Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

I call the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I rise to support new clauses 2 to 5 in the name of the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins); to pay tribute to Baroness Kidron, who has driven forward these amendments in the other place; and to speak in favour of new clause 20 in the name of the official Opposition.

I am beginning to sound a bit like a broken record on this matter, but our creative industries are such a phenomenal UK success story. They are our economic superpower and are worth more than automotive, aerospace and life sciences added together, comprising almost 10% of UK registered businesses and creating nearly 2.5 million jobs. More than that, our creative industries have so much intrinsic value; they underpin our culture and our sense of community. Intellectual property showcases our nation around the world and supports our tourism sector. As a form of soft power, there is simply nothing like it—yet these social and economic benefits are all being put at risk by the suggested wholesale transfer of copyright to AI companies.

The choice presented to us always seems, wittingly or unwittingly, to pit our innovative AI sector against our world-class creative industries and, indeed, our media sector. It is worth noting that news media is often overlooked in these debates, but newspapers, magazines and news websites license print and content online. In turn, that helps to support high-quality and independent journalism, which is so vital to underpinning our democratic life. That is essential considering recent news that the global average press freedom score has fallen to an all-time low.

I want to push back against the false choice that we always seem to be presented with that, somehow, our creative industries are Luddites and are not in favour of AI. I have seen time and again how our creators have been characterised by big tech and its lobbyists as somehow resistant to technological progress, which is of course nonsensical.

[Chris Bryant]

I want to knock on the head the idea that any Government Minister thinks that the creative industries are Luddites. As I said in the debate in Westminster Hall—I know that the hon. Lady was not able to be there—many creative industries use all sorts of technical innovations every single day of the week. They are not Luddites at all; they are the greatest innovators in the country.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

I thank the Minister for that reassurance. I did take part in a Westminster Hall debate on this matter a couple of weeks ago, but one of his colleagues was responding. I made the same point then. Quite often in the media or more generally, AI seems to be pitted against our creative industries, which should not be the case, because we know that our creative industries embrace technology virtually more than any other sector. They want to use AI responsibly. They do not want to be replaced by it. The question before us is how lawmakers can ensure that AI is used ethically without this large-scale theft of IP. We are today discussing amendments that go somewhere towards providing an answer to that question.

[David Davis]

On this issue of Luddites, surely one of the problems for English language creators is that what they create is of more value because of the reach of the English language over others. Therefore, they are more likely to have their product scraped and have more damage done to them.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

My right hon. Friend makes a very good observation, but the fact is that so much content has already been scraped. Crawlers are all over the intellectual property of so many of our creators, writers and publishers—so much so that we are almost in a position where we are shutting the gate after the horse has bolted. Nevertheless, we need to do what we can legislatively to get to a better place on this issue.

New clause 2 would simply require anyone operating web crawlers for training and developing AI models to comply with copyright law. It is self-evident and incontrovertible that AI developers looking to deploy their systems in the UK should comply with UK law, but they often claim that copyright is not very clear. I would argue that it is perfectly clear; it is just that sometimes they do not like it. It is a failure to abide by the law that is creating lawsuits around the world. The new clause would require all those marketing their AI models in the UK to abide by our gold-standard copyright regime, which is the basis that underpins our thriving creative industries.

New clause 3 would require web crawler operations and AI developers to disclose the who, what, why, and when crawlers are being used. It also requires them to use different crawlers for different purposes and to ensure that rights holders are not punished for blocking them. A joint hearing of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee and the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee heard how publishers are being targeted by thousands of web crawlers with the intention of scraping content to sell to AI developers. We heard that many, if not most, web crawlers are not abiding by current opt-out protocols—robots.txt, for example. To put it another way, some developers of large language models are buying data scraped by third-party tech companies, in contravention of robots.txt protocols, to evade accusations of foul play. All this does is undermine existing licensing and divert revenues that should be returning to our creative industries and news media sector. New clause 3 would provide transparency over who is scraping copyrighted works and give creators the ability to assert and enforce their rights.

