Draft Design Right, Artist’s Resale Right and Copyright (Amendment) Regulations 2023 Draft Intellectual Property (Exhaustion of Rights) (Amendment) Regulations 2023

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd November 2023 General Committees

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mrs Cummins; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship. I thank the Minister for his speech, and other Members for their contributions.

As we have heard, the first instrument modifies four distinct laws associated with intellectual property through the authority granted in the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Act 2023. The objective of the instrument is to implement various technical adjustments to align the UK’s IP framework with the objectives of the 2023 Act. The second instrument maintains existing exhaustion rights.

Intellectual property is the key to maintaining leading British industries, so it absolutely is important that we get it right, and I know that many people working in the creative industries and other sectors are looking to us in our discussions today. In the House, it is important that we are clear about what we do. We must give businesses and the public confidence and certainty that we are treating the issue appropriately.

We recognise that artists, creative industries and others make an enormous contribution to our economy and to society, as do scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs. Long-standing legal protections of IP, such as copyright and patent, are important and need to be recognised. More broadly, the intellectual property system exists to balance the interests of creators and the public, ensuring access to work. It is important that we strike the right balance, so I hope that, as we said earlier, we are able to work on a cross-party basis on this. I look forward to the Minister’s answering a couple of specific questions that I have for him.

Having spoken to people in the industries, I would like to ask the Minister to reassure them on a couple of points. The point about collective management organisations is interesting; it appears that the regulations would make them exempt from some requirements that they currently have to comply with. Will the Minister update me on the assessment his Department made that led to this decision? There has been some comment that the exemption may be unnecessary, and there are concerns that some CMOs might not pledge to use this exemption; new CMOs could exist in the future, which may further complicate this matter. Will the Minister write to me on that specific point about CMOs?

Additionally, will the Minister respond to the suggestion that rights holders can insist on transparency reports without legal obligations resting on CMOs to produce them? Some commentators believe that that may be unrealistic. I ask the Minister to write to me about that point as well.

Finally—this is another point about CMOs—the regulations are touted as a key solution to navigate the impact of AI on creatives and rights holders as we move forward to a permitted-but-paid system of AI training or to AI use on protected content. Will the Minister also write to me about that point?

Regulation of all the infrastructure of collective licensing in the UK is critical. We should not be pushing for more transparency without considering it very carefully and, where possible, without placing undue burdens on organisations. I look forward to colleagues’ contributions on these points and, indeed, on the aspect covered by the second statutory instrument.

Artificial Intelligence Safety Summit

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Thursday 9th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. As we have heard, the opportunities of AI are almost endless. It has the potential to transform the world and deliver life-changing benefits for working people. From delivering earlier cancer diagnoses to relieving traffic congestion or providing personalised tuition to children, AI can be a force for good. It is already having a positive impact in the present: in NHS hospitals such as the Huddersfield Royal Infirmary, AI is being used to help patients, cut waiting lists and save lives. The Labour party wants that technology to be available in every hospital with our fit for the future fund.

However, to secure those benefits we must get on top of the risks and we must build public trust. We welcome the announcements made last week at Bletchley Park. The future summits in South Korea and France will hopefully lead to more agreement between nations about how we make this new technology work for everyone. The AI safety institute will play an important role in making this new technology safe. Labour supports its creation, but we do have some questions. It would be good to hear the Secretary of State explain why the new institute is not keeping the function of identifying new uses for AI in the public sector. As the institute is taking all the AI expertise from the taskforce, it is also unclear who in her Department will carry out the crucial role of identifying how the public sector can benefit from cutting-edge technology.

There are also questions about UK computer capability. The AI safety institute policy paper states:

“Running evaluations and advancing safety research will also depend on access to compute.”

Yet earlier this year, the Government had less computing power than Finland and Italy. Can the Secretary of State update the House on how much of the AI research resource to which the institute will get priority access is available and operational?

Of course, the main task of the institute is to understand the risks of the most advanced current AI capabilities and any future developments. The Prime Minister told the public two weeks ago that,

“AI could make it easier to build chemical or biological weapons. Terrorist groups could use AI to spread fear and destruction on an even greater scale. Criminals could exploit AI for cyber-attacks, disinformation, fraud, or even child sexual abuse.”

