Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)

My Lords, Amendment 119 is in my name, and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Knight, for adding his name to it. I am pleased to add my name to Amendment 115A in the name of noble Viscount, Lord Camrose. Transparency is key to ensuring that the rollout of ADM brings the public and, most importantly, public trust with it. I give the Committee an example of how a lack of transparency can erode that trust. The DWP is using a machine learning model to analyse all applications for a loan, as an advance on a benefit to pay bills and other costs, while a recipient waits for their first universal credit payment. The DWP’s own analysis of the model concluded that for all of the protected characteristics that were analysed, including age, marital status and disability, it found disparities in who was most likely to be incorrectly referred by the model. It is difficult to assess whether the model is discriminatory, effective or even lawful. When the DWP rolled it out, it was unable to reassure the Comptroller and Auditor-General that its anti-fraud models treated all customer groups fairly. The rollout continues despite these concerns. The DWP maintains that the analysis does not present “any immediate concerns of discrimination, unfair treatment or detrimental impact on customers”. However, because so little information is available about the model, this claim cannot be independently verified to provide the public with confidence. Civil rights organisations, including the Public Law Project, are currently working on a potential claim against the DWP, including in relation to this model, on the basis that they may consider it may be unlawful. The Government’s commitment to rolling out ADM has been accompanied by a statement in the other place in November by AI Minister Feryal Clark that the mandatory requirement for the use of the ATRS has been seen as a significant acceleration towards adopting the standard. In response to a Written Question, the Secretary of State confirmed that, as part of the rollout of ADM phase 1 to the 16 largest ministerial departments plus HMRC, there is a deadline for them to publish their first ATRS records by the end of July 2024. Despite the Government’s statement, only eight ATRS reports have been published on the hub. The Public Law Project’s TAG project has discovered at least 74 areas in which ADM is being used, and they are only the ones that it has been able to uncover by freedom of information requests and from tip-offs by affected people. There is clearly a shortfall in the implementation and rolling out of the use of the ATRS across government departments.