Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle]

My hon. Friend makes a pertinent point. It is true that much content has already been used and subsumed by AI models, usually from other territories and under the current law. Nothing illustrates the need to have a comprehensive think about the way forward than the example that he has just given.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

On that point, will the Secretary of State give way?

[Peter Kyle]

I see that the right hon. Lady, the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, is on her feet, and, of course, I give way.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

I appreciate the tone in which the Secretary of State has started his speech. Ministers keep repeating a mantra about “the uncertainty” of what our copyright law says about AI training. However, there is no uncertainty: commercial generative AI training on UK copyright work is illegal in the UK, but what rightsholders need is what this amendment says:

“clear, relevant, accurate and accessible information”

about

“the use of their copyright works used, and the means by which those works were accessed”.

A legislative vehicle in the future, however welcome, will be simply too late to protect the livelihoods of so many of the UK’s 2.5 million creative workers, who fear that this uncertainty line is just an excuse to undermine copyright law. Is the Government really committed to proactively enforcing our copyright law? If they do not do so through this Bill now, how will they do it and when?

[Peter Kyle]

I am grateful for the hon. Lady’s intervention, which is thoughtful as always. May I pick her up on one substantial point? I have not used the word “uncertainty” or implied that the challenge we have is uncertainty. Existing copyright law is very certain, but it is not fit for purpose. All the dangers and the existing loss into AI models have happened within the existing law. The challenges that we have, which I will go into further, are happening currently.

We need to ensure that we can have a domestic legal system that is fit for the digital age; we cannot rely on legislation that was created for, and is still only effective in, the analogue age. I want to give certainty. The reason that I am making this speech is to give certainty, not only in my words but most importantly in legislation, in the most rapid fashion possible, so that creatives and the AI sector can move forward together.

Unfortunately, at times the Bill has been presented as a battle between creative industries and new technology companies, but nothing could be further from the truth