Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]

Torcuil Crichton Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 14th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I will in a moment, but I am still answering the intervention. I had two points to make, and I will now probably forget the second one.

As I was saying, it was always going to be a package of measures, and we always said that we would not introduce that package unless we were secure in the belief that we could deliver for the creative industries a technical solution that made it simpler for them to enforce their rights and seek remuneration and that would lead to more licensing. That is a whole package.

When we last debated this, I said two things: first, that we are open-minded about where we are in relation to the consultation, and secondly—perhaps just as importantly—that our amendment 16 would require us to undertake an economic impact assessment of all the different options included in the consultation. I hope that answers my hon. Friend’s question. Somebody else wanted to ask another question.

[Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)]

rose—

[Samantha Niblett]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is in a queue. It is quite a long queue, and it seems to be getting longer.

[Torcuil Crichton]

I thank the Minister for—

[Chris Bryant]

No, no. I think my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett) is next.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I am not sure that it is popularity, Madam Deputy Speaker.

The important point is that we need to look at this in the round, rather than piecemeal. I do not think that what is on the amendment paper today would deliver anything now. Indeed, it does not purport to; it instead purports to give something in six, nine or 12 months’ time, or sometime in the future.

[Torcuil Crichton]

We can assure the Minister that he remains popular, as well as generous with his time. He mentioned the Government consultation. It has caused deep and sustained anxiety across the sector. When can we expect a substantive response to the consultation?

[Chris Bryant]

I wish I could give my hon. Friend a timeline. The main thing I want to say about the timeline, as somebody who I think all hon. Members know cares passionately not just about the anxiety that has been created in this sphere because of the consultation but about the anxiety for many creative people about their future careers, is that I get that anxiety—100%. That is the bigger point.

Frankly, I would like to stop doing the Data Bill and start going out and engaging with the Minister for AI and Digital Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark), to have as many sessions with creative industries and different parts of the sector and with the AI companies—in particular UK-based AI companies—to work out how we can get to proper solutions to all of this. However, until I get the Data Bill out of the way, I will struggle to do that.

On another point, I think of my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley as a musician, because she is still a member of the Musicians’ Union. There is a really important part here for the different sectors within the creative industries. Word, image, music and sound will all probably need different technical solutions. That is the kind of nitty-gritty that we need to get into, which we can only really do when we consider the whole issue in the round, rather than just one specific aspect of it. Now, I think Margate calls.

Parthenon Marbles: British Museum Act 1963

Torcuil Crichton Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Alberto Costa]

I welcome the contribution of the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), just as I welcome the contributions of the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Sir John Hayes). It is not so much about making a gracious gesture. My argument is about the possibility of achieving a win-win for our two respective countries that offers the United Kingdom material benefits beyond the mere possession of the marbles in the British Museum.

What if consideration were given to returning the marbles over time, perhaps over a generation—20 or 30 years—as a temporary or permanent loan, or through some other legal device? In return, I would expect the Hellenic Republic to lend some of its most highly prized treasures to be exhibited, on a rolling basis, not just in the British Museum but in principal museums across the whole United Kingdom.

[Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for securing this debate, to which I am largely sympathetic, even as a member of the British Museum. He speaks of a win-win, for which the Lewis chessmen are a template. One of the most iconic parts of the British Museum’s collection, they were found in Uig in Lewis, in my constituency, in 1831. Six pieces of the set have been returned on a long-term loan to Museum nan Eilean in Stornoway, where they are much admired, 11 are in the National Museum of Scotland, and the remainder are here in London at the British Museum. Perhaps the score is not even, but a deal is there to be done, and the Lewis chessmen provide a template for what the hon. Gentleman wants to achieve.

[Alberto Costa]

I thank the hon. Member for citing the welcome example of those artefacts, which I have enjoyed viewing on a number of occasions.

I want to ensure that every Member of Parliament and, most importantly, our constituents are able to access and see at first hand some of Greece’s most valued treasures. Let me give some examples: the Antikythera mechanism, that ancient Greek clockwork gadget that some have ascribed with a connection to Archimedes—it is basically the world’s first clockwork device, and it could be called a computer; the dazzling treasures of Philip II of Macedon, reputedly the father of Alexander the Great; the bronze statue of Zeus; or indeed the famed golden mask of Agamemnon, which was my introduction to the treasures of Greece when I read the “Collins Children’s Encyclopedia” at the age of six, back in 1977. Greece is replete with superb treasures. Imagine if we had some of those fabulous treasures on rotation in the Leicester Museum to benefit my constituents, or in the National Museum of Scotland or the Ulster Museum.

Project Gigabit

Torcuil Crichton Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd.

I thank the hon. Member for Farnham and Bordon (Gregory Stafford) for raising this important issue today. However, I wonder if he could come with me for a few seconds, away from Surrey, to Diracleit on the Isle of Harris, where I stood a few weeks ago. It is a small settlement, with only a few houses and a few social houses on the main road, but it is an internet desert. There are three tourism businesses in that settlement that know they are losing money, losing paying guests and losing their minds with frustration because of slow internet connections.

Despite superfast broadband fibre running along the main spine of the Western Isles, and many success stories—people can work for software companies in California from Lewis, and for insurance companies and accountancy firms in Glasgow and London—to be a few hundred metres off the beaten track is to remain in an internet desert.

In Harris, 10% of households are unable to get decent broadband, and the same is true across the rest of the Western Isles: 10% of households cannot get speeds over 10 megabits per second. Some of us are living life in the slow lane. Diracleit, small as it is, is not hard to reach; it is only one mile from the streetlights and sophistication of Tarbert in Harris—the ferry port and the centre of the Harris universe—and there are many other places in the Western Isles and rural Scotland just like Diracleit.

Scotland has a scheme similar to the UK gigabit voucher scheme: the Scottish broadband voucher scheme. Theoretically, that scheme would provide £5,000 to premises with speeds of less than 30 megabits per second and, theoretically, it was meant to be completed in 2021. However, it is still in the procurement stage. In response to a recent freedom of information request, the Scottish Government revealed that they expect the roll-out of superfast broadband through the R100, or Reaching 100%, scheme to reach everywhere by 2028. I do not know how many megabits per second there are until 2028 but, even in Scotland, the SNP manages to build ferries faster than that.

There are some successes. For example, the holy island of Iona has received superfast broadband. That is very good for Columba’s monks, who can now put down their quills and pick up their keyboards, but in the Western Isles, we feel we are waiting a long time. People and businesses in Diracleit and dozens of other single-track road settlements are staring at that never-connecting wheel of death. I know the Minister is under pressure to deliver for rural England, but I urge him to have words with Ministers in Scotland, who have let down the Western Isles and many other parts of rural Scotland. I hope he can press them to connect us—perhaps he could send them an email.