Tech policy: 20 people to meet at Labour conference

LONDON — `The party has been waiting 14 years, but now Labour is back in power, with grand plans to harness technology to deliver its missions on growth and public services.

But from online safety and misinformation concerns to worries about AI upending the workforce, it faces a difficult task balancing its desire to work in partnership with the tech industry while keeping its excesses in check.

We break down the 20 figures inside and outside government shaping Labour’s response to these 21st century challenges who will gather at the party’s annual conference in Liverpool this month.

The politicians

Peter Kyle

Kyle’s priorities as tech secretary are two-fold: public service reform and economic growth.

On the former, Kyle often speaks in highly personal terms about the potential for artificial intelligence to improve NHS diagnostics and his desire to use digital tools to reimagine how services are delivered — and he’s already remade the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) in his vision (though not without sparking a cronyism row). On the latter, Kyle is bullish on technology as a way out of Britain’s economic malaise, even while adopting less boosterish rhetoric than his Conservative predecessor.

However, his department made a muddle of an early decision to pull £1.3 billion of funding from compute and AI projects committed to under the last government, claiming they weren’t properly funded. And a promise to introduce binding rules covering developers of the most advanced AI models, something Kyle was keen on in opposition, will be a key test — though an AI Bill was delayed to prioritize cybersecurity instead.

Some of Kyle’s efforts to restore a more constructive and practical relationship with the tech sector have also been sidelined by events since taking office. Online safety, an area he showed little interest in when in opposition, is back at the top of the national agenda after summer riots fuelled by online misinformation.

Kyle is a firm centrist; he often talks about the “politics of envy,” a phrase usually deployed by the right to bash the left. Despite having a severe form of dyslexia, which he speaks about openly, he is seen by the party’s leadership as a strong media performer and is close to Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who he shared an office with in opposition.

Patrick Vallance

The country’s most recognizable scientist thanks to televised Covid-19 briefings, Vallance has gone from being chief scientific adviser to the last government (a politically neutral role) to a minister in DSIT under Labour. How he negotiates the move to a party political role will be fascinating, particularly when difficult decisions are due in areas Vallance has previously championed, like investment in science and technology and international mobility for talent. 

“He is very authoritative and calm. He is not someone who can be bullshitted,” said one former civil servant who worked closely with Vallance. “He’s a very capable and serious operator. It’s interesting for the scientific community because they see him as one of their own, but he is going to have to sell some difficult government decisions to them.”

Feryal Clark

Clark was a surprise ministerial appointment following Labour’s general election victory, and has been handed one of the government’s trickiest — but potentially most exciting — briefs covering AI regulation and making DSIT the “digital center” of government.

The 45-year-old arrived in the U.K. as a child refugee from southern Turkey in the 1980s. Her parents, Turkish Kurds, settled in Hackney, where Clark later cut her teeth in local politics as a councillor, eventually rising to the position of deputy mayor. Now in central government, a masters degree in bioinformatics may have helped land her a tech-related gig.

Clark remained on the centrist side of the party during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, backing Yvette Cooper in the 2015 leadership contest. Casey Calista, chair of Labour Digital who has known Clark since she was a Hackney councillor, described her as “super-committed to the party” and someone who had shown herself to be able to “wrap her head around various issues very quickly.”

Darren Jones

Less involved in day-to-day tech issues than when he was a backbench MP, Jones’ job as chief secretary to the Treasury nevertheless puts him in a powerful position to drive government digital reform from the center alongside Cabinet Office fixer Pat McFadden.

Industry sees Jones as someone in government who “gets it”, having played a big role in the party’s plans for AI in the public sector before the election, according to insiders. They will now be hoping he funds some of the party’s pledges to invest in technology and deliver an industrial strategy, amid repeated warnings from his boss Rachel Reeves that money is tight.

Maggie Jones

Representing Labour in the Lords as a minister across both the tech and business departments, Jones has long been a leading voice on tech policy issues the U.K.’s second chamber. However, much of that time was spent being one of the previous government’s sharpest critics. Now she’s got another task on her hands as she’s sent out to bat for some of the very same bills that she previously criticized.

Chi Onwurah

Onwurah held several shadow briefs in science and innovation for Labour while in opposition from 2010 onwards, but she was not rewarded with a ministerial position when the party came to power. Undeterred, she stood — and won — the role of chair of parliament’s science, innovation and technology select committee, where her job will now be to hold many of her former frontbench colleagues to account on tech policy.

An electrical engineer by training, Onwurah previously worked in telecoms and at regulator Ofcom. As well as getting stuck into technical policy areas, Onwurah is also a fierce champion of “neglected” issues like diversity in the tech sector and STEM education.

The advisers

Varun Chandra

Chandra is one of the few advisers in Keir Starmer’s No. 10 with any sort of tech interest. Officially the government’s business adviser, his job is to keep industry sweet, and he has already been attending roundtables on AI as part of a review led by entrepreneur Matt Clifford.

Those who have met him describe Chandra as charming, and he has a large network of industry contacts from his time at influential advisory firm Hakluyt. Under Chandra’s leadership, Hakluyt set up a Silicon Valley presence and helped fund Peter Kyle’s trip to San Francisco earlier this year. Chandra, an Oxford PPE grad, was head boy at Newcastle’s Royal Grammar School where a former pupil told us he was a “great guy” who’d make a difference in government. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see him run for PM one day,” they added.

However, his first weeks in government have not been so smooth. The Sun newspaper identified him as one of the people in an infamous photo of a lockdown-breaching gathering in No. 10 during the height of the pandemic in May 2020.

Darren Murphy

Murphy became Kyle’s first confirmed special adviser in July after helping him with media on the election trail. His new role sees him responsible for shepherding Kyle through online safety and cyber policy.

