Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Cashman

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

One of the things that I believed then and still believe now is that people have a right to a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work, that people have the right to be able to own their property and that they have the right to sell their labour in a fair and reasonable manner. I am afraid that the Government are running headstrong against that basic principle, which again I would have thought could be accepted on both sides of the House.

What are we dealing with here? We are dealing with something we are absolutely brilliant at. I do not know how many noble Lords have seen the Channel 4 programme “The Piano”, where people turn up at railway stations and play the piano. The talent in this country that we do not know about is amazing—unbelievable talent, people who can compose and play the piano to a level that is just extraordinary. Those people will have no chance to develop their careers if their work can just be scooped up by big tech.

Now I am going to say something that will upset the Minister, and she will say that I am being unfair to the Government. It just looks to me as though crony capitalism and the Government have got into bed together and the Government are being told, “Just give this away and we will give you data centres outside your main cities”—quite where the electricity is going to come from to run this is another issue, but I will not divert—“and you will be leaders in the world”. Only a very naive Minister would believe that kind of nonsense. Where does it end?

What makes the Government think that the other place, or the Government, have the authority to give away people’s property and their right to earn a living? That is the issue raised here today. I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, that, although I deprecate extended ping-pong, on this occasion, the House of Lords is doing its duty, which is speaking up for the interests of the country. I hope that the Government will listen, that the noble Baroness’s amendment will be carried with a good majority, and that the Government will think again.

[Lord Cashman (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I find it worrying that I agree with every word of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, but it is probably more worrying for him.

Now is not the time for long speeches but for commitment. I support this amendment, and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, on so brilliantly moving it. I refer to my registered interests as a rights holder. To the Government Minister, for whom I have the greatest respect, I say that, as a rights holder and a royalties holder, reassurances do not, sadly, pay the rent, but royalties do.

When it comes to technology, creatives have embraced every single challenge of developing technology—from the printing press to cable and satellite television, television on demand, streaming, Spotify and so on. We have always proceeded on the basis that the user must pay. Now is not the time to deflect from that principle and now is not too late for the Government to embrace that principle.

It is incomprehensible for me to believe that jobbing actors, singers, writers and other creatives—people at the beginning or at the end of their careers—will be able to police the internet in such a way as to find those using their material so that they can then opt in or opt out. That is not part of the reality of people in the creative professions.

It is for those most in need of the protection of copyright that I speak—it is they who will lose the most. It is for them that I urge your Lordships to support the amendment. It is reasonable, and I believe any reasonable Secretary of State should welcome and indeed embrace it.

Finally, for the record, much has been said about Minister Peter Kyle. He is a good, decent, fair and highly intelligent person, and a friend of many years. I say to him and to the Government that the art of compromise is to give a little in order that we all win a lot—and I am not talking about the dog food. Therefore, I think it is in the Government’s domain to move forward, to compromise and to accept the amendment as—to quote the Minister—a workable solution, because it makes sense.

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Cashman

Friday 6th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, but I want to introduce a degree of realism that is somewhat missing. The comparisons that he is making, and where they are being made, bear no relation to the suffering and needs of people in other parts of the world. No matter how we dress these words up, outside this House it will be read as an intention to deny and delay the very projects and needs which the poorest of the world are calling out for. Think only of this: not of the child that needs to go to bed with food in its stomach but of the woman who loses her life and her child in childbirth because not enough money is going into that maternity service. Think of that and then choose your words.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for making my argument, because if he really is concerned about these people, he will be concerned about what the NAO report says.

[Lord Cashman]

My Lords—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I will, if I may, reply to the noble Lord’s noble friend first. This is the National Audit Office. It has no partisan view. Its report says that rescheduling had to take place, leading to,

“£250 million … of planned activity”—

meaning the very people the noble Lord is talking about—being moved from the first three months of 2014 into 2014-15. It was delayed. The NAO claims that the rescheduling,

“is likely to have delayed some of the benefits those activities were designed to provide”.

If the noble Lord is sincere in what he is saying, as I am sure he is, he is on my side of this argument.

[Lord Cashman]

I am again grateful to the noble Lord, and this, I promise your Lordships, will be my last intervention, but with all due respect he cannot represent my argument and I do not believe that he ever could. Audits are there to look at something through a particular lens. The economic arguments that we have heard have been dressed up as an exact science. If that is so, I would be interested to hear why economists and certain Treasuries have got it wrong for so long. At the heart of the debate is making sure that commitments that we have made globally are met and that we imagine that we are the poorest, not that we sit in this noble House and go home and afford ourselves the services that we do. I will not intervene again but, with all due respect to the noble Lord, he does not and could not make my arguments.