Sovereign AI Fund

Debate between Baroness Kidron and Baroness Lloyd of Effra

Monday 1st June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The UK benefits from access to many international service providers, whether from America or elsewhere. The way we think about sovereignty is in ensuring that the UK has the capability, access and influence it needs to ensure that the technologies that will shape our economy do so in the interests of the UK. The reason we have focused on the areas I mentioned before for the AI sovereign fund is to increase our economic resilience and reduce strategic dependency by building areas where the UK can realistically develop a comparative advantage.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

Representatives of the sovereign AI unit have repeatedly said that the companies it funds or supports with compute must comply with “applicable UK law”, including when copyright law applies to their training activity. However, they have been unwilling to say whether they will fund or support companies that scrape UK copyrighted material overseas without a licence. Will the Minister confirm that the UK sovereign AI fund will not use taxpayers’ money to support companies that train on copyrighted work without a licence, irrespective of where that training happens, whether in the UK or elsewhere? If she is unable to answer categorically, will she undertake to write with a complete answer?

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is correct to highlight that we have been clear that copyright rules should be respected and the use of copyright works to train AI in the UK requires a licence unless an exception applies. Companies supported by the sovereign AI fund are expected to comply with applicable UK law, including copyright. When we are talking about compliance in relation to grant-funded compute allocations, they equally must comply with copyright law while undertaking that funded activity.

Social Media: Non-consensual Sexual Deepfakes

Debate between Baroness Kidron and Baroness Lloyd of Effra

Wednesday 14th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her remarks, and for her expertise and input over the course of many years in this area. On the take-down time, we are looking at the experience in other jurisdictions, as I mentioned. We are also looking at the experience of the timelines that are implemented in this country; that is something that Ofcom will look at. We will look at both the scope and the speed of both those jurisdictions. As I think noble Lords have seen, we will look at measures, and if we believe that they are effective and speak to the harms that we are seeing, we will take action.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I was in the other place when the Secretary of State made her Statement. I commend her for the strength of her words, but we are beyond words now. We are living in a country where any woman or child can be stripped to a bikini and turned into abuse material, as the price and entry point of being online. I do not accept the Government’s defence. There are many ways to communicate with the electorate, and to choose a company that monetises the humiliation and degradation of women and girls as part of its business proposition is to demonstrate that this is business as usual. It is not action for change.

I also disagree very strongly with the Minister: it has not been shocking. We have had the amendments that the noble Baroness referred to—most of those came from Members of this House, including the AI CSAM amendment that she referred to. In the last few weeks, the Government have pushed back on the amendments to the Crime and Policing Bill and, before that, to the data Bill. We have amendments on these issues. We foresaw it and, to be honest, we foresaw it in the Online Safety Act, so even on the other side this is not a shock.

I ask the Minister now to commit to placing the violence against women and girls guidance on a statutory footing, accepting amendments on chatbots and LLM risk assessments, and making a move with Ofcom to say that companies are not required only to do a risk assessment; they must, on a mandatory basis, mitigate those very risks that they find. We must not legitimise a platform which sows division, degrades women and sexually humiliates children.

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her points and for her expertise that she brings to the House. I should have mentioned that I commend all those who have been speaking up from a position of experience. It is a very difficult thing to do, and it brings a unique perspective into the debate.

I spoke before about the Government withdrawing from using these platforms; we do not think that would be effective. We understand why people feel strongly about it. It is something that we keep under review.

The noble Baroness raised a number of other important issues. We are monitoring how Ofcom’s code on violence against women is being implemented. We think it is very important. I will discuss the many other areas she raised with my colleague who is taking that Bill through and, indeed, with the noble Baroness outside the House if that would be of interest.