New clause 4 would require AI developers to be transparent about what data is going into their AI models. Transparency is fundamental to this debate. It is what we should all be focusing on. We are already behind the drag curve on this. California has introduced transparency requirements, and no one can say that the developers are fleeing silicon valley just yet.

New clause 20, tabled by the official Opposition, also addresses transparency. It would protect the AI sector from legal action by enabling both sides to come to the table and get a fair deal. A core part of this new clause is the requirement on the Secretary of State to commit to a plan to help support creators where their copyright has been used in AI by requiring a degree of transparency.

New clause 5 would provide the means by which we could enforce the rules. It would give the Information Commissioner the power to investigate, assess and sanction bad actors. It would also entitle rights holders to recover damages for any losses suffered, and to injunctive relief. Part of the reason why rights holders are so concerned is that the vast majority of creators do not have deep enough pockets to take on AI developers. How can they take on billion-dollar big tech companies when those companies have the best lawyers that money can buy, who can bog cases down in legislation and red tape? Rights holders need a way of enforcing their rights that is accessible, practical and fair.

The Government’s AI and copyright consultation says that it wants to ensure

“a clear legal basis for AI training with copyright material”.

That is what the new clauses that I have spoken to would deliver. Together they refute the tech sector’s claims of legal uncertainty, while providing transparency and enforcement capabilities for creators.

Ultimately, transparency is the main barrier to greater collaboration between AI developers and creators. Notwithstanding some of the unambitious Government amendments, the Opposition’s amendments would provide the long-overdue redress to protect our creative industries by requiring transparency and a widening of the scope of those who are subject to copyright laws.

The amendments would protect our professional creators and journalists, preserve the pipeline of young people looking to make a career in these sectors themselves, and cement the UK as a genuine creative industries superpower, maintaining our advantage in the field of monetising intellectual property. One day we may make a commercial advantage out of the fact that we are the place where companies can set up ethical AI companies—we could be the envy of the world.

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

I rise to support the Bill and speak to new clauses 22 and 23 tabled in my name. The measures in the Bill will unlock the power of data to grow the economy, to improve public services and make people’s lives easier. By modernising the way in which consumers and businesses can safely share data, the Bill will boost the economy by an estimated £10 billion over the next decade. The Bill will also make our public services more efficient and effective, saving our frontline workers from millions of hours of bureaucracy every year, which they can use to focus on keeping us safe and healthy.

United States Film Tariff

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

There is no doubt that this speculation will cause huge worry to those working in British film production, but, as the Minister says, it highlights once again the importance of bolstering the British screen sector. We recommended steps to deliver that in a recent Select Committee report, yet within days of publishing it, his Department had already asked for an extension to the time in which it would respond. This weekend we heard rumours that the whole Department is up for the chop under his Government—I am not sure if that is before or after he has sacrificed our creative industries on the altar of AI. The Minister is a brilliant communicator, and I know that deep in his heart he cares passionately about this issue, but when will he show some grit and action on behalf of our world-leading creative industries, in particular our screen sector?

[Chris Bryant]

I hope the hon. Lady accepts that there are areas where I have taken very deliberate action on the back of recommendations from her Committee, not least in relation to a levy on gig and arena tickets to fund support for small music venues—but I take her point. I was not aware that we had asked for an extension. We will get on with providing a response to her as fast as possible. It was an excellent report; I have read it. It contains lots of good things that I want to take forward, but we probably will not be able to do everything in it.

It is really important that we focus on skills in the UK screen industry; that has been raised repeatedly with me. I want every kid in the country to have a chance to work in the creative industries, including in film and high-end television. Many would not even think that that was a possibility, so we need to transform the whole pathway into those industry skills; I know that that is one of the things that the hon. Lady’s Committee has raised.

Intellectual Property: Artificial Intelligence

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd April 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your stewardship, Ms McVey. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Frith) not only on securing this debate, and an excellent opening speech, but on his birthday.

