Image: Richard Townshend [CC BY 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
Peter Kyle also says he will consider issue of visa costs for scientists, without committing to action
The UK’s science secretary, Peter Kyle, has said he prioritised a cybersecurity bill as a matter of “national security priority”, and will next work on an artificial intelligence bill.
“When I became secretary of state, within a very short period of time, and I’m talking hours not multiple days, I became very, very aware that there was a cybersecurity challenge that our country faced that I simply wasn’t aware of before becoming secretary of state,” Kyle told the Guardian today.
The new cybersecurity and resilience bill featured in the recent King’s speech, setting out the government’s legislative plans, bumping the much-anticipated AI bill.
Kyle added: “We are preparing the [AI] bill, we are consulting on the bill, and we will have the bill ready to go. We are committed to legislating for AI.”
‘Desperately exposed’
He told the paper the country is “desperately exposed” to cyber threats and that national resilience to both cyber and pandemic threats suffered “catastrophically” under the previous government.
His comment came as the National Cyber Security Centre warned last week about the rising “scale, pace and complexity” of threats to critical national infrastructure, with the nation’s capacity to repel them being outpaced by malicious actors.
Meanwhile, another recent report, from the Covid inquiry, said the UK’s pandemic planning was beset with “fatal strategic flaws” and has not improved much after the pandemic.
“We are not in the place we need to be, to be as resilient as we should be—the Covid inquiry has laid that bare,” Kyle said. “We are picking up the pieces of that, and it’s a job we take very seriously.”
Kyle also touched on the issue of visa costs for scientists, which some in the sector—including new science minister Patrick Vallance—have argued are too high and risk deterring research talent from coming to the UK.
“I am aware of this specific challenge, but as the secretary of state I see all of the challenges, and all of the potential, in the round,” Kyle said. “I have to see where that fits in alongside all of the other challenges and opportunities, and where I see a need for adjustment I’ll start making representation to the relevant departments.”