Copyright (Rights and Remuneration of Musicians, Etc.) Bill

Alistair Carmichael Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 3rd December 2021 Commons Chamber

[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. I want those young people to have the possibility to earn at least some part of their living from recorded music and not to have to rely entirely on live music. I will go on to develop that point further.

[Mr Alistair Carmichael (Orkney and Shetland) (LD)]

Before he does, will the hon. Member give way?

[Kevin Brennan]

I will just make one further point and then I will give way to the right hon. Member.

I was saying that artists and songwriters had not had the same boon. I think Members across the House will be staggered to know that the chairman and chief executive officer of one of the three major corporations that dominate the market of recorded music is set to receive more income this year—£153 million, according to industry press reports—than every songwriter and composer in the UK combined, including the rich ones, will receive from the streaming of their music in this country. Such facts, and the desperate plight of musicians who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hammersmith (Andy Slaughter) was just saying, have been unable to perform live due to covid, have triggered close scrutiny of exactly what is going on with the economics of music streaming.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Carmichael]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on his Bill and I am happy to support it. I hope that it gets Government support at some stage, if not necessarily today, because we should all see this as an important part of the levelling-up agenda. That agenda will never achieve the things that we want it to unless it addresses the imbalance of power between big corporates on the one hand and the individual and the small business on the other. That is at the heart of his Bill, and it is why all those who purport to support levelling up should support it today.

[Kevin Brennan]

The right hon. Gentleman is right; our duty as politicians is not only to utter rhetoric occasionally, but to turn it into reality. In the case of the music industry, he is absolutely right that this is a levelling-up measure.