Employment Rights Bill

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 23rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

In conclusion, these amendments are not designed to obstruct the Bill but to strengthen it. They seek to ensure that freelancers, particularly those working in the arts and cultural sector, are heard, supported and protected. I beg to move.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

I declare an interest as a freelance television producer. Although I was not able to add my name to Amendment 160, my support for it is undiminished. Fortunately, I was able to add my name to Amendment 161, which I know would also give much needed clarity to freelancers.

Much of the creative industries’ employment, particularly in television, is in crisis. Hundreds of thousands of people working in the industry are unemployed, and many of them are freelance. Action needs to be taken now to protect some of the most skilled and experienced talent in this country. They need support in legislation, and urgently. The actions suggested in Amendments 160 and 161 would go some way to help their predicament.

Like my noble friend Lord Clancarty, I support the Government’s creative industries sector plan, which will set up a creative freelance champion. I welcome the Government saying that the champion’s role will be developed in discussion with industry. However, I have spoken to freelance advocates in various sectors of the economy and they all say that the champion’s powers need to be laid down in the Bill if they are to be effective.

I echo my noble friend Lord Clancarty in his concern about the powers of the champion. As it stands in the industrial strategy document, the champion will be giving out advice, which might make the Government feel good but will not definitively improve the lot of freelancers.

My fear is that the new champion will be nothing more than a data collector, whereas the problems of freelancers need to be addressed with decisive legislative powers. Their success will come down to the powers they wield. Noble Lords have only to look at the Office of the Small Business Commissioner. The outgoing commissioner, Liz Barclay, has done extraordinarily well as a vigorous campaigner for small business, but she has limited powers to mediate. She cannot make decisions, nor take enforcement action. I believe that proposed new subsection (6), to be inserted by Amendment 160, especially paragraph (b), would be some remedy when setting up the freelance commissioner.

The Good Work Review sets out a whole series of commitments to the self-employed, including badly needed strengthening of their rights to a written contract, action to tackle late payments, and extended health and safety protections, all of which are obstacles faced by freelancers and many of which cannot be tackled by the freelancer themselves without damaging their reputation and limiting their careers. Amendment 160 would give specific powers to the freelance commissioner to deal with this problem.

If the Government are not going to accept this proposal for a commissioner, I press the Minister on what kind of action can be taken to implement effective solutions in these areas. I am particularly exercised over the area of contracts. How will the new champion examine the myriad contracts in existence and the variety of issues they tackle? For instance, many freelancers are asked in their contracts to opt out of the Working Time Regulations so that they can work up to 15 hours a day and, on some days, 18 hours a day. This trend is increasing in the current climate of diminishing budgets and ever-tightening schedules.

This plays into one of the most pressing issues for freelancers: health and safety. Many big film and television productions set up discrete, single-vehicle companies solely for the period of the production. They often do not have an HR person or anybody who is concerned specifically with health and safety. These vehicles are dissolved once the production has ended so that there is nobody with long-term responsibility for what happens to a production team. As a result, so many companies create schedules in which 15-hour working days are becoming the norm, rather than the exception, as used to be the case. A freelance commissioner should be able to examine and stop these abuses.

The commissioner also needs to examine the financial issues faced by freelancers. The nature of their work has the advantage of flexibility and variety, but many disadvantages when it comes to pension provision. Most are covered when in work, but often there are lacunae between contracts which leave freelancers with poor pension provision. A commissioner needs to be able to sort out a hybrid pension product, like a lifetime ISA. This would give an option of adjustable contributions or those that could be paused, or consolidating retirement savings into a single annual event.

Just as importantly, the commissioner would need to champion professional career development. At the moment, there is so little training or continuous career development for freelancers. Successful training programmes would create qualified and technical staff for the industry. The solution should include tax relief, with a structural cap on expenses relating to career development.

Part of the problem in protecting freelancers is defining who they are. So many production workers operate on non-permanent contracts. They are technically classified as self-employed, but their working conditions do not support the definition. They cannot negotiate the hours nor send substitutes in their place, nor operate with genuine autonomy. The creative industries sector plan lists a range of self-employed categories which could be covered by the freelance champion—these were mentioned by my noble friend Lord Freyberg.

