George Osborne should establish a royal commission on robots, to examine the impact of new technologies such as driverless vehicles on Britain’s workforce, Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, has said.
The chancellor is expected to announce a trial of driverless lorries as part of next Wednesday’s budget. Writing for the Guardian, Watson argued that the government should launch an investigation into how to make the most of the benefits of rapid advances in technology, which he believes could be as profound as those unleashed by the industrial revolution.
“The question facing us as a nation is how do we make technological change our ally not our foe? We can’t leave it to fate,” he said. “Too many senior Tories think they are powerless to act. They wrap their powerlessness up in economic and political libertarianism, pray to the gods of the free market.
“There is no minister for automation. No special cabinet committee has been set up to come up with solutions. There is no royal commission to look at the economic impact robots will have or the ethical dilemmas they pose. Where is the new institution that brings together trades unions, employers and government to establish how the time liberated and wealth created by robots is equitably shared?”
He called for a new industrial strategy to ensure the benefits of automation are fairly shared, instead of accruing to senior executives and shareholders, while unskilled workers find themselves out of a job.
Many routine tasks, including sophisticated jobs such as car assembly, are already performed by robots, but experts predict the impact of automation could become far more wide-ranging over the coming decades. A recent report by the investment bank Bank of America Merrill Lynch suggested the increasing use of robots could leave up to 35% of UK jobs vulnerable, and exacerbate inequality.
The shifting nature of work is a challenge for trade unions, which provide much of the financial support for Labour and have tended to fare better in traditional workplaces. Andy Haldane, deputy governor of the Bank of England, warned the TUC in a speech last year that the rise of robots could depress wages, and threaten up to 15m jobs.
Watson is the latest senior Labour figure to offer his own analysis of the economic challenges facing Britain, distinct from the perspective presented by the shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, who has tended to focus more on reining in Britain’s banks and cracking down on tax-dodging corporations – though McDonnell has also commissioned a series of reviews, on everything from the role of the Bank of England to the structure of the Treasury.
The former shadow work and pensions secretary Rachel Reeves made a series of economic policy proposals in a speech on Monday, and Dan Jarvis, the backbencher touted by some as a potential leadership challenger to Jeremy Corbyn, will make his own speech on the economy at the thinktank Demos on Thursday. Watson himself, whose position is elected by party members, is seen as a likely powerbroker in the event of any future plot against Corbyn.