One of the saddest things about this debate, and the pickle that the Government have led us into, is that it inadvertently pitches the AI sector and the potential for growth against our world-leading creative industries. That almost caricatures our creators as luddites against innovation, and that could not be further from the truth. There is no appetite in the creative industries to restrict this technology across the sector. They recognise the potential of AI—so many are already using it, and that is borne out in the statistics. In 2023, a Deloitte survey said that 74% of digital artists are already using AI, along with 67% of film and motion creatives. Those numbers will only grow over time.

We hear from almost every quarter about the serious concerns over our £130 billion creative industries—that AI, left unchecked, will represent an existential threat to their growth and very existence. Incidentally, that growth has outstripped that of the wider economy since 2010. Despite the potential of AI, we know that our creative industries are growing at an incredible rate. They are our global superpower—economically and reputationally, and that does not happen by accident. Those industries rely on the strength of a gold-standard British intellectual property regime, and they have made it clear to the Minister—and to every one of us in this room—that watering that down would rip the carpet out from under a tried and tested growth industry.

AI needs creators and the data they provide—but that data must be paid for, not stolen. Ironically, big tech relies on the strong IP regime as well; I am sure no one was more surprised than I was when Sam Altman at OpenAI noted, with irony, that DeepSeek had exploited its open-source model.

The Minister and I agree that the best way forward is to promote transparency across the AI sector. Where we disagree is on the Government’s prepared proposal for an opt-out system, which is utterly unworkable. That has been proven internationally. If they press on with this madness, we must find a way to safeguard the rights of creators by explicitly demonstrating where their work has been used in a commercial setting.

AI growth must not come at the cost of our creators and our world-leading creative industries. The two do not have to be mutually exclusive; there must be an opportunity here for this to be a country where both can flourish, in a transparent and accountable environment where everyone’s talents are recognised. I ask the Minister once again to think long and hard before he does anything that could rip up the potential of our world-leading creative industries. Both can grow collaboratively and make this country so much stronger.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

I am very reluctant to give way, if only because I have quite a lot of things to get through. I am really sorry. We will have another debate on this issue very soon, I am sure.

Sixthly, several Members referred to people wanting a “legal peace of mind”. I am not reiterating the line about whether or not there is legal certainty; that is not the point I am making. Many individual creators have been in touch with me directly—I am sure that they have been in touch with other hon. Members—to say, “I don’t know where I stand now under the existing law. I understand how Getty Images can go to court and enforce their rights, sometimes on behalf of themselves but also on behalf of the people they represent, but how do I do that for myself when I’ve just posted some of my works online, because I’m advertising my works? I don’t want to disappear from the internet, so the robots.txt system doesn’t work.”

That is a really important area where we need to do work. We have a framework of civil enforcement of copyright in the UK. It is robust and it meets the Berne convention issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North referred to, but it is still easier for those who have lawyers and cash to use it. That is why we have collecting societies, which can be more effective in many areas, but the different segments of the creative industries that we are talking about have to be dealt with differently, because a musician, an artist, a photographer, somebody who writes or somebody whose words or voice are being used are all treated differently, or their rights are enforced differently at present, and we need to make sure that there is that legal peace of mind for all those people into the future.

My hon. Friend said that a technical solution for rights reservation does not yet exist and he is absolutely right. I think a couple of other Members made that point, and I know that the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, which is admirably chaired, has referred to some of these matters, including in a letter to Secretaries of State. But why do we not make it happen? I am determined to make it happen. Surely, it cannot be beyond the wit of the clever people who are developing all this technology to develop something. If we could get to a place where it was very easy for any individual, or everybody—

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I only have 45 seconds left, so I am afraid that I cannot; I am sorry.

If we were able to deliver that over the next 12 to 18 months in the UK, then we genuinely would be leading the world and we would be answering the problems of transparency and provenance, and making sure that people were genuinely remunerated. That is one of the things I am determined to do.

My hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi), who is no longer in his place, said that we must listen to the creative industries before any legislation is introduced. He is 100% correct. I absolutely commit that that is what we will do. Somebody else said that technology is not good or bad; I think they were almost quoting “Hamlet”. I will make the point that artificial intelligence was made for humanity by humanity, not humanity made for artificial intelligence, and we need to make sure that we get the balance right.

Finally, my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North started the debate by saying—because he had to—that we have “considered” the impact of AI on intellectual property. We have not adequately considered it yet. We have to consider it more. We were not intending to legislate in the data Bill, and there is no clause in it, on opt-out. There is no such clause. There is no need to take it out, because it does not exist. I am determined to get us to a place where people are properly remunerated, where they are able to enforce their rights, and where AI can flourish in this country and be used by the creative industries and the creative industries are not left by the wayside. In short, to quote the Bible, we will not sell our birthright for a mess of pottage.

Online Safety Act: Implementation

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2025 Westminster Hall

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright) on securing this vital debate. When he introduced the online safety White Paper in 2019, it was because we could not rely on big tech to regulate what was hosted on their platforms; it simply wasn’t working. Under the previous Government, we saw the tragic death of Molly Russell in 2017 and the complete failure of tech firms to adequately police illegal content on their sites, let alone the lawful but awful content that was being fed to our children from dawn till dusk.

Here we are, six years later, to discuss how the Online Safety Act is being implemented. In the meantime, virtually every Minister who has held the baton for this issue, including myself for a couple of years, has used this piece of legislation as almost a silver bullet for every harm that is encountered in the online world. I have often said that if ever there was a piece of legislation for which the phrase, “We mustn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good” was invented, it is this one. We now need to hit the ground running and ensure that the legislation is implemented fast and effectively, in line with the sentiment that gave rise to it, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam suggested. Every day that Ofcom does not enforce its age assurance requirements for porn providers and illegal harms codes is a day that young children across the country are at serious risk of having their childhood stolen.

The Online Safety Act was a complicated and groundbreaking piece of legislation. No other Government in the world at the time had attempted to regulate the internet so effectively. I was pleased that when the Bill came back from the House of Lords, it was not just the size of the platforms that was taken into account when deciding the category of service, but the level of risk they represented, which is also really important. It is important to recognise that other countries and the EU have legislated while we have refined, and now we need to act.

I am glad that since the Act was passed in October 2023, Ofcom has worked at pace to bring forward codes on areas such as children’s safety duties, illegal harms and age assurance, which will have a massive and tangible impact. Ofcom intends to consult on further proposals to strengthen the codes this spring, and it is really important that that focuses on the issues we are seeing, such as hash-matching for terrorist and intimate image abuse content. That is particularly important considering the emergence of deepfakes as the new front in the war against women and girls—99% of pornographic images and deepfakes are of women.

In the light of this increasingly agile, polarising and inventive online world, I am concerned by reports in the media that the Government have decided to put the drive to keep protections up to date with tech developments on ice. There are reports in The Telegraph that Elon Musk is pushing for the Act to be watered down as part of a bargain to avoid trade tariffs. We are all looking for reassurance that, after so many years of work on this legislation by so many people, the Government will not water down or somehow filter its protections.

The Government have acknowledged that there has been an increase in suicides among young people, with suicide-related internet use found in 26% of deaths in under-20s. They made a manifesto commitment to build on this Act, and they must not row back on that. We cannot give up the fight to make the digital world a more pleasant and user-friendly place. We must never forget that if internet companies were doing what they say they are to implement their own terms and conditions, this legislation would not even be necessary, and the Government need to hold them to account.

Creative Industries

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Alice Macdonald (Norwich North) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in this important debate. I want to focus on three areas: our potential in Norwich, education and supporting freelancers. The creative industries are something that I am passionate about. I grew up in Norfolk, and for much of my childhood my mother ran the local arts centre in King’s Lynn. Particularly in rural areas, we sometimes forget the value of arts and culture. As a councillor in Southwark, I held the culture portfolio, and I saw at first hand the many systemic challenges facing our creative industry.

