Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

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

Moved by

[Baroness Kidron]

At end to insert “, and do propose Amendment 49D in lieu of Amendment 49B—

49D: Before Clause 138, insert the following new Clause—
“Requirement to make provision in relation to transparency of copyrighted works used in relation to AI models
(1) The Secretary of State or the Treasury must by regulations make provision as set out in this section in relation to a trader which operates a service which—
(a) includes the making available of an artificial intelligence (AI) model, and
(b) has links with the United Kingdom within the meaning of subsection (2).
(2) The service has links with the United Kingdom if—
(a) it has a significant number of United Kingdom users, or
(b) United Kingdom users form one of the target markets for the service (or the only target market).
(3) The regulations must require relevant traders to provide copyright owners with clear, relevant, accurate and accessible information that will allow them to identify—
(a) the use of their copyright works used, and
(b) the means by which those works were accessed,
in the pre-training, training, fine-tuning and retrieval-augmented generation of the AI model, or any other data input to the AI model.
(4) The regulations may provide that the regulations apply in modified form in order that they apply proportionately to small companies and micro-entities within the meaning of the Companies Act 2006, or apply differently to UK-registered companies within the meaning of the Companies Act 2006 as opposed to companies which are not UK-registered.
(5) Regulations made under this section may make provision for enforcement of their provisions.
(6) The Secretary of State or the Treasury must lay before Parliament a draft of the statutory instrument containing regulations made under this section within six months of the publication of the report on the use of copyright works in the development of AI systems required by section (Report on the use of copyright works in the development of AI systems), and the regulations are subject to the affirmative procedure.””

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, last week, we had a decisive vote in favour of transparency for UK copyright holders—a first step towards protecting the labour and property of UK creators and creative businesses. Sadly, despite powerful interventions in the other place from all sides, including the Government Benches, those provisions were overturned on the basis of financial privilege.

Members of your Lordships’ House are rightly mindful of the primacy of the elected Chamber, so today I speak to Amendment 49D in lieu, which accepts the Government’s report on the use of copyright works in the development of AI systems already enshrined in the Bill as the mechanism by which they will come to a view on how best to frame transparency measures, while also ensuring that clear, relevant, accurate and accessible information will be provided to copyright owners so that they can identify the use of their copyright works and the means by which those works were accessed.

The amendment also takes at face value Statements made by Ministers at the Dispatch Box that creatives, UK AI companies and global brands will be in the room for discussions about copyright on no less a basis than Silicon Valley representatives. It accepts the Government’s will that they have free reign on enforcement procedures, so there are no financial commitments for enforcement as a result of this provision.

However, the amendment does require the Government to bring forward transparency regulation within six months of the report being completed. The Government have three times rejected my more comprehensive drafting, but they have also failed to bring forth something of their own. The amendment before us was drafted by an eminent lawyer with the very helpful support of the Public Bill Office.

If the Government are not willing to accept a time-limited outcome of their own report, we must ask again if the report is simply a political gesture to push tackling wide-spread theft of UK copyright into the long grass. In the real world, failing to accept a timeline means starving UK industries of the transparency they need to survive. Ministers talk about balancing the interests of AI and creative companies, as if that is reasonable. Not only are they failing to listen to UK AI companies, but the idea is a little extraordinary. No other industrial sector in the UK is required by government policy to give its property or labour to another sector that is in direct competition with it, on a compulsory basis, in the name of balance.

The Government should have leapt at this opportunity to save a much-valued and valuable UK industrial sector, central to their own industrial strategy, but they have not. The amendment before us would provide certainty that a transparency regime will be forthcoming within 18 months of Royal Assent and would signal once and for all that UK copyright law is indeed the law of the land, a fact that has now been confirmed, under duress, by Ministers at the Dispatch Box, but still they have taken no action to defend it.

This combination, giving creators, and by extension the courts, the information they need to enforce the law is the minimum viable action from the Government if we are to believe their warm words about the value of the creative sector. What you cannot see, you cannot enforce. The amendment would allow UK copyright owners to police their own property, leaving the Government to consider further legislative issues in a process that even Government Ministers admit may bear no fruit until the end of the decade.