This brings us to Amendment 161. The noble Lords, Lord Clement-Jones and Lord Freyberg, set out many reasons why this amendment is crucial to ensure that freelancers are treated properly. Definition is crucial in so many areas of work in the creative industries, which once again brings me to highlight the lack of health and safety enforcement for freelancers. The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 says there needs to be adequate training of staff to ensure that health and safety procedures are understood and adhered to. Unfortunately, so many independent production companies regard only their small full-time core teams as staff, and not the majority of the production team, who are freelance and treated differently. One result is that the production company pays only for the core team to go on health and safety courses, and the freelance staff are forced to pay hundreds of pounds to fund themselves to go on the same courses, which are essential for the safe delivery of the production. Even when the production company does pay for freelance staff to go on these courses, there are problems. I have spoken to health and safety course providers who say the productions have asked them to drop the module on long working hours.

If Amendment 161 is accepted, the confusion over what constitutes “staff” would be clarified. Freelancers have problems with the IR35 status when HMRC claims that the freelancer is employed and so cannot benefit from the tax advantages of being self-employed. It can take time for a freelancer to prove their status.

I know that the Minister and the Government are on the side of freelancers, but we need to make sure that the freelance champion can do so much more than just deliver warm words. A freelance commissioner would have clearly defined, effective decision-making and enforcement powers. Only then will many hard-pressed freelancers be properly supported.

Employment Rights Bill

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 14th July 2025 Lords Chamber

Amendment 2 not moved.

[The Deputy Speaker (Viscount Colville of Culross) (CB)]

I need to warn your Lordships that if Amendment 3 is agreed to, I cannot call Amendments 4 to 6 by reason of pre-emption.

Amendment 3 not moved.

Online Abuse: Protection for Children

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Wednesday 11th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for raising this profound issue. Ofcom’s codes go beyond current industry standards and practices. Under the Online Safety Act, companies cannot decline to take steps to protect children, including young girls, because it is too expensive or inconvenient. Protecting children is a priority. The Secretary of State has said that safety by design is one of the priorities in the statement of strategic priorities of this Government. Ofcom is required to consider those priorities in its approach to online safety regulation and will need to provide regular updates on how they are being delivered.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, why have civic groups and campaigners been told that their responses to the consultation on the children’s code will not be considered for incorporation into the code until the next round of regulations in 18 months’ time? When dealing with the rapidly evolving tech sector, does the Minister not agree that this regulatory cycle is too slow?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, as part of its statutory duties, Ofcom consulted widely on the proposals in the codes and considered responses from a wide range of stakeholders, including children and civil society organisations. Ofcom has been clear that it has reflected these views in its decision. It has made a number of changes reflecting feedback from civil society stakeholders. For example, it has substantially strengthened the expectation on services that set a minimum age—often 13.

Ofcom: Protection of Children Codes

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend for that question. I should make it clear that Ofcom’s codes will improve child safety online and go beyond similar regimes elsewhere to achieve this. By regularly conducting thorough risk assessments, services can proactively identify emerging threats and adapt safety measures accordingly. The Government’s measures in the code allow Ofcom to hold companies accountable for their overall management of risks to children. Ofcom will monitor implementation of risk assessment processes and code measures, building on its approach where needed. The Government will separately monitor whether legislation needs to be strengthened.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, Ofcom has identified live-streaming as a functionality which causes harm. There is nothing in the codes requiring the tech companies to mitigate this risk. Does the Minister agree that such an urgent issue, which cannot wait until Ofcom’s additional safety measures consultation, should be included in the present children’s codes?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

The noble Viscount has raised an important issue. Ofcom has recognised that live-streaming can pose specific risks to children and will consult on proposals to reduce these risks, alongside a number of other measures. It will publish this consultation before the Summer Recess. The Act and Ofcom’s codes are clear: services are required to use highly effective age assurance to prevent children encountering primary priority content, including pornography. That will extend to live-streaming services that allow pornography.