I want to pause briefly on the rosy picture painted by the right hon. Member for Daventry (Stuart Andrew). As the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) just alluded to, local government faced huge cuts under the Conservative Government, and we saw a reduction in council spending on arts and culture. I think it is important to recognise the huge impact that austerity has had on our creative industries.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I am sure the hon. Lady would also recognise that there will be sites in her constituency and beyond that were saved during the pandemic by the actions of the then Government. Some £1.57 billion in the culture recovery fund protected cultural venues up and down the country from what was potentially an existential crisis.

[Alice Macdonald]

I recognise that point, but as a culture portfolio holder I saw that we increasingly had to bid for small pots of money, without overall systemic funding. We were able to keep all our libraries open, but many local authorities were forced to make difficult decisions. I recognise that there were some decisions during covid, but they were against a backdrop of long-term cuts to our cultural sector which we also need to recognise.

Let me move on to some of the brilliant places I have in my constituency and in Norfolk. Data from the Creative Industries Policy and Evidence Centre shows that clusters of creative businesses support positive economic, social and cultural change across the UK, not just in major cities. My own city of Norwich has been identified as an emerging creative cluster. It is a world-class UNESCO city of literature, home to the National Centre for Writing and the wonderful creative writing course at the University of East Anglia, which counts Ian McEwan, Rose Tremain and, more recently, Emma Healey, as graduates. Norwich was even the first city to adopt the Public Libraries 1850 Act. Today, it is home to the wonderful Millennium library—it is also a library of sanctuary, which is very important at the moment—and the Sainsbury Centre for visual arts. I particularly want to highlight the “pay what you can” model it has just introduced to ensure that culture is accessible to all. Before Christmas, I saw the world premiere of Carlos Acosta’s “Nutcracker in Havana” in Norwich, which has now come to London. As well as investing in opportunities outside London, we can also learn a lot from what we see in those areas.

On skills, we have a great ecosystem in Norwich. We have: the University of East Anglia, which I mentioned; the Norwich University of the Arts, supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council to invest in a new immersive screen facility in Mile Cross in my constituency, which will help to create good quality jobs for the future; and City College Norwich, with cutting-edge digital teaching facilities. We are also home to many entrepreneurs and start-ups. I really welcome what the Minister said about ensuring access to finance. I visited Akcela, a start-up incubator, which highlighted that that is one of the biggest barriers to SMEs in our area.

We have a huge amount of potential in Norwich, a lot of which is not known about. In my role as one of the Members of Parliament for that city, I want Norwich to be recognised for what it is: a centre of innovation and creativity, as well as a very historic and beautiful city to visit. We have a huge amount to be proud of, but we need joined-up action at all levels to unlock it. As I have heard from many in the sector, we need stability and certainty, which I know the Government are determined to bring.

I want to ask the Minister about a few specific areas. I welcome the £40 million funding he referenced for the Create Growth programme, the UK Games Fund and the UK Global Screen Fund. It would be good to understand how businesses in my area can benefit from that funding. The UK Research and Innovation’s creative clusters programme, delivered via the Arts and Humanities Research Council, has been shown to boost regional economic growth. Norwich has yet to benefit from creative cluster investment. Will the Minister update us on that programme, so that more regions can benefit?

We have touched on devolution, which is a big topic of conversation in Norfolk right now, as it is in many areas across the country. I welcome the ambition to give local areas more control over growth and skills, which is a big barrier in this area. Can the Minister also assure me that the creative industries will play a key part in devolution and that for areas such as Norfolk, where we do not yet have a devolution deal or a mayoral combined authority, we will not lose out on investment while that goes through its journey? I welcome the recently published Norfolk growth strategy from our county council and the local business board, which lays out a pathway to how we can maximise the creative industries.

