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“As Keir Starmer and the Labour Party will seek to establish momentum through the King’s Speech and their first 100 days in government, we expect early action to expand the Online Safety Act 2023, regulate certain AI models, protect workers’ rights and require companies to tackle climate change”
As the UK’s 58th Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, entered Downing Street today following the Labour Party’s landslide victory in the 2024 General Election, promising a “government of service” and vowing that “Our work is urgent and we begin it today”, what can we expect for cyber security, data protection, online safety, artificial intelligence (AI), digital markets, content regulation, reputation management, open justice, access to information, human rights and ESG?
Labour’s work in fact cannot begin in earnest until the State Opening of Parliament and the King’s Speech, which will take place on 17 July 2024. Labour’s manifesto avoided firm policy commitments in several areas and therefore the detail of its political agenda and the flagship legislation it will seek to introduce may not become clear until then.
As well as its manifesto commitments, however, senior party members have given indications of their priorities.
Data Protection
Despite the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill falling at the end of the last Parliamentary session, the Labour Party made no commitment to reform the UK’s data protection legislation in its manifesto. The Bill would have served to reduce the burdens on data controllers, often businesses. Labour’s manifesto sought to position the party as “pro-business” and committed to an “enduring partnership with business to deliver the economic growth we need”. In the days prior to the election, a consortium of industry bodies comprised of techUK, the Data and Marketing Association, the Advertising Association and the Centre for Information Policy Leadership wrote an open letter calling on the next Government to “modernize the UK’s data protection framework” by picking up where the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill left off and enacting legislation that “strikes the right balance between encouraging innovation for economic and societal growth, while maintaining the high standards of personal data protection needed to build trust in the new digital age, so that the UK retains its adequacy determination with the European Union”. Specific reforms sought include permitting data re-use, removing the obligation imposed by the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR) to obtain consent for “non-intrusive uses of cookies and other identifiers”, implementing a more flexible international data transfer regime, and updating the law to enable greater use of artificial intelligence (AI). Whether Labour will act on these demands remains to be seen. To date, its only firm commitment is to “seek a new security agreement with the EU to ensure access to real-time intelligence and enable our policing teams to lead joint investigations with their European counterparts”.
While the Labour Party had promised to regulate the use of facial recognition technologies prior to the last General Election, its manifesto is silent on its position this time around against a backdrop of shadow ministers having called on the police to must change the way they operate and to adopt new technology and investigative techniques to respond to modern threats.
Online Safety
Legislation to expand upon the provisions of the Online Safety Act 2023 is likely to be a Labour priority, which may find widespread political and popular support. While details were sparse, Labour pledged to give coroners more powers to access information held by technology companies after a child’s death, resurrecting the provision incorporated into the fallen Data Protection and Digital Information Bill. Labour also indicated that it would ban the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes.
Human Rights
Further to the recommendation of the Joint Committee on Human Rights following its inquiry into ‘Human Rights and the Proposal for a Hillsborough Law’, the Labour Party manifesto committed to introducing legislation to place a legal duty of candour on public servants and authorities, and to provide legal aid for victims of disasters or state-related deaths.
Labour also committed to various reforms to engender greater equality, by enacting the socio-economic duty in the Equality Act 2010, introducing a Race Equality Act, strengthening rights to equal pay and protections from maternity and menopause discrimination and sexual harassment and reducing the gender, disability and ethnicity pay gaps.
Labour also committed to making all hate crimes aggravated offences.
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Reversing the Conservative Party’s position, the Labour manifesto committed to introducing binding regulation on the handful of companies developing the most powerful AI models and by banning the creation of sexually explicit deepfakes. AI development would also be supported through the creation of a National Data Library which could enable the training of AI models using public sector data, removing planning restrictions for new data centres and with a wider commitment to support the AI sector through Labour’s industrial strategy.
The multi-regulator environment applicable to AI, but also to other industries, could be streamlined through the proposed creation of the Regulatory Innovation Office to “help regulators update regulation, speed up approval timelines, and co-ordinate issues that span existing boundaries”.
Backed by strong party support as evidenced by the motion passed at the 2023 party conference, which resolved that “the next Labour government should ensure that a legal duty on employers to consult trade unions on the introduction of invasive automated or artificial intelligence technologies in the workplace is enshrined in law” and that “Labour should commit to working with trade unions to gain an understanding of the unscrupulous use of technology in the workplace and campaign against it”, it remains to be seen whether Labour will adopt the draft Artificial Intelligence (Employment and Regulation) Bill proposed by the Trades Unions Congress (TUC).
Reputation Management
While the Labour Party manifesto was silent as to whether it would pursue Leveson 2, the recommended second phase of the inquiry into press standards which was intended to focus on the relationship between journalists and the police, it has previously been reported that Labour sources had claimed the new Prime Minister had no intention of implementing this stage of the inquiry.
Notwithstanding the Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation Bill having fallen, and members of the then shadow cabinet having made public commitments to “crack down on the powerful abusing their wealth to gag people from asking legitimate questions” and shut down the UK’s role as “a corruption services centre” and its “enablers”, the Labour Party manifesto was silent as to whether legislation would be introduced to tackle so-called SLAPPs, expanding upon the powers enacted at ss.194-195 Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023.
Media, Platform & Content Regulation
Following the enactment of the Media Act 2024, the Labour Party does not appear to propose further reforms but in relation to its implementation states that it will “work constructively with the BBC and our other public service broadcasters so they continue to inform, educate and entertain people, and support the creative economy by commissioning distinctively British content”.
Labour does commit to updating “the rules around counterextremism, including online, to stop people being radicalised and drawn towards hateful ideologies”.
Cyber Security
Labour committed to conducting a Strategic Defence Review within its first year of government, including to address the threat of “hybrid-warfare” including cyber-attacks and misinformation. While this could limit action on cyber resilience to state-sponsored malicious cyber activity, a commitment to introduce a new fraud strategy encapsulating online threats could result in action at the other end of the scale.
Digital Markets
Tech companies and online service providers can expect further regulation, with Labour committing to preventing online sales of machetes and zombie-style blades with personal liability for executives, preventing platforms being used by online fraudsters and strengthening gambling protections.
Environmental, Social & Corporate Governance (ESG)
In addition to the commitments to furthering equality detailed above, Labour committed to requiring UK-regulated financial institutions and FTSE 100 companies to develop and implement credible transition plans that align with the goal of the Paris Agreement to limit global warming to 1.5°C.
Deputy Leader Angela Rayner has also committed to establishing a Fair Work Agency to audit and enforce employment rights.
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