Online Harms: Young People

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Wednesday 21st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

I thank the noble Baroness for that important point. Media literacy in all its forms is important for parents, teachers and young people, to make sure that we create a respectful online environment. Ofcom has specific media literacy duties that it will carry out. Its media literacy strategy prioritises research and initiatives to address online misogyny, including research to understand how such harmful behaviour occurs. As set out in the strategy, Ofcom expects its work on online misogyny to directly target teenage boys and young men. However, the noble Baroness is right that it goes further than that: we have to educate parents as well, to look at what their children are accessing. There is a huge job of work to be done on education in the wider sphere. Obviously, schools are playing their part in that now, as the noble Baroness acknowledged, but we have far more to do on this, and all aspects of government are addressing these issues.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, the Online Safety Act allows Ofcom to look at how much children are using social media, yet the new children’s code from Ofcom does not mention addiction. What are the Government doing to deal with the problem of screen addiction among our children?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

The noble Viscount will know that schools already have a policy, or are expected by the Department for Education to have one, to ensure that children do not have access to phones in schools. That is a clear policy that the Government are keen to reiterate. What we are talking about here is what children do outside the school environment. From July, the children’s code of practice will provide much greater reassurance and protection for children. Services will be expected to provide age-appropriate experiences online by protecting children from bullying, violent content, abuse and misogynistic content. In other words, there will be much more forceful regulation to specifically protect children. Obviously, we will continue to monitor the codes of practice, but there are specific new powers under the code that come into effect in July and we want to see their impact.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

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

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, despite the fact this is not being pushed to a vote—I respect that, and I concede that the Government have made some clarifications, and potentially concessions, along the way in this debate—I think that the issue is not yet resolved. I call on the Government to try to solve this problem now, rather than leave it open to more years of muddle, confusion and misinterpretation, and that can happen away from here. I have noticed that the Government are not averse to using the odd statutory instrument, to which I am usually opposed; in this instance, I urge them to use a statutory instrument to sort this out. I fear that, unless they do, it will undermine trust in the new system.

To clarify, we are looking to identify datasets that have muddled up sex and gender, such as data from HMPO and the DVLA, and those that have not, such as sex registered at birth. Because of that muddle, we cannot rely on those databases. Is that not the very point? We are trying at this point to provide clarity to DVS providers. By the way, this would not in any way result in outing individual transgender people when they are using the DVS system to prove their identity or other attributes, such as their age or whatever. We are trying to ensure that each database has some consistency. If a dataset allows some people to be recorded as the wrong sex, then the whole dataset is unreliable as a source of sex data.

It was very helpful that the Government clarified in the midst of this, for example, that an official document such as a passport, whatever is written on it, cannot be proof of a change of sex; it is simply a record of the way somebody wants to be identified and is no use as a reliable source of sex data. As I have said, there are other official documents such as the driving licence where that is not the case.

I would simply urge the Government, from their own point of view, so that we do not carry on having this muddle and confusion and so that this system becomes trusted, to make sure that they sort this out, even if they will not do so here and now.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her engagement and for defining what genuine scientific research is. I hope very much that the AI companies, when using this extraordinary exemption, will listen to the Government, and that the Government will ensure that the policy is enforced. The trust of the people of this country would be lost if they felt that their data was being reused by AI companies simply for product enrichment and profit, rather than for genuine scientific research. I thank the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose, and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, for their parties’ support.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for her introduction to the three Motions in this group.

On these Benches, we welcome the Supreme Court’s judgment on the meaning of “sex” in the Equality Act 2010. However, as Ministers have stressed—and we agree—it is paramount that we work through the implications of this judgment carefully and sensitively. As we have previously discussed, the EHRC is currently updating its statutory guidance.

Ministers have previously given assurances that they are engaged in appropriate and balanced work on data standards and data accuracy, and we accept those assurances. They have given a further assurance today about how the digital verification services framework will operate. We rely on those ministerial assurances. In summary, we believe that the previously proposed amendments were premature in the light of the EHRC guidance and that they risk undermining existing data standards work. On that basis, we support the Minister in her Motions A and D.

