Baroness Hamwee (LD)

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Chakrabarti, and I were members of the Justice and Home Affairs Committee of this House, which was formed only in 2020. Our first inquiry and report were on the advent of new technologies in the justice system. During that work, I often asked myself—sometimes aloud—how you would feel if you were arrested, charged, convicted and imprisoned on the basis of evidence that not only did you not understand but could not be explained. We now know how people felt and feel. That was in 2022, which was centuries ago in technical terms. I realise that the lexicon has expanded here and I hear terms that I have never heard before, but the basic issues remain. Our concerns then were about transparency and regulation, among other things, and that anyone could be affected. We were talking not just about insider trading and corporate fraud, as one witness powerfully put it, but “high-volume data that is mostly about poor people”. We found a lot of enthusiasm for the technology, but not a corresponding commitment to a thorough evaluation of it. These Benches support Amendment 21, which seems to have been a very constructive contribution to taking these issues forward. At the last stage, I supported Amendment 22. I do so no less now. Sometimes we show that we are not as open as we should be to the way that society moves on or to the life experiences of people younger than almost all of us and how they wish to express them. I do not really feel qualified to say more than that.