Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

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

[Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, posed an appropriate question: what would Shakespeare make of AI? The answer is rather like the proverbial million monkeys on their typewriter: so far they have failed to produce a credible version of Shakespeare, but they have produced several improved versions of The Art of the Deal, as far as I can ascertain.

I too will speak to the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the government amendments that came back from the House of Commons. I thank the Minister for her engagement on this and the briefing that she gave earlier today to noble friends, other colleagues and noble Peers across the House, and my very good personal friend Minister Chris Bryant, whose charismatic presence I felt around us earlier—almost as if he was observing our proceedings.

I also thank the Secretary of State for having confirmed, via a third party in last weekend’s press, that the Government have changed their position on having the opt-out in the consultation as their preferred position. It would be helpful if the Minister could confirm that on the Floor of the House today, because I believe that is an accurate position and an accurate assessment, even though it was delivered via a spokesperson rather than directly by the Secretary of State. It is a very helpful change, and I welcome the movement the Government have made in the amendments they put forward. I note that it is part of Motion 49A that we accept the government amendments to produce the reports that were mentioned.

I declare that I am a member of the Ivors Academy and the Musicians’ Union, and draw attention to my entry in the register. Creative remuneration was one of the central issues that I worked on as a parliamentarian for the 23 years I was in the House of Commons, certainly while I was on the Front Bench in opposition, as a member of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee, as it was then, and as the sponsor of a Private Member’s Bill in the Commons. Although it did not get into law, the Copyright (Rights and Remuneration of Musicians, Etc.) Bill had a significant influence and led, for example, to the creation of the remuneration committee, which is currently sitting within the offices of the Intellectual Property Office. Strong efforts are being made, with very strong engagement from Minister Chris Bryant, to hold to account everyone concerned in the music industry to improve remuneration for creators, and particularly for musicians, which is my interest.

This is not just about rights holders. I have never understood why anybody in the creative industries could, for example, start off with a love of music and creativity but become an executive in the creative industries and think that they are worthy of being paid more than the people who actually create the wonderful content that the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, was speaking about earlier. How can a music industry executive reward themselves with a greater remuneration than the entire remuneration of every songwriter in this country? There is only one explanation: by the personal attrition of their soul—but that is another matter altogether.

The Bill is an opportunity. The key point is that obviously the elected House should have its way—I strongly believe that, as a former Member—but it is important that this House has its say along the way and that transparency is key. We cannot enforce copyright and rights holders cannot enforce their rights unless there is transparency. This Bill, this bus, is an opportunity that the Government should be getting on rather than waiting for another bus several years down the road, in the form of some future primary legislation. I hope that there is an opportunity for a compromise and that, should we send these amendments back to the other place, the Government look for a way to give a commitment towards ensuring that, through the Bill, they can take powers to regulate on transparency in the near future.

I was fortunate enough last week to accompany—this is an absolutely blatant name-drop—Björn Ulvaeus of Abba.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

Oh no!

[Lord Brennan of Canton (Lab)]

I note that the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, objects. He would never do such a thing himself. I am glad he introduced me to the founder of Motown Records on one occasion in these Corridors, so he would never do something similar himself.

As I showed him the Royal Gallery, he took particular interest in one of the frescoes and asked me, “Who is that in that fresco speaking to the Duke of Wellington?” I said, “Well, that’s Marshal Blücher, of course, the head of the Prussian army at—”, and suddenly the penny dropped. I said to him, “Somebody should write a song about that”, and he said, “Yes, that’s a great idea. It could be a metaphor for a love affair”. I said, “I’m surprised no one’s thought of that before”—and we never mentioned the word “Waterloo” once.

--- Later in debate ---

The amendments proposed by the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, to the Government’s report requirements seek to ensure that the report considers aspects such the impact on UK copyright holders of extraterritorial uses of their works and identifies barriers to market entry for developers. We welcome them and, indeed, the change of position by the Conservative Front Bench generally on the absolute need for transparency, which I am sure is very welcome on the Benches behind him. These amendments would strengthen the Government’s proposed reporting, but they remain additions to the reporting requirement, not the substantive legal change that is required. What is needed is substantive provision within the Bill that mandates transparency. This is precisely what the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and supported strongly on these Benches throughout the passage of this Bill aim to achieve. They seek to inject transparency in what has been described as a clandestine black box, making it technically feasible and easy for rights holders to understand when and how their work being used. I very much like the phraseology used by the noble Lord, Lord Brennan, so I say to the Government, “Get on the bus”.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