Turning to Motion B, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, will not press his Amendment 43B at this stage, as he intends to accept the assurances given by Ministers. We have consistently supported the noble Viscount’s efforts to ensure that scientific research benefiting from the Bill’s provisions for data reuse is conducted according to appropriate ethical, legal and professional frameworks. The Government have given significant assurances in this area. We understand that their position is that the Bill does not alter the existing legal definition or threshold for what constitutes scientific research under UK GDPR. The Bill does not grant any new or expanded permissions for the reuse of data for scientific research purposes, and, specifically, it does not provide blanket approval for using personal data for training AI models under the guise of scientific research. The use of personal data for scientific research remains subject to the comprehensive safeguards of UK GDPR, including the requirement for a lawful basis, the adherence to data protection principles and the application of the reasonableness test, which requires an objective assessment.

The collection of assurances given during several stages of the Bill provides reassurance against the risk that commercial activities, such as training AI models purely for private gain, could improperly benefit from exemptions intended for genuine scientific research serving the public good. I very much hope that the Minister can reaffirm these specific points and repeat those assurances.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

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

[Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town (Lab)]

My Lords, I too will speak to Motion 32A. I thank my noble friend the Minister for his confirmation of the Government’s welcome of the Supreme Court ruling and his welcome of the Sullivan report. I also very much welcome the words that he has used today and thank him for the discussions that we have been able to have.

Can he confirm that where the Equality Act allows for a women-only space, any digital IT system used for that purpose would refer to biological sex as the relevant information? With regard to public authorities, I assume that organisations such as Sport England and the GMC are counted as public authorities because they are statutory. At the moment the GMC does not record the biological sex of doctors, only the gender. When that also goes digital, will it be confined to biological sex so that, again, patients can know the sex of their physician, assuming that it will be digital? I think that the Minister understands the questions I am posing and that his wording does give that reassurance, but any clarity would be welcome.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I stand in support of my Motion 43A. I welcome so much of this Bill. I want this country to be a champion of technology and hope that it becomes a tech powerhouse, attracting hundreds of millions of pounds-worth of investment in the development of AI. I understand the concerns expressed by the Minister, but I am still pressing ahead with this amendment because I want the people of this country to have control of their data and how it is used.

This amendment is a push-back against the way the AI companies have been abusing the use of people’s data in training their AI models. Last year, Meta reused data from Instagram users without their consent to train up its Llama AI model. Once this was discovered, there was a huge outcry from the owners of the data and an appeal to the ICO. As a result, Meta stopped the processing and the ICO said,

“it is crucial that the public can trust that their privacy rights will be respected from the outset”.

I want to make sure that when the Bill becomes law, it reassures the people of this country that they can trust the new technology. The battle to stop the abuse of data is a central concern of my indomitable noble friend Lady Kidron, who is sitting beside me and whose amendment is in the next group. It responds to the theft of copyright belonging to millions of creatives, including authors and artists, by AI companies. As it stands, Clause 67 gives a powerful exemption, allowing AI companies to reuse data without consent if they can show that their work aligns with the definition of “scientific research” set out in the Bill. I fear that this definition is so widely drawn that it will allow AI models to reuse data without consent, claiming that they are carrying out scientific research when in fact they are using it for product development and their own profit.

I thank the Ada Lovelace Institute for its constant support throughout the lengthy progress of this Bill. I expressed my concern in Committee and on Report. Chi Onwurah, the very respected chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee in the other place, tabled a similar amendment. However, despite meetings with Ministers, they have offered nothing to assuage our concerns, which has forced me to push this amendment at this stage.

Proposed new paragraph 2A inserted by this amendment would tighten the definition of what counts as scientific research. It is taken from the Frascati manual, developed by the OECD in order to compare R&D efforts made by different companies and identify what key features underpin them. The Government support the Frascati definition. In Committee, the Minister said the research test set out in the Bill “will not operate alone”, and will

“be in the context of the Frascati definition and the ICO’s guidance”.—[Official Report, 21/1/25; col. 1637.]

