Darren Jones, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, said Westminster must improve its ability to govern in a world with artificial intelligence [1].

The warning highlights a growing gap between the speed of technological innovation and the ability of democratic institutions to regulate it. If lawmakers cannot adapt, the UK risks a regulatory vacuum where technology evolves faster than the laws intended to control it.

During a parliamentary briefing on AI policy on March 12, 2024, Jones said he is addressing the "challenge of speed" facing the government [1, 2]. He said that the rapid development of AI tools is currently outpacing the speed at which existing legislative processes can respond [1, 4]. This discrepancy creates potential risks for both the economy and society [1, 4].

"We are facing a challenge of speed, and we need to make sure our institutions can keep up with the pace of AI development," Jones said [1].

Jones said that the responsibility for this adaptation lies with both the legislative and executive branches of the UK government. He said that Westminster and Whitehall must get better at using the tools available to govern artificial intelligence [2].

He said that a failure to modernize these processes could result in a loss of sovereign control over the digital landscape. "If we don’t act now, the technology will dictate the rules, not the other way round," Jones said [3].

The call for reform suggests that traditional parliamentary timelines may no longer be sufficient for the era of generative AI. The government is now tasked with finding a balance between fostering innovation and maintaining public safety through updated governance frameworks [1, 4].

“We are facing a challenge of speed, and we need to make sure our institutions can keep up with the pace of AI development.”

This admission from a high-ranking official signals that the UK government views its current legislative machinery as too slow for the AI era. By framing the issue as a 'challenge of speed,' the administration is acknowledging that traditional lawmaking—which often takes years from proposal to implementation—is fundamentally mismatched with the weekly or monthly leaps in AI capability. This may lead to a shift toward more flexible, iterative regulatory frameworks rather than static legislation.