national endeavour.

Because growing the economy is the route to better lives and life chances for working people.

My predecessor, when she wasn’t libelling people and passing on the legal bills to the taxpayer, said that her number one priority was driving woke out of science.

Well, conference, our number one mission is to be the partner scientists need to tackle disease, climate change and economic growth.

It’s a massive task:

From Artificial Intelligence to human life sciences;

From addressing digital exclusion to widening full fibre internet connectivity;

From promoting the employment opportunities, from new data-driven technologies to protecting children against potential online harms;

From creating the digital centre of government, to spreading digital technologies across the NHS and public services.

We have even got responsibility for Britain’s space programme – so for us it really is to infinity and beyond!

But the scope of these responsibilities is dwarfed by the pace of technological change.

Think about it, a little girl born today in Liverpool Women’s Hospital will live longer and healthier because of medicines discovered and developed, using Artificial Intelligence.

Her life story will be told through a new generation of smartphone technology.

Her memories will be made and recorded on new platforms, as she grows from teenager to adulthood.

She is part of the new digital generation, and this latest revolution began before she was even born and will continue throughout and beyond her life.

Her education and career prospects, her life’s journey, will be created and curated by a series of discoveries, as yet unknown.

But there is nothing inevitable about her story; about who benefits, how, and by how much, from this revolution.

That is a choice.

For progressives, our choice is to drive this change, whilst harnessing its immense power for the good of all.

Failing to prepare for this change, is simply preparing to fail.

Britain’s businesses and British workers cannot be left to sink or swim in the technological tsunami that is engulfing the world.

I totally understand the concerns people have about the impact of these changes on their jobs, children, communities, and the whole of society.

Our task is to recognise these concerns: mitigate where possible; upskill where necessary; reskill where appropriate; and regulate when essential.

Every Industrial Revolution challenges the traditional structures of the society it impacts.

In the 1860s and 70s, MPs’ concerns about the speed of locomotives, meant they introduced a 2 mile an hour speed limit, and someone to walk in front waving a red flag;

In 1896 the National Anti-Vaccination League opposed the introduction of vaccines for public health;

In the early 20th Century, the Horse Association of America opposed the introduction of the tractor.

Some opposed the development of nuclear energy in the 1960s, as they do with solar and wind power today.

Some of these concerns might seem silly now but, they were real and substantial then.

If those generations had decided that the price of progress was too high, society would have remained poorer, slower, dirtier and sicker.

Today we need to harness these opportunities, they need not be a threat, any more than the train or the tractor.

From vaccines to clean power, resisting the opportunity cost of conservatism is the real price of progress.

The challenge is to harness technology for good, to make change work for the good of all. That’s why we are fully implementing the Online Safety Act, to improve online safety for everyone, especially the most vulnerable.

It’s why we are making the AI Safety Institute a statutory body, alongside identifying and realising the massive opportunities of AI for pupils and teachers, workers and students, scientists and researchers, NHS staff and patients too.

It’s why we are working to make Britain the most attractive place to invest, start-up and grow businesses in science and technology.

Because that’s the most sustainable route to wealth creation, opportunity generation, secure employment and economic growth.

And it’s why we are determined to tackle digital exclusion.

The opportunities of this technological revolution must be available to everyone.

It must be more fairly shared between men and women, regardless of age, ethnicity, ability and social class, and across all regions and nations of our country.

Securing these advances for all, is a modern progressive project that can, over time, make our communities cleaner, greener, safer and fairer too.

Our task is to lay the foundations for the security, prosperity and opportunity of the digital generation.

To make Britain the best place to live and work, for people to build their homes and families, the very best that Britain can be;

Where no-one goes to bed hungry because our economy grows too slowly;

Where no-one is denied the treatment and care they need, because the technology they rely on is outdated or inadequate;

Where our country’s reputation is no longer shaped by the shame of food banks, but by the potential of state-of-the-art databanks, AI and supercomputer technologies.

That is the modern Britain of hope and optimism, of ambition and fulfilment, of discovery and diversity, of opportunity and security that we seek to build.

For that little girl in that Liverpool maternity unit, and for all of Britain’s digital generation, that change starts right now, right here, with this Labour government.