Sovereign AI Fund

Baroness Kidron Excerpts

Monday 1st June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The UK benefits from access to many international service providers, whether from America or elsewhere. The way we think about sovereignty is in ensuring that the UK has the capability, access and influence it needs to ensure that the technologies that will shape our economy do so in the interests of the UK. The reason we have focused on the areas I mentioned before for the AI sovereign fund is to increase our economic resilience and reduce strategic dependency by building areas where the UK can realistically develop a comparative advantage.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

Representatives of the sovereign AI unit have repeatedly said that the companies it funds or supports with compute must comply with “applicable UK law”, including when copyright law applies to their training activity. However, they have been unwilling to say whether they will fund or support companies that scrape UK copyrighted material overseas without a licence. Will the Minister confirm that the UK sovereign AI fund will not use taxpayers’ money to support companies that train on copyrighted work without a licence, irrespective of where that training happens, whether in the UK or elsewhere? If she is unable to answer categorically, will she undertake to write with a complete answer?

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is correct to highlight that we have been clear that copyright rules should be respected and the use of copyright works to train AI in the UK requires a licence unless an exception applies. Companies supported by the sovereign AI fund are expected to comply with applicable UK law, including copyright. When we are talking about compliance in relation to grant-funded compute allocations, they equally must comply with copyright law while undertaking that funded activity.