Employment Rights Bill

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Committee stage
Tuesday 29th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

We have previously had a debate on the nature of reference periods, and that is something that we are going to consult further upon. If we are going to have a discussion, let us have a discussion on that as well, and I will see if I can reassure noble Lords on that matter.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister, particularly for the willingness she has just indicated to continue discussions. SOLT and UK Theatre updated their briefing on the Bill in the light of the amendments that the Government have brought but they retain some concerns about the amendments in this area, so I am sure that they and others across the arts sector will be glad to continue to discuss it with the Government as they continue to write the Bill as it is before us.

I am grateful to the noble Lords who have spoken, especially the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley of Knighton, at this late hour; their championing of the arts knows no temporal limit. I am grateful to them for staying to express support for this amendment. I should say that I am much attracted to many of the amendments that the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, and the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, have tabled later in the Bill on the need to consider its differential impacts on certain sectors. I look forward to the debates we will have those.

I am grateful too to my noble friend Lord Hunt of Wirral for his generous remarks. I am happy to say that the UK’s theatres have indeed bounced back well from the pandemic. Last year, more than 17 million theatregoers attended a show in the West End alone—an 11% increase on pre-pandemic levels. In fact, the West End outperformed the Premier League, attracting 2.5 million more attendees. As we have just finished a long Bill on football, perhaps we ought to spend a bit more time on the things that people go to in greater numbers.

However, the sector remains precarious. As the noble Earl, Lord Clancarty, said, the people who are that smiling welcome at front of house are often taken for granted. During the pandemic, we saw how challenging it was for them, especially when enforcing some of the Covid restrictions. They deal with exuberant, sometimes well-oiled audiences, and during that time they had to explain to people why they had to sit two metres apart or wear face masks, or why the show had been cancelled or much delayed. They perform a vital role in welcoming people to theatrical productions, orchestral recitals and much more. As the noble Earl said, that relates just as much to cinemas and many other cultural venues. The UK Cinema Association has provided a helpful briefing on the Bill and its impacts on our cinemas.

I am grateful to noble Lords who have taken part in this short but important prelude to the other debates that we will have on the creative industries and the cultural sector, and I am grateful to the Minister for her willingness to continue to discuss these matters with those organisations. On that basis, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Copyright and Artificial Intelligence

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Thursday 27th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government agree with many of the points made during the debate on the data Bill, and in other discussions in this House, that further transparency is needed from AI developers about their use of web crawlers and the materials that they use to train their models. However, we have a consultation out and it would be premature to commit to specific legislation until we have analysed the responses to that consultation and heard all the voices in this sector. Nevertheless, I assure the noble Viscount that we intend to resolve this issue. It is one that the previous Government failed to resolve and we need to resolve it now, so we will take action as soon as the consultation has been analysed and resolved.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, there has been widespread concern that the Secretary of State in the Minister’s department has been very happy to meet representatives of big tech and AI firms but less willing to meet representatives of our thriving but threatened creative industries. Of course, in due course his meetings will be published through the Government’s quarterly transparency returns but, given how germane this is to a contentious area of policy currently under discussion, will she give consideration to publishing that list of meetings sooner?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, that information will be published in the normal way. What I will say is that the Minister for AI and Digital Government and the Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism have been extremely active in engaging on this subject. They have held round tables with the creative industries and the AI sector during the consultation, which is a joint consultation involving DCMS and DSIT. This morning, the Secretary of State for DSIT explained that, and also said that he is of course open to meetings with the creative sector. All that is on the table and there is no problem about dialogue or engagement. That will go on in the next few months as well, while we seek to find a solution to this issue.

Online Safety Act 2023 (Category 1, Category 2A and Category 2B Threshold Conditions) Regulations 2025

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Monday 24th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, the whole “small but risky” issue that the noble Lord is raising is hugely close to our heart. We have engaged with Ofcom and pressed it to take more action on the sort of small but risky services that he is talking about. Our view is that they do not necessarily have to be dealt with under the categorisation process; there are other ways. Ofcom has assured us, in the way that it has come back to us, that there are other ways in which it is addressing them.

It is not as though they have been discarded. It is an absolute priority for this Government that we address the “small but risky” issue, and we are doing so. We are working with Ofcom to make sure that that is followed through. As I said when I opened this debate, the fact is that we have worked with Ofcom and it is setting up a task force to look at this, while separately we are looking at these issues. What more can we do? On the position at the moment regarding the rollout of the SI and the categorisation, the reality is that Ofcom’s research and advice, and the risk of unintended consequences, means that it is not currently workable to ignore user numbers when setting category 1 and so on.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The Minister rightly said “currently” and, even if that is the case, why are the Government closing the door to having this option available to them and Ofcom later? She is right that Ofcom is doing a lot of work in ways other than categorisation, but surely she and her colleagues in government can see that this is a useful tool to have in the armoury in the fight against the sorts of harms noble Lords have been raising. Why are the regulations written so tightly as to close that off and avoid taking the concession that was so hard won by my noble friend Lady Morgan and others when the Bill went through Parliament?

Online Safety Legislation: Abuse on Social Media

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Thursday 5th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

The noble Baroness makes an important point. Part of Ofcom’s responsibility is to heighten the role of media literacy. We are talking to the Department for Education, and obviously there is a role for schools to be involved in all this—but parents also have to take responsibility for their children, and for their access to these sites. The media literacy role that we have to play goes right throughout society; it is the responsibility of all of us to make sure that people understand, when they access these sites, what they are able to see and how all that can be moderated. Again, the social media companies have a particular responsibility to play in all that. We expect them to uphold their terms of service to make sure that children cannot access the sites that are inappropriate, and we will work with them to make sure that this happens.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I hope that the Government will look with sympathy at the Private Member’s Bill being brought forward by my noble friend Lady Owen of Alderley Edge, which the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, mentioned. It deals with very important issues.

The Minister will be aware of the arrest of Pavel Durov in France—the founder and chief executive of the messaging application Telegram. I do not expect her to be able to comment on an ongoing investigation, but can she tell your Lordships’ House whether His Majesty’s Government have had any contact with the Government of France in relation to this matter and whether British law enforcement agencies have been involved in the investigation? I appreciate that she may need to write after checking with them.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the noble Lord for all the work that he did in getting the Online Safety Act on to the statute book. With regard to Telegram, obviously we cannot comment on issues in another country’s jurisdiction. We have regular contact with all friendly nations dealing with those issues. I cannot comment on whether there has been specific dialogue on the issue of Telegram, but we would normally expect that to be something for the French Government to deal with.