We have had compelling speeches at each stage of our debate and, I must say, some notable acts of resistance and support, and I am deeply grateful for all of them.

Undermining copyright is a multigenerational harm because copyright not only supports today’s creators but is essential to create opportunities for the creators of the future. I want to put on record that young people refute the suggestion that emanates from government that everything is already stolen. Not only do models constantly need to be retrained, fine-tuned or augmented with up-to-date information but some people have not yet started their creative journey and some things remain to be created. It is our duty as parliamentarians to ensure that we do not squander the future of the young.

The amendment protects property rights of UK citizens and creative corporations. It asserts the right for any worker, including a creative worker, to be paid for their labour. It is also about coherence of policy. Why change benefits or implement new workers’ rights if at the same time the Government undermine copyright in the creative industry, which acts as sick pay, pension and wages across a £126 billion industrial sector?

The Government have got it wrong. They have been turned by the sweet whisperings of Silicon Valley, which has stolen—and continues to steal every day we take no action—the UK’s extraordinary, beautiful and valuable creative output. Silicon Valley has persuaded the Government that it is easier to redefine “theft” than make it pay for what it stole.

This amendment recognises the primacy of the elected House, and I urge all noble Lords, from all Benches, whatever their allegiance and whatever their whip, to stand behind our creative industries and our indigenous AI community.

I have tried everything to persuade the Government in private—everything. If the Government continue on their current intransient path with no meaningful alternatives, we will begin to see the corrosion of our powerful industry—an industry fundamental to country and democracy. It will be a tragedy, and it is entirely avoidable. It is a choice that the Government and we in this House can make today.

The UK creative industries embody our history, they hold our shared truth and tell our national story. A nation with a contested story is a troubled nation. A nation that gives away its capacity to tell its own story is a fragile place indeed. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, once again, I acknowledge the passion and depth of feeling from those noble Lords who have spoken and, again, I emphasise that we are all on the same side here. We all want to see a way forward that protects our creative industries, while supporting everyone in the UK to develop and benefit from AI.

Of course, we have listened, and are continuing to listen, to the views that have been expressed. We are still going through the 11,500 responses to our consultation, and I have to tell noble Lords that people have proposed some incredibly creative solutions to this debate which also have a right to be heard.

This is not about Silicon Valley; it is about finding a solution for the UK creative and AI tech sectors that protects both. I am pleased that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, now endorses the Government’s reports as the right way to identify the right solutions; however, I will address some of her other points directly.

First, she talked about her amendment providing certainty to the creative industries. I can provide that certainty now, as Minister Bryant did in the other place last week. Copyright law in the UK is unchanged by this Bill. Works are protected unless one of the exemptions, which have existed for some time, such as those for teaching and research, applies, or the rights holders have guaranteed permission for their work to be used. That is the law now and it will be the law tomorrow.

I also want to reassure my noble friend Lord Cashman and the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, who talked about us stripping away rights today. I want to be clear that the Government have proposed no legislation on this issue; the Bill does no such thing. The amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, would provide no certainty other than that of more uncertainty—of continuous regulations, stacked one upon another in a pile of instruments. This cannot be what anyone desires, and it is why the Government do not agree to it.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Harding, suggested that her amendment, requiring regulations on only one issue ahead of all others and via a different process, would somehow leave Parliament free to consider all the other issues independently. I am afraid that this is not the case; this is a policy decision with many moving parts. Jumping the gun on one issue will hamstring us in reaching the best outcome on all the others, especially because, as I said earlier, this is a global issue, and we cannot ring-fence the UK from the rest of the world.

We refute the suggestion that we are being complacent on this. I say to my noble friend Lord Brennan that I of course agree that the UK should be a global leader, but we need to make sure that we have the right approach before we plant our flag on that. There is a reason that no other territory has cracked this either. The EU, for example, is still struggling to find a workable solution. It is not easy, but we are working quickly.

