Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Earl of Dundee Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 19th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

My Lords, here is a very useful amendment proposed by the noble Baroness at this stage of the proceedings.

For the creative industries, it offers certainty that a transparency regime will be in place within 18 months of Royal Assent. Within a timetable of their own choosing, it also leaves the Government free to provide new legislation on the wider issues of personal likeness and other connected matters.

I will reiterate how this amendment, thereby already consistent with government policy, is also consistent with various articles and conventions of the human rights affiliation of the 46 member states of the Council of Europe, of which the United Kingdom remains a prominent member and of whose education committee I am a recent chairman.

First, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the right to privacy, including of personal data. Article 1 of its initial protocol protects property rights, including intellectual property rights and copyright.

Secondly, Article 5 of the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime prohibits system interference by, for example, the transmission of computer data, while its Article 10 stipulates:

“Offences related to infringements of copyright and related rights”.


Thirdly, Article 11 of the 2024 Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law safeguards privacy and personal data.

As has been much emphasised, the noble Baroness’s amendment not least achieves consistency with our UK tradition of protecting copyright as well—notably evident as early as the Statute of Anne 1710 granting legal protection to publishers of books.

Here and abroad, the United Kingdom must continue to assist that good practice. We are enormously grateful to the noble Baroness for this further proposed amendment. We must strongly support it.

[Lord Cashman (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I speak reluctantly on the issue because, as I have said before, I am a rights holder. I refer to my register of interests. Following the speech by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, very little needs to be said. It was absolutely brilliant and searing.

I say to the Government Front Bench, as a member of the creative industry, I do not want to be told how much we are cherished and then see legislation that will begin to destroy us. We have heard much about the rights of those large rights holders, such as Paul McCartney and Elton John. I inform the House that I once received a housewarming present from Elton John, but it was 25 years ago, so it holds no influence over me.

I have thought long about this since my previous contribution. Many years ago, a dear friend of mine who is no longer with us, the wonderful character actor, Claire Davenport, had a very early and successful career. Then, like for so many other creatives, it waned. She used to ring me and say, “Chuck, I can’t believe it. My day’s been made. I’ve got a cheque”. A cheque would arrive from something that she had done maybe 10, 15 or 20 years ago. Claire, who was famous for her ample bosom, used to take the cheque, rub it across the ample cherished parts of her talent and say, “Now I can eat”.

That is the reality of what happens to people who receive repayment for the use of their creative material. If you strip that away, you are stripping away rights often from those most in need.

The creative industries have long taken on board the challenges and we have worked to find the technology to turn them around. We can do so again. This amendment is a brilliant, sensible way forward and I urge every single Member of your Lordships’ House to stand firm with the creative industries, and those yet to come, and support this amendment.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Earl of Dundee Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 12th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, this is my first contribution on this Bill, although I have sat in every debate on this issue going back to Committee. I do not have a creative nerve in my body—I have nothing to declare—but my life and those of hundreds of millions of others have been enhanced by writers, actors and music-makers across the world.

It is sad in a way—and this is not a criticism of anybody personally who is around at the present time—that the nature of Labour in Parliament has changed. When I arrived in the Commons 51 years ago, on the Labour Benches was Maurice Edelman, 30 years there from 1945, a writer of fiction and non-fiction of note. My near neighbour, parliamentary-wise, was Andrew Faulds, who was already in; he played Jet Morgan in “Journey into Space” and Carver Doon in the series of “Lorna Doon”. In fact, I have been wondering in the last couple of days, knowing I was going to refer to him, how the little people—the little helpers for the Prime Minister in the Whips’ Office in the other place—would cope with Andrew today. He was a formidable character who could scare the life out of his friends.

Thirty years after that, I joined this place. Ruth Rendell was on the Benches. David Puttnam, the world-renowned producer, joined some years later, and we have my noble friend Lord Cashman. I make this personal. I do not speak for any of them and have not spoken to anybody about what I was going to say, although I indicated my view to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, at the weekend. But I am being asked to deliver wholesale—I have to say that I have a bit of criticism about delivery—the work of these people to big tech. I am not doing it. I have not the slightest intention of doing it, which is why I shall vote for this amendment.

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

I too support the noble Baroness.

As I said at the previous stage of this Bill, it surely goes without saying that our United Kingdom copyright law has to counter the increasing theft of intellectual property by artificial intelligence companies.

As the noble Baroness’s present amendment illustrates, we should provide transparency criteria that would allow copyright holders to identify when and from where their work has been taken. I am sure that all your Lordships will agree with that aim, as well as being well aware of the strong human rights back-up support to us from the 46 states’ affiliation of the Council of Europe, of which the United Kingdom remains a prominent member and of whose education committee I am a recent chairman.

As many of your Lordships know, first and foremost, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the right to privacy, including of personal data. Article 1 of its initial protocol protects property rights, including intellectual property rights and copyright.

Secondly, Article 5 of the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime prohibits system interference by, for example, the transmission of computer data, while its Article 10 stipulates

“Offences related to infringements of copyright and related rights”.

Thirdly, Article 11 of the 2024 Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law safeguards privacy and personal data.

Regarding copyright protection in recent centuries, and as emphasised at an earlier stage of our discussions on this Bill, we can be justly proud of our own United Kingdom record, beginning, as is well known, with the Statute of Anne 1710, which granted legal protection to publishers of books.

In the interests of those both here and abroad, we must now uphold the high standards of that tradition. The United Kingdom should guide the good practice. Here, today, supporting the noble Baroness’s amendment is a clear example of our ability so to do.

[Baroness Freeman of Steventon (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly on the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I will be brief partly because it is such a simple amendment: it would just put the principle of the transparency of these models in the Bill. We need to know what goes into these models for two reasons. The first is so that any form of copyright can be prosecuted. At the moment, how can we know that even our current copyright rules have been broken if we do not know what goes into these models? It does not matter whether the Government are thinking about changing the copyright rules. Whatever copyright rules we have, we need to know what is being used in the models.

The second reason is the outputs of these models. We need to know on what they were trained in order to know their strengths and weaknesses. The noble Lord, Lord Vallance, himself said this in answer to a question from my noble friend Lady Coussins during Oral Questions on Tuesday: if the data that has gone into the model is not transparent, we cannot ascertain its strengths and weaknesses without extensive proxy measurements and probing.

On these two principles, it is vital that this simple amendment goes through today. That it has some added benefits from being able to legislate separately for small and medium-sized enterprises, micro-businesses and UK businesses just adds to the fact that this amendment has been carefully crafted to give us exactly what we need in the Bill today.