Labour Party is holding Britain back in the field of AI (Image: PA Wire)

       The UK is a pioneer of artificial intelligence. Our world-leading position was hard won through years of investment, supportive deregulation and partnership with the innovators who call our country home.

       Conservative leadership enabled AI to prosper. From hosting the world's first AI safety summit to unshackling ourselves from the EU's oppressive regulatory framework, we built the foundations for a thriving AI sector.

       But Labour's delayed and uninspiring AI Action Plan – which comes with no new funding, no metrics of success and no delivery plan – threatens to reverse this progress and turn an inspirational sector into one suffocated by red tape.

       Riddled with jargon, Labour’s Plan will hold Britain back at a critical crossroads in global innovation. Britain deserves a bold, forward-thinking government to secure its position as a tech superpower. In contrast, Labour’s approach is analogue government in the digital age.

       Our legacy set Britain on the path to becoming a global AI powerhouse. The Conservative Government invested ￡500 million in AI computing power, giving Britain's researchers access to cutting-edge resources. We fostered an environment in which Sir Demis Hassabis won the Nobel Prize last year, as Britain became the world's third-largest AI market, with a regulatory ecosystem that fostered innovation and opportunity.

       These achievements laid the groundwork for sustained growth. Even Labour acknowledged that Britain started from a "position of strength" in the foreword to their own AI Action Plan. High praise when even your detractors praise the achievements they inherited.

       By excelling at both safety and innovation, we demonstrated that these priorities are not mutually exclusive but can work together. Labour, however, appears incapable of building on the legacy it inherited, and its under-powered plan has let down the AI sector.

       Arriving late (which is always a bad sign for a plan focused on a sector that thrives on agility) Labour’s plan is emblematic of their broader preference for spin over substance. We were presented with the political equivalent of a Swiss watch with no hands: looks shiny from a distance, but on closer inspection, it's entirely unfit for purpose.

       Buried in the heart of the document was a major cut to critical investment. Just weeks into office, Labour scrapped the exascale supercomputer we planned at Edinburgh University. Now Labour intends to replace it with a (non-exascale) supercomputer with just 20 per cent of the computing power ours offered. Nothing symbolises the lack of Labour's ambition better than their underpowered supercomputer fiasco.

       Equally as bad, their plan introduces “sovereign capacity”, a new and bizarre concept which sees state bureaucrats allocating the UK’s additional computing power.

       Labour’s old-fashioned state planning approach did not even work in traditional heavy industries. It definitely will not work for a dynamic, internationally-competitive sector like AI.

       Their approach saw ￡800m of AI investment wiped away at the stroke of a pen, a project vital for maintaining the UK's technological edge—consigned to the dustbin of history by Labour just when it was needed the most. Now Britain is falling behind because Labour canned the UK’s exascale supercomputer.

       In true Labour style, their AI plan did arrive in tandem with extra taxation burdens for the tech sector. Hikes in national insurance placed an additional ￡900 per year burden on each worker employed by a tech start-up. Lean start-ups operate in a world where every penny counts. The future investments needed to scale now risk being gobbled up by an incompetent Chancellor fully focused on filling her coffers rather than promoting growth.

       Growth cannot truly be the mission of this Labour Government when it is committed to a tax regime that hampers it. Nor will their rigid adherence to an EU-style regulatory framework help. By aligning with the EU's heavy-handed approach to AI regulation, Labour risks shackling our AI sector to an outdated one-size-fits-all model. Even President Macron criticised the EU's AI Act as uncompetitive.

       That's why the Conservatives offer a different approach—one focused on action and grounded in results. In Government, we slashed 2,000 pieces of EU-imposed red tape and launched a 'Smarter Regulation Program,' which saved UK businesses ￡1 billion per year, allowing investment into growth rather than more spending on compliance.

       We began the process of slashing the forest of red tape brought in by the EU. We focused on investment in the sector's backbone, record-breaking R&D spending and regulatory flexibility. Unlike Labour's preference for EU alignment, we offered a dynamic, innovation-led framework that put business on the front foot, resulting in Britain becoming home to more tech unicorns than France and Germany combined. We also left Labour with the power to continue this scale-back of regulation—powers they have chosen to ignore.

       A Conservative approach, championing deregulation and putting power in the hands of innovators, can get Britain back on track to becoming the world’s pre-eminent AI hub. Labour's approach to AI is not just uninspiring, it's a dangerous missed opportunity that lets Britain down. Their truncated ambition, jargon-laced documents and bureaucratic overreliance reflect an analogue mindset totally out of step with the digital age.

       Britain's AI sector thrived under the last Conservative government. In contrast, Labour's approach threatens to squander their legacy with ill-thought-out policies and misplaced priorities, creating a quagmire of red tape instead of a fast track to growth.

       Britain needs a government with the ambition and vision to grow our position as a global tech leader. The stakes are too high for anything less.