I shall make a very brief speech. I stood up when the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, stood up, but unfortunately, as so often in my life, he completely ignored me, so I will just slip in after him and just before our Front Bench. I declare my interest in the register as an adviser to ProRata.ai, which is a company that seeks to pay royalties to creatives for the use of their content in AI models. It was good to see not only the Secretary of State, Peter Kyle, standing at the Bar, but also the Creative Industries Minister, Chris Bryant, which shows that something is up. They were very clearly wanting to be seen by the 400 or so creatives who wrote to the newspapers over the weekend expressing their concerns about the Government’s AI legislation and also to seek, as we all do, to curry favour with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who has led so well on so many of these issues.

As she was speaking and making the point that creatives and technologists are not apart at all, but are together, it reminded me that I became the Technology Minister in the Cameron Government because I was the Creative Industries Minister, and the reason I became the Technology Minister was because I was the only Minister in the Cameron Government in 2010 meeting the technology companies. The reason I was meeting the technology companies was because the technology companies were busily ripping off the intellectual property of the creative industries. At that time, in 2010, you would sit down with Google and say, “Anyone can search for any material on your website, come up with it illegally, stream it and download it without paying the creators of that material. What are you going to do about it?” Of course, they said, “We’re going to do absolutely nothing because you are just a little British Minister, and we only do what the White House tells us to do”.

The Labour Government had passed legislation that was concluded in the wash-up in 2010 that effectively criminalised, to coin a phrase, the teenager in their bedroom downloading music, just as perhaps some of us as teenagers might have taped music off the radio in the past. I knew when I became a Minister that that legislation was completely unworkable. It was pointless to be prosecuting teenagers when you should be taking on big tech. Actually, the music industry found a solution by using the Fraud Act and began to take action in the courts against websites that were completely ripping off IP. It allowed courts to order those websites to be blocked.

I also knew that there would be no solution until there was a commercial solution. In fact, that commercial solution has come about. In 2010, people were predicting the entire death of intellectual property, the death of the music industry, the death of the film industry and the death of television. They have never been healthier: there are commercial models because more people are prepared to pay a subscription to Spotify, Netflix or Amazon Prime to get great content for a reasonable price, so a commercial solution is possible when people work together.

It was interesting to hear the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, talking about the opt-out model because it implies that you can have a conversation between big tech and creatives. The creatives can either opt out or opt in. We referred earlier to licensing deals. If anyone reads FT Weekend—in fact, everyone in this Chamber obviously reads FT Weekend as it is the Bible of the chattering classes—Sam Altman from OpenAI was featured in “Lunch with the FT”, an honour he shares with the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. In fact, I texted her when she was in “Lunch with the FT” and said that it is better than a peerage. At the beginning of that lunch, it says that the FT has a licensing deal with OpenAI, so it is possible to have licensing deals.

What I think none of us can really stand is the utter hypocrisy of people saying that, for the national interest, we have to rip off intellectual property. It is completely hypocritical and nonsensical. You would not find a single tech chief saying, “I think it is fine if people take our patents because that is how you get economic growth. Just take my patent”. In fact, you will not find a CEO saying that. You will see them saying in court, “He’s ripped off my patent, and I want my money back”. That is intellectual property that big tech is prepared to fight for, yet big tech is still prepared to tell us, just as they told us 15 years ago, that they can grow only by ripping off the IP of the creative industries. Let us face it: there may be AI start-ups that need open source. I totally accept that. It is a complicated landscape, but we are still talking about big tech. We are talking about Microsoft, OpenAI, xAI and Meta. We are talking about the role of the United States. Donald Trump wants to make Hollywood great again. This is where he could start.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I first thank all noble Lords from across the House for their many eloquent and well-made speeches. The Government share the passion displayed today. We all care about the creative sector and want to see it flourish. We all want to find ways to make that a reality. We are talking here about the practicalities of how we can do that in a proper way; that is what we are addressing today. Nobody doubts the fantastic contribution that the creative sector makes to the UK. I thought I had set out some of that in my opening speech, but I am very happy to confirm it again.

