Source · Select Committees · Business and Trade Committee
Recommendation 10
10
Deferred
Paragraph: 82
Evaluate whether existing budgets can fund new AI regulation expertise without compromising other functions.
Recommendation
We question, however, whether existing regulators have the expertise to perform the functions proposed in the recent White Paper on regulation of AI. If regulators will need to recruit additional staff with such expertise, the Government should consider carefully whether they can do so from existing budgets without compromising other important regulatory functions.
Government response summary AI-generated
The government describes existing AI initiatives and states the Director of Labour Market Enforcement will consider AI threats, explicitly referring the specific recommendation for budget consideration to the DLME rather than committing to direct government action.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Paragraph Reference:
82
Government Response
Deferred
HM Government · verbatim extract
Deferred
The white paper on the regulation of AI acknowledged the importance of ensuring all regulators have the capabilities they need to regulate AI effectively in line with the principles-based framework. It outlined a number of potential capability gaps that have been identified through our previous research, including those relating to technical, regulatory and market-specific expertise and organisational capacity. The white paper proposed a set of central functions to oversee, support and bring coherence to the effective implementation of the framework by regulators within their existing enforcement capabilities and legal powers. As set out in the white paper, the Government will work with regulators to identify how regulators’ work—including data collected from their own regulatory activities—can support the proposed central monitoring and evaluation function in order to ensure the best outcomes for the whole economy. 3 https://www.postofficehorizoninquiry.org.uk/ 4 https://www.gov.uk/guidance/rules-and-practice-directions-2020 5 https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/14th-programme-kite-flying-document/#ProceduralEfficiency Post-pandemic economic growth: UK labour markets: Government Response 9 As part of the ongoing consultation on the white paper proposals, government is working closely with regulators and other expert organisations (such as the Alan Turing Institute) to assess respective levels of need and pinpoint the most effective ways to improve regulator access to expertise. We recognise that levels of need vary considerably across the regulatory landscape and options to support upskilling will need to reflect this variation, as well as the increasingly central role that the AI is coming to play within all regulated sectors and activity. over new technologies.
Read the full response on Parliament ↗