Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

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

[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.

National Food Strategy

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Baroness Jones of Whitchurch

Thursday 24th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

It is this side. The national food strategy recognises that farmers need greater help to transition to more sustainable land use. Does the Minister understand the frustration of Minette Batters, who said at the NFU conference this week that rather than having a clear plan and vision for sustainable and productive farming, the Government are “repeatedly running” into short-term crises in the sector which they could have foreseen and pre-empted if there had been a proper food strategy backed up by the proper resources?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

We are putting enormous resources into supporting farmers, incentivising them in a different but less prescriptive way than under the common agricultural policy. We are supporting an industry-wide attempt to ensure that we are eating better, healthier, more sustainable food. There will always be problems, but we have a remarkably resilient food supply system in this country which has ridden out some very difficult bumps in the road recently. We are not complacent. We are putting enormous resources, human and financial, into ensuring that we have a sustainable, long-term, well thought-through food system in this country.