On the practicalities, the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, sets out wide-ranging obligations on businesses that make AI models available in the UK and would require the Secretary of State to nominate a body to enforce them. I agree with the noble Baroness that the creative sector has always been an early adopter of technology, and that the creative and AI sectors go hand in hand. A number of noble Lords made that point, and made it well.

I also completely recognise the value generated by the creators—again a point well made by a number of noble Lords—and their great cultural and economic contributions to society. The noble Lords, Lord Black and Lord Berkeley, my noble friend Lord Brennan and many other speakers spoke about that.

It is the Government’s view—and, moreover, morally right—that creators should license and be paid for the use of their content. The Government have always been clear that we want to see more licensing by the AI sector. The obligations in the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, however, would affect a wide range of businesses and require detailed disclosure of information. This would include a mechanism to identify individual works, but it is very uncertain whether it would be possible to meet that requirement when a significant proportion of material on the internet does not have clear metadata to facilitate this. The scale of the impact on those businesses is unknown but, without a proper impact assessment, there is a real risk that the obligations could lead to AI innovators, including many home-grown British companies, thinking twice about whether they wish to develop and provide their services in the UK.

We agree that, if transparency obligations are to be created in this way, there will need to be provision for their oversight and enforcement, but that is not something that can be dropped on the first regulator that comes to mind. There is currently no body with the skills and resources to perform this function. We need a proper discussion about funding, clarity over what enforcement powers are required, and answers to a whole range of other questions.

It should also be noted that one of the main issues that creative industries are struggling with is enforcement of their rights under the current rules. As was said earlier—and I am happy to reiterate—we are not saying that the copyright laws are broken; at the heart of this is the question of enforcement.

Transparency would help with knowing what is being used, but that alone will not be a silver bullet for small creators and businesses seeking redress through our legal system. As many noble Lords will know, there are live court cases in train in the UK and other key jurisdictions. The Government, and I, recognise the urgency of the problem, as so fantastically put by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin.

This is why DCMS and DSIT Ministers are prioritising meetings with creative and AI stakeholders to discuss potential solutions as a top priority. Indeed, they held meetings and discussions with both sectors last September. We have moved quickly to consult, having hosted round tables and bilateral meetings with creatives and their representatives. These have been of great value and we will continue to hold those meetings.

However, all these moving parts mean that something needs to be developed as a full working approach. The amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, does not offer an instant solution, instead asking the Government to come up with regulations in 12 months. We cannot make such significant interventions without properly understanding the impact. This is why our position is to report on four substantive issues within 12 months and set out our proposals in that time. As I said in my opening speech, our proposals will be based on the evidence from the 11,500 responses and, indeed, will concentrate on what works rather than any preferred option. As the noble Lord, Lord Tarassenko, said, the solution must indeed involve creators and AI developers being in the same room, and this is what we will endeavour to do.

I further agree with the noble Lord that AI should not become a way to whitewash copyright piracy. The Government support strong action against copyright piracy and we will continue to do so. I also agree that it is important to support transparency. I cannot say this strongly enough. Noble Lords have seemed to suggest that we are not taking that issue seriously. Of course we are. The Government fully support and are encouraged by the work of the IETF and other fora developing new standards to help identify metadata, which will make this easier.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

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

[Lord Freyberg (CB)]

My Lords, at the heart of this debate lies a single critical principle—trust: trust that those who built powerful AI systems will not exploit the work of others without permission; trust that the UK Government will stand by our creative sector; and trust that our laws, long respected internationally, are not ignored in the rush to complete with Silicon Valley.

Last week, the Minister in the other place, Sir Chris Bryant, raised an important point: what do we do about the copyright status of works generated by AI? It is a good question, but impossible to answer without knowing what content the models were trained on. If we cannot see what went in, we cannot possibly judge what comes out. Transparency is the gateway to fair licensing and a vibrant market in which both AI developers and creators thrive. Without it, there is no accountability, no fair return, and no protection for the next generation of artists, writers and innovators. The UK has a proud tradition of creativity and innovation. This amendment allows us to protect the former while enabling the latter. I urge the House to support it.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

My Lords, very briefly, I want to pick up on my noble friend Lady Harding’s point about the Government’s message that they wish to legislate in the round. I urge the Government to listen to the point that my noble friend was making. We started debating the regulation of tech platforms in 2011, and it took us more than a decade to pass the Online Safety Act. It was one of the most painful legislative processes I have ever seen. The Minister will be very surprised, if this legislation is passed, how quickly it has an impact.