Those are stark warnings and demand urgent action from any Government. Keeping the public safe is the first duty of Government. Yet Ministers have chosen not to bring forward any legislation on the most advanced AI. All the commitments that have been made are voluntary, and that creates problems.

For example, if a new company is established with advanced capabilities, how will it be compelled to join the voluntary scheme? What if a company decides it does not want to co-operate any more? Is there a mechanism to stop that happening? The stakes are too high for those questions to remain open, so I look forward to the Secretary of State’s being able to offer us more detail.

There was a space for a Bill on pedicabs in London in the King’s Speech this year, but not for one on frontier AI. Other countries, such as the US, have moved ahead with mandatory regulation for safety and security. It is confusing for the public to hear a Prime Minister on the one hand tell the country that there are dangers to our way of life from AI, but on the other hand say that his Government are in no rush to regulate.

Labour has called for the introduction of binding regulation on those companies developing the most powerful frontier AI because, for us, the security of the British people will always come first. I hope that the Government will now consider taking action and I look forward to the Secretary of State’s response to these points.

[Michelle Donelan]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman on the importance of building trust among the public, which will also ensure the adoption of AI. In relation to ensuring that we deploy AI throughout our public services, it was this Government who just the other week announced £100 million to accelerate AI in our health missions, and more than £2 million to assist our teachers to spend less time with paperwork and administration and more time in the classroom. We will continue to work hand in hand with the Cabinet Office to ensure that we utilise AI in our public services, but to be able to do that, we must of course grip the risk, which is exactly why we called the summit.

On computing, the hon. Member will be only too aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced earlier this year £900 million for an exascale programme, which we have allocated in Edinburgh. We have also dedicated £300 million—triple the original amount announced—to AI research resource facilities in Cambridge and Bristol, the first of which will come on stream this year.

The hon. Member also referenced the risk document that we published. We were the first Government in the world to be fully transparent with the British public, showcasing the risks that AI could present. That document was produced by scientists and our national security teams.

The hon. Member referenced legislation and regulation. It is not true that we have no regulation; in fact, we have multiple regulators. In the White Paper that we published earlier this year, we set out the principles that they need to work to. We should not minimise what we achieved just last week: that agreement to do testing pre-deployment is monumental. It is—absolutely—the start of a process, not the end. We could have waited and said, “Let’s just do our own piece of legislation,” which would have taken about a year, as he knows, but we do not have a year to wait, because the next set of models will come out with six months. We also need to deepen our understanding of the risks before we rush to legislate, because we believe that we need to better understand the problems before we insert long-term fixed solutions.

We need to concentrate on putting the safety of the British public first, which is what we have done, so that we can seize the limitless opportunities of AI. I hope that the hon. Member will see the foresight that this Government have had in putting that not just on the British agenda but on the agenda of the world.

Science and Technology Framework

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Tuesday 7th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Donelan]

Exactly. As my hon. Friend points out, this is about regulation to create innovation, and we need to get those regulatory frameworks right. We also need to look at the behaviour of the regulators themselves, at how they interact with one another and at the burden they place on researchers and businesses alike.

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for her statement. Small and medium-sized tech companies provide a vital engine of growth in our economy, particularly in the Thames valley and in towns such as Reading. Can she say more about what her Department is doing to support these vital small and medium-sized businesses?

[Michelle Donelan]

Indeed. When we talk about our science and technology agenda, this is not just to support big tech; it is to support all businesses, including those small and medium-sized ones, which we hope to be able to support to scale up and continue to grow and create jobs. At the heart of our plans, the hon. Gentleman will see how we can support them in a range of different ways through the 10-point plan and by being strategic across Government, from our approach on skills to our approach on regulation. And let us not forget that this Department is coming forward with a number of pieces of legislation, including the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill, which will help to support businesses to get rid of some of that unnecessary burden, and the digital markets Bill, which is focused on freeing up some of those small businesses and unlocking opportunities for growth.