He said that the Frascati definitions are merely guidance and that codification would bring burdens on scientific researchers, but this is not a new requirement: it is simply a codification of an existing standard set up by the ICO.

The central feature of this part of the amendment is that scientific research should increase the stock of human knowledge. The Minister has told your Lordships that not all scientific research will be new knowledge, that scientific research is often refuted or confirms previous findings, and that some scientific research will fail. But if there is refutation or confirmation of an experiment, that is an extension of human knowledge. Even if research fails, the researcher will know that the experiment does not work, and that is new knowledge. The requirement for scientific research to increase the stock of knowledge is a sensible precaution to preserve our data from abuse, and it will weed out the tech companies piggybacking on the clause for their own profit.

The purpose of this amendment is not just to tighten the definition. It is also to make sure that researchers have to consider it when they start to deploy the exemption for the reuse of data. The Minister has said it will lead to undue burden on scientists and stop research going ahead, but this definition is already being used by the ICO. The problem for a person whose data is being abused is that at the moment, if they want to appeal against its use without consent, they have to go to the ICO, which then has to apply the Frascati definition.

The ICO’s latest statistics show that only 12% of data protection complaints are dealt with within 90 days, compared with the target of 80%. Surely that means it is too late for the appeal against reuse of data without consent. The data will already have been absorbed into the AI training model and, as we have been continually told, it is hard for AI researchers to identify data once it is included in part of the model.

Proposed new paragraph 2A inserted by this amendment would stop this happening. By our putting a definition in the Bill, the AI researchers would have to consider it before reusing the data for their model, therefore saving data subjects having to appeal to the ICO if they are concerned about abuse.

Proposed new paragraph 2B inserted by this amendment responds to the Government’s claim that the “reasonably described” test in this clause is a tightening of the definition of scientific research. Over 14 of our leading law companies have looked at the Government’s test as set out in the Bill and described it variously as loosening, expanding or broadening the definition. However, Clause 67 asks the question whether the research can be reasonably described as scientific. The ICO or the courts will have to consider whether it is irrational to call this scientific research, but it is very hard to prove irrationality; it is a high bar.

I hope noble Lords will agree that the use of the usual reasonableness test asks, “Would a reasonable person conducting scientific research perform this activity in this manner?”. This test evaluates actual conduct against an objective standard of what constitutes proper scientific research.

The amendment seeks to realise what is already a requirement: that such research be conducted in line with standards based on the UK Research and Innovation Code of Practice for Research. It would ensure transparency for the use of scientific research. I am sure that during the course of the debate we will hear from scientists who will say that this debate will stifle research and stop new researchers undertaking work. However, this requirement is minimal, and the information required is that which researchers should already have to hand.

What I ask your Lordships to bear in mind when voting is that this amendment would give transparency into how people’s data is being reused. The new tests laid out in my amendment would be a powerful weapon in the fight against the abuse of people’s data. I want the new technologies to be successful, but they will be successful only if they have the trust of the people of the country. If people think that the Government have caved in to tech companies and allowed them to pillage our data for their own financial gain rather than for the progress of human knowledge, most will be outraged. I ask the Minister to assuage these fears and ensure that the Bill provides data in the people’s interests. Meanwhile, I will ask the opinion of the House at the end of this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Viscount Colville of Culross]

43A: At end insert “, and do propose Amendment 43B instead of the words so left out of the Bill—

43B: Clause 67, page 75, line 28, at end insert—
“2A. For the purposes of paragraph 2, “scientific research” means creative and systematic work undertaken in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of humankind, culture and society, and to devise new applications of available knowledge.
2B. To meet the reasonableness test in paragraph 2, the activity being described as scientific research must be conducted according to appropriate ethical, legal and professional frameworks, obligations and standards.””

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I listened carefully to the speeches of the noble Lords, Lord Winston and Lord Tarassenko, but I am not convinced that my amendment would stop the research as they suggested. However, it would protect users’ data as the technological revolution unfolds. I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.