Let me turn now to education. We have seen, and data shows, that there has been a decline in people studying creative subjects at further education and higher education level. We saw the value of creative education talked down under the previous Government, even though we know it is important to invest in it as well as subjects such as science. I hope the Government’s curriculum review will restore creative education to the heart of our schools and ensure that all pupils can benefit from studying music, theatre, creative writing and more. If creative education is not central to the school curriculum, we know it becomes the domain of the wealthy and more privileged. We must open up opportunity to all children irrespective of their background or which school they go to.

When I was a child, I was able—as I am sure many Members were—to benefit from free music lessons. Although the cello does not get much of an outing any more, I note the importance of music lessons in school. Too often, music provision is not stable across the country and can be insufficient. Will the Government commit to improving and expanding music teaching in schools, and ensure that the workforce is valued and treated with respect? I also want to make a point raised by one of my constituents regarding the need for young people with special educational needs and disabilities to get extra support, in particular the need for people with autism to get into arts and the broader creative sector.

Finally, a note on freelancers. As I mentioned, I was the cabinet member for culture as we came out of the pandemic. I heard from many freelancers about the very difficult impact the covid pandemic had on them, and a feeling that too often, and not just in that period, their voice is not heard in the sector. Freelancers comprise a large proportion—about 28%—of the creative sector workforce. Freelancing comes with many benefits such as flexibility, but many risks too, such as low pay and a lack of entitlement to a range of workplace rights. I hope the Minister, in his closing remarks, will update us on support for freelancers, including any conversations with the Department for Business and Trade pertaining to the Employment Rights Bill.

There are many areas that could be discussed in this debate and I have touched on a few of them. We have discussed AI at length, but my constituents have also raised with me the importance of getting the balance right in that area. Overall, it is clear that the Government recognise the benefit of the creative sectors and will invest in them. I think the Minister will be invited to every single place in the country, but I hope he might come to the east of England to see how much there is to offer. I look forward to working with him and his team to maximise that benefit.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I am delighted to have the opportunity to talk about our world-leading creative industries. I listened very carefully to everything the Minister said, and there was a lot of it. I love his undoubted passion for these sectors, and I love the understanding he has for them and the really strong rhetoric he puts into his support for them. I just hope and pray that it is contagious, and that he has the energy to ensure that it delivers a real, meaningful and robust commitment from the Government that turns into action on behalf of these sectors.

There is so much we can be proud of. In the past couple of weeks we have seen Oscar nominations for Felicity Jones, Cynthia Erivo, Ralph Fiennes and everyone’s favourite, “Wallace and Gromit”. I am sure the Minister was not impervious to the brat summer that we all went through last year, reflected in Charli XCX’s five Brit award nominations. This year, we will have the inaugural South by Southwest London event and the World Design Congress, which will be taking place here for the first time in more than 50 years.

Our creative industries are remarkable and they have an immense soft power value. I welcome the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office working together to increase the UK’s influence abroad. As ever, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee is a trailblazer, working with the Foreign Affairs Committee and the International Development Committee last year to look at the BBC World Service and its future. Ministers can expect to see the results very soon.

The launch of the Soft Power Council, as a collaboration between DCMS and the FCDO, has been welcomed by the creative industries. I say welcomed, but I should say tentatively welcomed. Alongside warm words, the sector also needs to see the Government walk the walk if they are really to harness the global super power of our creative industries, whether by cutting red tape, establishing bilateral cultural agreements that enable our creatives to tour the world, or looking at how we pitch Government intervention to ensure the world continues to invest here. With that in mind, I am concerned that the breadth of the creative industries is under-represented on the council. Fashion, design, video games and, apart from music, most of the performing arts are missing, despite their immense popularity and international influence. I wonder whether the Minister could look at that.

[Chris Bryant]

It might be easier to answer that immediately. I have been very keen to try to make the council a bit smaller, but it will have lots of separate working groups that will include all the creative industries the hon. Lady talked about. In the end it is about deliverables—it is not just about having another talking shop—and that is what I am very keen to deliver.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

We may be here for a long time if the Minister answers every question that I am going to ask over the next few minutes, but let us have a go.

