Intellectual Property: Artificial Intelligence

Ben Spencer Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dr Ben Spencer (Runnymede and Weybridge) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms McVey, and to respond on behalf of His Majesty’s Opposition in this very well-attended, knowledgeable and thoughtful debate. Given that so many Members have taken part, I can only make some brief remarks.

I want to focus on principles, which came up quite a few times throughout this debate. In a complex area, it is principles that help us get through. It seems to be tradition in this debate to say happy birthday to the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Frith)—he will be clipping this so that it can go out on his social media. He spoke with knowledge and passion, and there is not much to disagree with in what he said. He also mentioned what I see as the core principles—transparency; the ability to enforce copyright; the ability to demonstrate where data comes from, so that we can see who owns it and what the root trace is; and a technological solution linked to that, in terms of demonstrating data ownership.

I also mention my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), the Chair of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, who reiterated this week, importantly, that all companies need property rights to be enforced, and that these two are not mutually exclusive. I thank her for her extensive work in this area to push forward this debate.

The previous Government were committed to the UK being at the cutting edge of tech and creative industries, and we remain committed to that in Opposition. We have heard the concerns of the creative industries loud and clear, but we do not believe that there is anything to be gained by treating the emergence of AI as some sort of zero-sum game, where one industry wins and another fails. It should not be an either/or. This needs to be mutually inclusive, not mutually exclusive, and we believe that it is possible to achieve that.

This is a challenging and complex area to get right. Solving this problem is not simple, particularly if we look at what is happening internationally and at extra-jurisdictional issues. Quite simply, other areas have not fixed this either. If there was a straightforward solution for this problem, it would be in process right now. It is important to recognise that from the outset, and to recognise the challenge facing the Minister in fixing the problem, but I have ambition for him. I believe that he can fix it, and I look forward to him doing so over the course of the next year. It is in this direction that we as Opposition want to take things forward.

We believe that getting this area of policy right will mean focusing on some key principles. Most importantly, there should be proportionate transparency in our AI industries about how they use creative content to train their models and generate content. That should be combined with recognition and enforceability of creative rights. The development of technology in the form of a readily accessible digital watermark will be instrumental in helping creatives protect their work online. Start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises in our growing AI industries need to be supported to develop their models in a way that respects the rights of creatives. In that regard, the AI opportunities action plan identified the need to unlock public and private datasets to enable innovation and attract international talent and capital.

We tabled a series of pragmatic amendments to the Data (Use and Access) Bill in Committee that would have committed the Secretary of State to putting in place a plan to achieve those important aims within a reasonable period after the conclusion of the Government’s consultation on copyright and AI. We understand that the Government have received in excess of 11,500 consultation responses from stakeholders, which they are in the process of analysing. Given the concern that their original plans caused in our creative industries, we welcome the Minister’s announcement, following the closure of the consultation, that the Government have taken a second look at their preferred approach to regulating the sector. In particular, we welcome the renewed emphasis on the need for increased transparency about how models are trained, so that creatives can enforce their rights. This is a key area that has come up throughout the debate, and we called on the Government to set out an informed plan in Committee on the data Bill.

We appreciate that the impact of AI on intellectual property requires proper and careful consideration. We will work constructively to support the creation of policy and plans in this fundamentally important area. If we get it right, there will be tremendous economic and societal benefits to growing our AI sector and supporting our creative sector to continue to thrive. It is time for the Government to be clear about their plans, in order to create certainty for the AI and creative industries about the way forward and help promote an environment of confidence, paving the way for investment and growth.