Employment Rights Bill

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

2nd reading
Thursday 27th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a freelance TV producer. I welcome aspects of this Bill. It does much to improve the rights and status of millions of employees and workers in this country, at a time when holding down a job is increasingly precarious. In particular, I welcome the changes to zero-hours contract arrangements. I understand that this will create some extra burdens for SMEs that need flexibility, but it will give important security to many low-paid workers. However, I, like many other noble Lords, am worried that much of this Bill is reliant on Henry VIII powers. I hope the Minister will listen to these concerns.

In firming up employees’ rights, I would like the Government to look at umbrella companies, which are being used increasingly in supply chains to pay workers. They are seen by clients and recruitment agencies as useful, because the umbrella company, not the actual company for which the individual is working, is the employer and responsible for PAYE. My concern is that these umbrella companies are not regulated. Their lack of transparency means it is unclear whether they are treating workers fairly, not applying hidden charges or withholding benefits that workers are entitled to. In far too many cases, clients that use umbrella companies do not always carry out due diligence on them. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell the House whether the Fair Work Agency that is being set up will have a role in overseeing umbrella companies to ensure that they are compliant and transparent, and to ensure that non-compliant umbrella companies do not enter the work supply chain.

This is the Employment Rights Bill, so it deals with employees, but I echo my noble friend Lord Freyberg when I ask the Government to take seriously the rights of the self-employed as well. They are a growing part of the workforce. There are over 4.1 million self-employed workers in this country, over half a million of whom are self-employed mothers. They contributed £366 billion to the UK economy last year. The Labour Party policy paper Make Work Pay says:

“Labour is the party of the self-employed and recognises their significant contribution to the UK economy”.


It promises to strengthen rights for the self-employed and deal with many issues that have long dogged the freelance world, such as the right to a written contract, action on late payments and health and safety protections for the self-employed.

As they bring this Bill to Parliament, I ask the Government to be aware of the danger of widening the gap between the employed and the self-employed, and the gap between the rights enjoyed by employees and those of the self-employed who lack protection for sick leave, parental leave and protections against unfair dismissal. This needs to be a major consideration for the Government.

I understand the current definition of employment under common-law employment tax rules is vague and open to interpretation, which can lead to conflict, often ending-up in the tax tribunal. So I welcome the Deputy Prime Minister saying, in her Second Reading speech on this Bill in the other place, that there are plans to set up a single category of worker to amalgamate the employee and the worker status. However, I ask the Minister to be aware of the concerns of the self-employed in creating a single status of worker. This could disadvantage freelancers, who make up much of the workforce, especially in the creative industries. The nature of their work means that they bob in and out of all these current employment statuses. The single category must incorporate this flexibility in employment, and I too add my support for setting up a freelance commissioner who could sort through these concerns and report to government.

The final issue I will draw to noble Lords’ attention is that of unpaid internships. I made my maiden speech, some time ago, against this scourge on our employment landscape. It is particularly prevalent in the creative industries and creates a serious barrier to social mobility. Can the Minister tell the House whether there are plans to ban all unpaid internships longer than four weeks? Our economy can thrive only if it is accessible to people from all backgrounds. I hope that the Government will follow this Bill with many of the pledges in the Make Work Pay paper to ensure that the UK maximises the opportunities for our workforce and safeguards the position of workers, whatever their employment status.

Copyright and Artificial Intelligence

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, of course the Government recognise the concerns that many in the creative industries have about the potential impact of AI on that sector. This is why we want to act now to give UK creators greater control over their works and more transparency about how their work is being used, as well as creating the ability for them to be paid for it. That is exactly what the proposals in our consultation aim to achieve. But I should say that this is a complicated area, because AI adoption also has the potential to drive growth across the economy, including in the creative industries. For example, 38% of creative industry businesses are already using AI technologies. So this is a complicated area, but we know we have to find a solution and protect the interests of creatives in the future in the way that the noble Baroness has alerted us to.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, the Government intend to take out the transparency amendments tabled by my noble friend Lady Kidron in the Data (Use and Access) Bill. What provision are they going to make to ensure that creatives know that their copyrighted work has been pirated by AI models, so that they can then take action?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government agree with many of the points made during the debate on the data Bill, and in other discussions in this House, that further transparency is needed from AI developers about their use of web crawlers and the materials that they use to train their models. However, we have a consultation out and it would be premature to commit to specific legislation until we have analysed the responses to that consultation and heard all the voices in this sector. Nevertheless, I assure the noble Viscount that we intend to resolve this issue. It is one that the previous Government failed to resolve and we need to resolve it now, so we will take action as soon as the consultation has been analysed and resolved.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 18th December 2024 Grand Committee