The noble Baroness once again raised enforcement, and she has left the mechanism to the discretion of the Government in her new amendment. While we are pleased that the noble Baroness has changed her approach on enforcement in light of the Commons reasons, we all agree that for new transparency requirements to work, enforcement mechanisms will be needed and must be effective.

The noble Baroness said she has tried everything to persuade the Government, and I would have welcomed a further meeting with her to discuss this and other aspects of her revised proposals. Unfortunately, however, that invitation was not accepted. To reiterate, in spite of all our different positions on this Bill, we are all working towards the same goal.

Following proper consideration of consultation responses and publication of our technical reports, we will bring forward comprehensive and workable proposals that will give certainty to all sides. If the House has strong views when the proposals come forward, there will of course be the opportunity for us to debate them. We have made it clear that our reports will be delivered within 12 months and earlier if we can. I remind noble Lords that the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, will not take effect for 18 months. There is not an instant solution, as many noble Lords want to hear today. Neither the noble Baroness’s nor our amendment is an instant solution; it will take time, and we have to recognise that.

We do not believe, in the meantime, that protracted ping-pong on this one remaining issue in the Bill is in anyone’s interest. The elected House has spoken twice and through legislative and non-legislative commitments, the Government have shown they are committed to regulating quickly and effectively. Therefore, I hope the noble Baroness and your Lordships’ House will accept these assurances and continue working with the Government to make progress on this important issue.

A lot has been said in this debate about the importance of transparency. To my noble friend Lord Brennan, I say that the Government have said from the very beginning that we will prioritise the issue of transparency in all the work we do. Transparency is essential to licensing; licensing is essential to the question of remuneration; and remuneration is essential to AI being high quality, effective and able to be deployed in the UK. These are the challenges we are facing, but all these things have to be addressed in the round and together, not in a piecemeal fashion. However, noble Lords are absolutely right to say that, without transparency, it is, of course, worth nothing.

On enforcement, the Government are sympathetic to the argument that it is a different matter for individuals to enforce their rights via the courts as opposed to large creative agencies. This is the kind of the thing that the working groups I have mentioned will explore. As Minister Bryant said last week, we want to make the new regime effective for everybody, large and small.

I will finish with some things I am sure we can all agree on: the urgency of the problem; the need to be evidence-based; that solutions will require collaboration between the creative and the AI sectors; and the solutions must work for everyone. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, that everybody will have a seat at the table in the discussions. I hope noble Lords will agree with me and truly support the innovators and creators in the UK by voting with the Government on this Motion, which will deliver a full, comprehensive package that will make a difference to the creative sector for years to come in this country.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I thank everybody who has spoken on this issue in the House and outside of the House. I particularly thank the Members on the Government Benches; I know it comes hard to disagree with your party, and I really appreciate it, as do all those outside the House.

I am going to try to take the high road from the Minister’s passionate defence. If the Government had spent as much time talking to me as they did to their own Back Bench to say, “Please do not rebel”, we would be in a different place. I did say that I was not able to be there at a particular time, but there were quite a lot of other occasions on which other Ministers, including the Secretary of State, knew where I was.

To go to the crux of the matter, the noble Baroness the Minister said at the Dispatch Box that this is UK law and the Government have done nothing to change it. This is precisely the problem: it is UK law, but it is unenforceable because what you cannot see you cannot enforce—period. That is the problem we are trying to solve, and it is a separate and different problem from the enormity of all the other issues she rightly raises. While I accepted the report as the mechanism and the idea that the Government could have their enforcement procedure in their own timeline, nothing that any Minister has said in either the other place or your Lordships’ House has put a timeline on it. It will take years and, by that time, there will be no creative industry left, or it will be in tatters.

I was interested in the contribution that said that AI companies have transparency and renumeration; that is the fundamental principle. I will not detain the House any longer. I am so grateful for everybody’s contributions to all our debates. This was a Lords starter; this does not challenge the primacy of the Commons. I would like to test the opinion of the House.