On the second point, about piecemeal legislation, if we had listened to that argument, we would not have passed the amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, when, I think, we were in government—I may still have been a Minister when she first proposed them—for the age-appropriate design code. That is a very telling piece of legislation, because we see the impact it has around the world. The platforms now follow the age-appropriate design code, and it makes a difference. As I say, it took us more than a decade to regulate platforms—think about the missed opportunities.

My final point is to pick up on the very important technical point of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, about being in a pickle. Much as I might delight, as a former Tory culture Minister, to see the serried ranks of the creative industries putting the boot into a Labour Government, I feel enormous sympathy for them. They can turn this around this afternoon in a flash.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

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

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

Three months after the Government’s own report, this amendment allows Parliament to be informed on the scale of theft and the loss of revenue to United Kingdom companies, as it also enables a draft Bill on copyright infringement, AI models and transparency of input.

Does the Minister agree that those measures assist the process of copyright protection here while setting a useful standard abroad, including within the 46 states’ human rights affiliation of the Council of Europe, of which the United Kingdom remains a much-respected member and of whose education committee I am a recent chairman?

In sending out the right message from the United Kingdom, not least is this proposed amendment also consistent with Article 11 of the 2024 Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence, Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, safeguarding, privacy and personal data.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

My Lords, I will make a short intervention, not least because my noble roommate, the noble Earl, Lord Dundee, has just spoken, and we share a birthday—this week, 5 June. It is the first time in this Chamber that two people with the same birthday have spoken consecutively, and that is an important point to note.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

We only need the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, who also shares our birthday, to speak after me, and we will be making history, even if we do not pass this amendment.

I will steer a middle course, if I may, because, if this amendment is not passed, I do not believe—I know this is heresy to say so—that the creative industries will collapse. However, nor do I believe that, if the amendment is passed, the AI revolution and Britain’s lead in it will come to a grinding halt.

This is the third time we have debated this, and a lot of heat and light is being generated. I said earlier in the Chamber during Questions that, in my opinion, Ofcom is a fine regulator doing a fine job of implementing the Online Safety Act. Regulation we do well in this country; I know that sounds like heresy. It may sound like heresy to my noble friend Lord Forsyth, but I remind him that I never dallied with socialism, not even at university or at school. As a true Conservative, I am entitled to say that regulation can be a good thing. We can pass this amendment and bring in proper regulation with a good regulator such as Ofcom. That is an important point.

I also to a certain extent want to admonish my own side, the side devoted to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and everything she is doing. I accept that big tech has a seat at the table, but, from my own experience as a Minister, I know that one has to navigate a difficult course between the different competing interests when they clash: creative industries, big tech and so on.

I say with great care that I do not think it is right to undermine the motives of people who are working very closely with this Government to achieve the right solution. I think I know to whom the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, was referring as the investor who advises the Government. As far as I am concerned, he has devoted a great deal of time not just to this Government but to the previous Government in wanting to do what is right, which is to keep Britain at the forefront of AI innovation. I simply want to put that comment on the record.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I do not intend to repeat what I said last time, the Minister will be pleased to hear, but there are one or two things that have arisen today which I wish to address. We were told by the Minister that the Government’s view is that we might be in danger of privileging one section of the creative industries as against another, or one section of the community that is likely to be affected by AI. However, copyright underlines everything. It is universal. If you are talking about film, television, a work of literature or anything else, copyright is the essential ingredient.

On the issue of going in small parts, with one thing leading to another, I want to mention something that happened a few years ago and that we are still trying to deal with. Before Brexit, I and others made the point to the Government that it was going to cause a serious problem for touring musicians and artists. Boris Johnson’s Government said, “We can see that; we’re not going to let it happen”. Well, we have been trying to sort it out ever since. My point is simply this: getting small issues right is incredibly important because, further down the line, they become massive. That is why I think that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, is right to keep pushing. Like many other noble Lords here, I am very concerned about ping-pong—especially when we seem to be frustrating the mandated Chamber—but, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge, once said to me, there are sometimes issues where you just have to stand firm for as long as possible. I believe that this is one of them.