Finally, at the recent All-Party Parliamentary Group for Writers reception, we heard a moving speech by the author Joanne Harris, who made perhaps the most important point. She said that to a lot of the public, as soon as you utter the words “artificial intelligence”, people still think it is science fiction. It is not science fiction. As Joanne Harris and others have pointed out, it is happening now and happening in a big way. The Government need to deal with these concerns both urgently and effectively.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords I have been very impressed by the speeches of my noble friends Lady Kidron and Lord Freyberg, so I will be very brief. I declare in interest as a television producer who produces content. I hope that it has not been scraped up by AI machines, but who knows? I support the amendments in this group.

I know that AI is going to solve many problems in our economy and our society. However, in their chase for the holy grail of promoting AI, I join other noble Lords in asking the Government not to push our creative economy under the bus. It is largely made up of SMEs and single content producers, who do not have the money to pursue powerful AI companies to get paid for the use of their content in training their AI models. It is up to noble Lords to help shape regulations that protect our data and copyright laws and can be fully deployed in the defence of the creative economy.

I too have read the Government’s Copyright and Artificial Intelligence consultation paper, published yesterday. The foreword says:

“The proposals include a mechanism for rights holders to reserve their rights”,


which I, like my noble friend Lady Kidron and others, interpret as meaning that creators’ works can be used by AI developers unless they opt out and require licensing for the use of their work. The Government are following the EU example and going for the opt-out model. I think that the European Union is beginning to realise that it is very difficult to make that work, and it brings an unfairness to content producers. Surely, the presumption should be that AI web crawlers should get agreement before using content. The real problem is that content producers do not even know when their content has been used. Even the AI companies sometimes do not know what content has been used. Surely, the opt-out measure is like having your house raided and then asking the burglar what he has taken.

I call on the Minister to work with us to create an opt-in regime. Creators’ works should be used only when already licensed by the AI companies. The companies say they usually do not use content, only data points. Surely that is like saying to a photographer, “We’ve used 99% of the pixels in a picture but not the whole picture”. If even one pixel is used, the photographer needs to know and be compensated.

The small companies and single content producers of our country are the backbone of our economy, as other noble Lords have said. They are threatened by this technology, in which we have placed so much faith. I ask the Minister to respond favourably to Amendments 204, 205 and 206 to ensure that we have fairness between some of the biggest AI players in the world and the hard-pressed people who create content.

[Lord Hampton (CB)]

My Lords, I support Amendments 204, 205 and 206 in the names of my noble friends Lady Kidron and Lord Freyberg, and of the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Clement-Jones, in what rapidly seems to be becoming the Cross-Bench creative club.

I spent 25 years as a professional photographer in London from the late 1980s. When I started, retouchers would retouch negatives and slides by hand, charging £500 an hour. Photoshop stopped that. Professional film labs such as Joe’s Basement and Metro would work 24 hours a day. Snappy Snaps and similar catered for the amateur market. Digital cameras stopped that. Many companies provided art prints, laminating and sundry items for professional portfolios. PDFs and websites stopped that. Many different forms of photography, particularly travel photography, were taken away when picture libraries cornered the market and drove down commissions to unsustainable levels. There were hundreds if not thousands of professional photographers in the country. The smartphone has virtually stopped that.

All these changes were evolution and the result of a world becoming more digitised, but AI web crawlers are different, illegally scraping images without consent or payment then potentially killing the trade of the victim by setting up in competition. This is a parasite, but not in the true sense, because a parasite is careful to keep its victims alive.