Murphy is one of the few members of Kyle’s inner circle to boast previous government experience, having spent eight years as a SpAd in the Blair government between 1997 and 2005, before embarking on various political strategy and comms gigs. More recently, he’s been teaching at the University of Birmingham, where he completed a PhD on “the causal mechanisms generating cross-community ratification of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement.”

Billy French

At the other end of his career is Billy French, Kyle’s young but long-serving adviser who was rewarded with a SpAd role focusing on AI and growth policy. French, who first worked with Kyle when he held the shadow Northern Ireland brief, goes wherever Kyle goes. Kyle’s media SpAd is Nicola Bartlett, who worked for Yvette Cooper while Labour were in opposition and before that was a journalist at the Mirror.

The influencers

Kirsty Innes

Innes is head of tech policy at the influential Labour Together think tank. When Labour were in opposition she wrote the party’s AI policy, giving it a firm focus on near-term risks and opportunities, according to multiple insiders. It’ll be interesting to see how much of this survives contact with the civil service when an AI Bill is published.

Innes herself spent a decade in the civil service, including the Treasury, before joining the Tony Blair Institute and subsequently Labour Together. A Starmerite project, the think tank is particularly close to Labour’s campaign director Morgan McSweeney, who was its director between 2017 and 2020, and is now helmed by former Labour MP Jonathan Ashworth. 

Neil Ross

Ross is associate director of policy at leading industry body TechUK, and has the ear and respect of DSIT civil servants, SpAds and Labour MPs needing to know more about tech policy.

Past experience working for Labour only fueled speculation that he might be called upon once again after it entered government, but his ability to bridge the gap between industry and policymakers makes him equally valuable to the party from the outside.

Jeegar Kakkad

Kakkad was the brains behind the Tony Blair Institute’s (TBI) Future of Britain series, which helped shape the Labour leadership’s vision of harness technology to remake the state. Helped by Blair’s lasting influence and close links with senior government ministers, the TBI enjoys unparalleled access and has released a flurry of reports about “reimagining the state”.

Kakkad was previously seconded to Starmer’s team in opposition, and was widely expected to take up a SpAd role in the Cabinet Office following the election. That hasn’t panned out yet, but he remains well-connected. His current title is “special advisor, special projects” at the TBI.

Mary Towers

On the other wing of the party is Towers, policy officer at the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the most coherent voice among unions and civil society groups on the issue of AI and workers’ rights.

She helped write the TUC’s draft AI Bill, which puts workers’ rights at the center of the AI debate, and is now urging the government to adopt it as part of its Make Work Pay package. It will be fascinating to see how much of her thinking makes it into legislation as Labour seeks to balance business and union demands.

Casey Calista

Calista is one of the most effective conveners operating in Labour circles. She sits on the board of Labour Digital and has used her connections to help forge links and exchange ideas between businesses and the party. At public affairs firm H+K Strategies, she was key to shaping the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act in favor of challenger firms. She now works as head of public affairs at telecoms firm Vorboss.

Charlie Mercer 

A fintech policy wonk at influential tech lobby Startup Coalition under the watchful eye of Dom Hallas, Mercer also has strong links to Labour via Labour Digital, where he is treasurer.

Mercer has led much of the Startup Coalition’s work on promoting open and smart data, and may prove influential in industry’s push to get a Labour government to revive those ideas in its upcoming data reform legislation. One insider said: “He gets the politics behind the policy.”

The upstarts

Josh Simons

Simons is one of several new Labour MPs from the 2024 intake with strong tech credentials who will be looking to make their presence felt from the backbenches — though he might not be there for long. Personable and ambitious, the former executive director of Labour Together is well-placed for rapid promotion.

Simons led the Starmerite think tank from October 2022 and has a strong background in tech policy after spending four years as a researcher at Meta. That experience helped the Makerfield MP garner significant media attention in the wake of far-right riots in Britain this summer, telling POLITICO: “We cannot stand by when platforms become megaphones for foreign adversaries and far-right activists seeking to divide our society and weaken our democracy.”

Dan Aldridge 

The former head of policy at BCS, the Chartered Institute for IT, has quickly got his feet under the table. He has formed a “caucus” of around 30 tech-friendly MPs and will be a leading voice on tech policy. According to one insider, he has already “made himself a friend of the frontbench.”

At BCS, Aldridge’s work covered digital inclusion and online safety. Aldridge is also on the Labour Digital committee, and previously sat on OpenUK’s policy advisory board.

Samantha Niblett 

Aldridge’s office buddy, Niblett is also part of Labour Digital and founded “Labour: Women in Tech” in 2022 to advocate for more women pursuing science, technology, engineering and math careers.

Described as a “force of nature” by one person who knows her, Niblett’s strengths as a campaigner and networker have allowed her to rapidly climb the ranks, from vice chair of her local party to the MP for South Derbyshire. She co-chairs parliament’s APPG for fintech alongside fellow Labour MP Luke Charters.

Kanishka Narayan

The Vale of Glamorgan MP worked as a senior civil servant at the Cabinet Office before founding his own business advising and investing in tech startups. He previously advised Labour’s frontbench and Labour Together on tech policy. Since entering parliament, he has joined the Labour Growth Group, which aims to break the NIBMYs and deliver on the prime minister’s ambitions to build more housing and infrastructure.

Lucy Rigby 

Rigby was a top ranked competition lawyer before winning the seat of Northampton North for Labour. She was supported by Labour Together and Labour Digital in her election campaign as one to watch for techies — and she quickly delivered.

Her first question in parliament was on “bringing new technologies into the heart of government” and she is already in demand on policy panels. She previously worked for the Office of Fair Trading (now the Competition and Markets Authority).