Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Wednesday 4th June 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Kidron]

Leave out from “House” to end and insert “do insist on its Amendment 49F.”

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I did not expect to be here today. I am disappointed, frustrated and, to be honest, quite sad to be here and to have to make this argument again. I will make just four points and then I will listen to the House and to the Minister.

First, it is not fair, reasonable, just, balanced, or any other such word to stand in the way of the creative industries identifying those who are taking their work and their property. It is not neutral; it is aiding and abetting what we have called in the House “widespread theft”. We have asked, both privately and repeatedly on the Floor of both Houses, what the Government are going to do to stop the work of creatives being stolen right now. The answer is nothing.

Secondly, the Government may be new—ish—but your Lordships’ House is full of people with long political histories. They see time and delay in the consultation, in working groups, and in Statements to Parliament. Inaction is a powerful tool in politics.

In opposition, Labour wrote a manifesto for the creative industries that it took into the election with a raft of promises, including to

“support, maintain and promote the UK’s strong copyright regime”.

The manifesto stated:

“The success of British creative industries to date is thanks in part to our copyright framework”.


Yet we are struggling to get the Government to act on that promise, or to act on that knowledge.

The Government are aware of the stealing, aware of the law, and aware that creative work morally and financially belongs to its creator. The Government are aware that the success of creative industries depends in large part on the copyright regime, and that mass theft is breaking the press, the arts and other IP-rich businesses, and hampering the UK AI community. Inaction is not neutral. It is hurting our community and it is hurting the Government’s future prosperity.

Thirdly, all noble Lords, including me, are concerned about the primacy of the Commons. We are being accused of constitutional wrongdoing. I was very disappointed in the Minister’s opening speech. We are not trying to collapse the Bill. This Bill is a Lords starter. If we vote, we will not be double-insisting. That is entirely, 100%, in the hands of the Commons. Even though we have been here several times—largely because the Commons evoked financial privilege twice, with a very low bar—today is the first time the House would be insisting on any of its amendments. That point has been made by many noble Lords who have been in the House a great deal longer than I have.

If we were to send the Bill back for Commons consideration today, the other place would have three choices. It could choose to accept the amendment, it could choose to replace it with its own amendment in lieu, or it could choose to double-insist—and crash the Bill. I want to make it absolutely clear that, whatever transpires today, I will accept the choice the Government make. This is our last chance to ask the Government to provide a meaningful solution, and it will be in their hands alone to provide one.

Yesterday in the other place, Conservative and Liberal colleagues voted for this amendment enthusiastically, on the basis that it was a minimum that we could ask for—an amendment that the Government told me in advance of our debate that they would overturn. And indeed they did, in 38 minutes. I thank those on the Opposition Benches in the other place, many of whom have written to me this morning expressing support and the hope that noble Lords will, as they say, keep going. I thank colleagues across your Lordships’ House for their eloquent contributions and extraordinary support throughout.

I also thank again Labour colleagues who have sat on their hands and occasionally come through the Lobby with us. I know it is hard, but it is the role of your Lordships’ House to ask the Government to think again, and it is both against convention and a rebuke to the House, a rebuke to the true feelings of their own Back Benchers, a rebuke to a £126 billion industrial sector and a rebuke to the 2.4 million creative workers, to return again and again with no solution to the stealing. Unless this is a tacit deal with big tech, it makes no sense to refuse to take a power just in case, and to refuse to create a timeline or a legislative vehicle for transparency on behalf of our second-biggest industrial sector when it is crying out for our support—the very support that Labour promised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I will start by reiterating something I said in my opening remarks to make it absolutely clear to anyone who was not in the Chamber at that time. If we vote on this amendment, one of three things will happen: the Commons can consider the amendment and accept it; the Commons can put an amendment in lieu, or—and as the noble Lord said, this would be inexplicable—the Commons can collapse the Bill. That is the situation.

I also say to the House that, when I set that out in my opening remarks, I also said that if we choose to vote on this and successfully pass it, I will accept anything that the Commons does. The Commons can accept the amendment; it can put in its own in lieu or it can collapse the Bill, but I will not stand in front of your Lordships again and press our case. I have made that utterly clear, and I want that to be on the record before anybody makes up their mind about what they are going to do today.

I also say to my friends on the Labour Benches—if I can bypass the normal convention—that the Government have not listened. I am afraid that the Government told me before we had our debate on Monday that they would overturn the amendment, and they overturned it in 36 minutes; they did not take the full hour. This whole palaver is not a constitutional crisis, but it is an attempt to get the convention whereby this House is heard by the other House, they bring something back and we compromise. I understand and believe in the pre-eminence of the elected Chamber, and I want everybody to know that—in fact, when the Lord Speaker had me on his podcast, I said, “I am a turkey that will vote for Christmas”.

The other thing that I must say before we get on with this—I beg your Lordships’ forgiveness—is that I was disturbed by the Minister suggesting that I would do anything to undermine the whole of the Bill. It will not be my choice. Those amendments in the Bill to do with bereaved parents and the coroners were amendments in my name and the names of other noble Lords around this House and were the result of a similar campaign to what I am trying to do right now. I resent that.