Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Debate between Earl of Dundee and Lord Rooker

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

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

My Lords, this is my first contribution on this Bill, although I have sat in every debate on this issue going back to Committee. I do not have a creative nerve in my body—I have nothing to declare—but my life and those of hundreds of millions of others have been enhanced by writers, actors and music-makers across the world.

It is sad in a way—and this is not a criticism of anybody personally who is around at the present time—that the nature of Labour in Parliament has changed. When I arrived in the Commons 51 years ago, on the Labour Benches was Maurice Edelman, 30 years there from 1945, a writer of fiction and non-fiction of note. My near neighbour, parliamentary-wise, was Andrew Faulds, who was already in; he played Jet Morgan in “Journey into Space” and Carver Doon in the series of “Lorna Doon”. In fact, I have been wondering in the last couple of days, knowing I was going to refer to him, how the little people—the little helpers for the Prime Minister in the Whips’ Office in the other place—would cope with Andrew today. He was a formidable character who could scare the life out of his friends.

Thirty years after that, I joined this place. Ruth Rendell was on the Benches. David Puttnam, the world-renowned producer, joined some years later, and we have my noble friend Lord Cashman. I make this personal. I do not speak for any of them and have not spoken to anybody about what I was going to say, although I indicated my view to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, at the weekend. But I am being asked to deliver wholesale—I have to say that I have a bit of criticism about delivery—the work of these people to big tech. I am not doing it. I have not the slightest intention of doing it, which is why I shall vote for this amendment.

[The Earl of Dundee (Con)]

I too support the noble Baroness.

As I said at the previous stage of this Bill, it surely goes without saying that our United Kingdom copyright law has to counter the increasing theft of intellectual property by artificial intelligence companies.

As the noble Baroness’s present amendment illustrates, we should provide transparency criteria that would allow copyright holders to identify when and from where their work has been taken. I am sure that all your Lordships will agree with that aim, as well as being well aware of the strong human rights back-up support to us from the 46 states’ affiliation of the Council of Europe, of which the United Kingdom remains a prominent member and of whose education committee I am a recent chairman.

As many of your Lordships know, first and foremost, Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects the right to privacy, including of personal data. Article 1 of its initial protocol protects property rights, including intellectual property rights and copyright.

Secondly, Article 5 of the Council of Europe Convention on Cybercrime prohibits system interference by, for example, the transmission of computer data, while its Article 10 stipulates

“Offences related to infringements of copyright and related rights”.

Thirdly, Article 11 of the 2024 Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law safeguards privacy and personal data.

Regarding copyright protection in recent centuries, and as emphasised at an earlier stage of our discussions on this Bill, we can be justly proud of our own United Kingdom record, beginning, as is well known, with the Statute of Anne 1710, which granted legal protection to publishers of books.

In the interests of those both here and abroad, we must now uphold the high standards of that tradition. The United Kingdom should guide the good practice. Here, today, supporting the noble Baroness’s amendment is a clear example of our ability so to do.

Agriculture Bill

Debate between Earl of Dundee and Lord Rooker

Report stage & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard) & Report: 3rd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Tuesday 22nd September 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Dundee (Con) [V]]

My Lords, within this grouping, I support my noble friend Lord Trenchard’s helpful amendments. First, on United Kingdom and EU standards, he corrects a misapprehension or, maybe, he forestalls it before it has time within the Bill to solidify as a regular misunderstanding. For, as he points out, there is no difference between domestic standards and European Union ones. They are identical.

Secondly, what is also insufficiently known—and as my noble friend also usefully observes—in certain respects, the UK and EU are not compliant with World Trade Organization rules. I am in favour of Amendment 103 of the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, which urges that United Kingdom global tariff rates should take into account the well-being of the agricultural sector and that imported goods must be equivalent to, or exceed, domestic standards.

[Lord Rooker (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I will make a brief contribution. In fact, I was going to opt out altogether because I did not want to repeat anything that anyone else had said. Certainly, I support the questions that the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, asked at the beginning of the debate and, frankly, I expect the Minister to answer all six of them. They were quite specific.

It is worth pointing out that, unlike Ministers, the Food Standards Agency is actually required to do things by law. I will read out Section 1(2) of the Food Standards Act 1999:

“The main objective of the Agency in carrying out its functions is to protect public health from risks which may arise in connection with the consumption of food (including risks caused by the way in which it is produced or supplied) and otherwise to protect the interests of consumers in relation to food.”


By law, Ministers do not have that obligation. They think they can hump it away in the Commons, but I have news for them: if they want to take on the role of Food Safety Minister, they ought to have a bit of a history lesson about salmonella, orange juice, BSE and CJD. Then they will realise why the FSA was put there in the first place. It was not a happy experience for previous Ministers without its support.

I will make one further point relating to what the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh, has said about chlorinated chicken. I do not think I have got her wrong, but I do not want to mislead. She said that she could eat it safely because the issue was about animal welfare, not the safety of the food, and she is right. However, published research from the University of Southampton has shown that chlorine washing of food does not take away all the nasty bits. They started off, I think, by washing vegetables, but they have since looked at meat—I am not sure whether this was chicken or other meat. However, the fact is that this is not a solution to the problem.

The other thing that is also worth point out is that, in the United States of America, over 400 people a year die from salmonella. In this country, no one has died—I think there was one case in the last eight years—compared to 400-plus in the United States. I am not saying that it is because they ate chlorinated chicken, but I am saying that it is pretty unsafe in respect of deaths from salmonella in the United States, which seeks to push its food onto us without necessarily labelling it. Therefore, there are some issues here that must be carefully looked at.

As for the Minister, I have not been in my office or at my desk for well over 12 months, but I have a little file up there with at least a dozen quotes from the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, who is a reputable Minister, on food standards over the last three or four years. He has more of a claim than any other Minister to reassure the public and Parliament.