My Lords, it is a total privilege as always to dip my first toe into your Lordships’ Committee on this very important Bill. It is a pleasure, not for the first time, to be in support—it is always very loud at that end of the Chamber; I am just saying —of the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool. I would say that they robbed my arguments, but they are their arguments and we share them.
I think the amendment is a no-brainer. It is not partisan and not controversial. In a previous era, the controversy would have been about cost. The argument
against it in a previous era would have been, “Goodness me, we would need armies of people”, probably women, “sitting there, typing away with headphones on, to deliver these transcripts in real time”—but of course we are not in that place any more. Even in that previous era I might have argued, because I am who I am, that it was a price worth paying, but we are not in that place.
I also give respect to the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, whose previous group I heard—she is not in her place at the moment—because in a way my argument and what we are discussing in this group is similar to what I just heard.
The cost implication is not such a problem now because of AI—there is wicked old AI but also positive AI, right? AI is already being used across public services, in the City and in financial services. I have some qualms about AI making decisions instead of humans that have a huge impact, but not when it is supporting transparency. This amendment is, in a way, about translation, just like the last group was. How can victims be part of this process if they do not have a record of what happened?
The noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, made an analogy with Hansard, and it is quite a good one. Looking at friends around the House, I ask how many times, in honesty, when the adrenaline is going and the heart is pacing, have noble Lords left the Chamber to be glared at or congratulated by friends and colleagues, and remembered word-for-word what happened. And I am talking about noble Lords who have the privilege of being legislators and being in this place. This is the point the noble Lord, Lord Russell of Liverpool, made so well. If that is a problem for us as human beings, imagine not being a noble Lord giving wisdom in your Lordships’ House, but instead a victim of crime with all the pressures we all know about. They go into the court and, in the current underfunded system, do not even know if they will bump into the defendant and the family members, or know what will be said about them or what their community think, et cetera. This applies as much to the previous group on language translation as it does to this important amendment on transcription.
How lucky are we, in this generation, with all the challenges we face, to have the technology that would now allow us to give a transcript to a victim of what happened? This is not a partisan amendment; this is not a difficult amendment. This is something that the Minister—who I know really cares, from a lifetime of public service to the rule of law—and his colleagues could deliver. I really believe that this is so deliverable. Therefore, I urge the Minister and his colleagues, hopefully with the benefit of AI so no one has to take everything down, really to think about this. It is an easy win for everyone. To have a record they could look at after the event with family, friends and lawyers could make such a difference to people who are scared, excluded, have adrenaline rushing and experience the fight or flight of being a victim—sometimes of minor crimes and sometimes very serious crimes. I look at my noble friend Lord Winston. I sometimes think we could do with this when we go into see an oncologist. In these difficult moments in life, if we could have this opportunity, with family, friends and advisers, to look at a record of what happened, it could really help people.
As I say, it is not a partisan or ideological amendment, but such amazing 21st-century common sense. I support the noble Baroness.