Q: Won’t AI always try to increase its power. If it is running the MoD, couldn’t it declare war?

Starmer ignores the alarmist element of this question, and just defaults to a general answer about how AI is operating here already. He wants Britain to be a leader in this field, he says.

Q: We have had an email from a translator who has said his work has now completely dried up. Will some sorts of jobs disappear? A voice artist doing voice overs has said the same thing. Will you compensate people affected?

Starmer says:

All technology, all work changes …

I think about what I did before politics, which was being a lawyer. The way that was done 20, 30, years ago is very different to the way it’s done now. So jobs always change on this. I would push back.

I do understand people’s concerns. I think they’re completely understandable. But just think of the incredible advantage.

As an example, he says AI can be used to reduce waiting lists in the NHS, because it can predict who is likely to miss an appointment, and then intervene to prevent that.

Keir Starmer is being interviewed by Jeremy Vine on Radio 2.

Vine starts by asking about the risk of hacking. If the country is run by AI, won’t that put the country at risk of being hacked?

Starmer starts by repeating the anecdote he told at the start of his speech. (See 11.44am.)

Q: AI could put radiologists out of work. But isn’t it comforting for patients to see a doctor?

Starmer accepts that. He says AI can do “the notes bit” for doctors. That will give them more time to spend on face-to-face contact with patients. He repeats the line about how this will allow more time for the human bit. (See 9.19am.)

Max Kendix from the Times has another try at the Rachel Reeves question. (See 12.11am.) Will Reeves still be chancellor at the end of this parliament?

Starmer replies:

Rachel Reeves is doing a fantastic job. She has my full confidence. She has the full confidence of the entire party.

He says Reeves had “an incredibly challenging” task in the budget. There was a £20bn black hole in the accounts, he says.

She’s right to take the tough decisions because, as anybody who’s turned around a business or organization will know, if you’re going to turn something around, you’ve got to take the tough decisions.

Starmer does not commit to keeping Reeves as chancellor until the end of this parliament. But it would probably be a mistake to read much into that, because the end of this parliament could be more than four years away and prime ministers almost never commit to keeping people in post that far ahead, for fairly obvious reasons.

(At a post-PMQs lobby briefing in November, after Kemi Badenoch attacked David Lammy, the PM’s spokesperson implied Lammy would stay in post for the rest of this parliament in response to a question about this. The briefing was written up in some quarters as Starmer promising to keep Lammy at the Foreign Office for up to five years. But the spokesperson just said “Yes, he’s the foreign secretary”, and it is more likely he just meant that Starmer would not be getting rid of him because of the anti-Trump remarks raised by Badenoch.)

Q: [From ITV’s Robert Peston] All industrial revolutions involve shocks to the labour market. What will you do to protect people, even if AI leads to growth, which might not help individuals? And government interest rates are rising. The government has run out of money. What will you do to fill that hole?

Starmer repeats the point about how he thinks the nature of work will change.

And AI is bringing in new jobs, he says. He points out that Kyndryl – an IT infrastructure services provider – has announced plans today to create up to 1,000 AI-related jobs in Liverpool over the next three years.

On the economy, Starmer says stability is vital. And he says that is why the government will be sticking to its fiscal rules.

All of these measures are there to ensure we’ve got the economic growth that we need, but the stability, the rock, the foundation, is those fiscal rules, which we will absolutely be keeping to.

Starmer says he wants the UK to be a country that sells AI technology, not just buying it from elsewhere.

This is the global race of our lives. Now, some countries are going to make AI breakthroughs and export them. Others will end up buying those breakthroughs and importing them.

The question is, which of those will Britain be – AI maker or AI taker?

Starmer says, with its record on science, the UK can “one of the great AI superpowers”.

Now that’s not some sort of boosterism or wishful thinking. This can be done and it will be done.

He says the UK is already the leader in Europe for AI investment. But the govenrment needs to do more, he says.

I’m determined the UK becomes the best place to start and scale an AI business that will be the centerpiece of our industrial strategy. There’s never been a better moment for entrepreneurs with big ideas to grow a small company fast.

So we’re going to create AI growth zones, breathing new life into sites like Culham in Oxford. We’re going to remove the blockages that hold you back. This is a government that backs the builders.

So if you’re looking at where to build your data centers, we’ll speed up planning permission. If you need better access to power – and we all know how big a challenge that is – we’ll get you those grid connections at speed.

You’ve asked for a gold standard data access regime. So we’ll develop a national data library, a clear and trusted copyright regime and safe access to the unique resource of our NHS for research.

And then, of course, the engine of AI progress, what’s called compute – we will increase our public sector compute not by a factor of two or three or even 10, but by 20. Now, that’s like upgrading from my dad’s old Ford portina to a Formula One McLaren in one go.

Keir Starmer starts his speech with a story about a prison officer who collapses one morning when she had a stroke. She was rushed to hospital where AI identified exactly where the blood clot was.

[The doctors] successfully removed it. Now, as you know, with strokes, it’s always a race against the clock – too slow, but the patient may die. Every second of delay, it increases the risk of paralysis. But in Deb’s case, with AI, the whole procedure took less than three minutes. It saved her life.

He says this makes the point that AI is with us already. And it can have a positive impact on everyone’s lives, he argues.

AI isn’t something locked away behind the walls of blue chip companies. It’s a force for change that will transform the lives of working people for the better.

So if you’re sitting around the kitchen table tonight worried about the opportunities at your children’s school, AI can help teachers plan lessons tailored to your children’s specific needs.

If you’re worried about waiting times – aren’t we all? – AI could save hundreds of thousands of hours lost to missed appointments, because it can identify those on the list most likely not to turn up and helps get them the support that they need, maybe change for a more convenient appointment.

It can spot potholes quicker, speed up planning applications [and job centre form filling], help in the fight against tax avoidance and almost halve the time that social workers spend on paperwork.

Matt Clifford, chair of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (Aria) and author of the AI opportunities action plan, speaks briefly at the launch. He introduced Peter Kyle, the science secretary.

Kyle says the plan is “bold and challenging”, but he says “it is incredible to be working for a bold and challenging prime minister”.

He introduces Keir Starmer.