We in the Select Committee are very excited, because tomorrow the Minister will be appearing before us for the final episode of a very long-running inquiry into film and high-end television. I do not want to give away too much—no spoilers, Madam Deputy Speaker—but I would like to share with the House evidence that we received recently. Everyone will have had a different TV highlight over Christmas, but two massive hits were undoubtedly “The Mirror and the Light” on the BBC and “Black Doves” on Netflix. Peter Kosminsky, the director of “The Mirror and the Light”, told us that every streamer turned down the option to take up the show, despite the awards, the critical success and the acclaim for that first series of “Wolf Hall”. In fact, the only possible way to make it was for the producer, the writer, the director and the leading star to give up a significant proportion of their fees. It is unimaginable—is it not?—but it is not unique.

The Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television, charmingly known as PACT, has warned that 15 green-lit dramas are stuck unmade because the financial contribution that a public service broadcaster can offer, together with sales advance and UK tax breaks, simply is not enough to compete with the current inflated cost environment. Jane Featherstone, the producer of “Black Doves” and other massive hits such as “Broadchurch” and “Chernobyl”, told our Committee that the PSBs were being “priced out” of making high-end drama, which means that British stories for British audiences are at risk, as are the training grounds for the next generation of talent. We talk so much about the importance of creative education, but if we do not have the jobs for those young people to come into when they leave school, we are selling the next generation a dream. I know that the Minister and the Secretary of State value the telling of British stories, so the Minister can expect us to press him on that tomorrow.

When it comes to British stories from across our isles, we cannot overlook the value of our PSBs and the challenges that they face owing to competition from international streamers and changing audience behaviour. The uniquely British flavour of PSB productions such as “Fleabag”, “Derry Girls” and “Peaky Blinders” makes them some of our most popular and enduring exports, but it is no exaggeration to say that they are facing an existential challenge. Over the coming months we will hear from the leadership of the BBC, Channel 4 and Ofcom about the BBC charter review, the implementation of the Media Act 2024, and the wider challenges that they face. We will also want to discuss advertising with them and with other broadcasters. The shift from broadcast to online advertising is not new, but we must ensure that broadcasters are not left disadvantaged by outdated competition rules.

I want to make sure that the creative industries are delivering for their employers and contractors. CIISA, the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority, under the brilliant stewardship of Jen Smith and Baroness Kennedy, is at a critical point as it concludes its consultation on standards today. It concerns me that while some parts of the creative industries make positive noises about CIISA, in reality they do not lean in, and other organisations —especially those with headquarters abroad—are reluctant to engage at all. I know that the Minister cares about this, but if we are to recruit and, critically, retain talented people, there must be no hiding place for bad behaviour.

I am delighted by the Minister’s commitment to our grassroots music venues levy, and for the signal that he will be willing to act if a voluntary solution is not working out. The establishment of the LIVE Trust is a step in the right direction, and I hope that more will be done to include artists and independent promoters in the conversations about where the money will go and how it is distributed. May I ask the Minister to give us an update in his closing speech?

Let me continue my whistlestop tour of the creative industries and the performing arts. Last week, the National Theatre launched its “Scene Change” report, which highlights the willingness of the performing arts to innovate in their business models. I am sure that the Minister will look carefully at its recommendations, but I want to pull out two key points. First, as he said, our creative industries generate more for our economy than aerospace, oil and gas and renewables combined, and they need a robust industrial strategy to match their firepower. Without investment, there is no innovation. The National Theatre, for example, is as much a totemic British export as BAE or Rolls-Royce. “National Theatre at Home” has brought productions to new audiences across the United Kingdom and, indeed, the world. However, few in the sector have the funds for such projects, and I hope that the Minister will consider the report’s recommendation of an innovation fund, which could drive growth. Secondly, UK Research and Innovation, which the Minister also mentioned, exists to foster research and innovation, yet the creative arts are wildly under-represented, given their gross valued added.

I know that the Minister enjoys a bit of theatrics, so while I was at the National Theatre, I wondered which of its productions reflected him best. There is “The Importance of Being Earnest”; one review of the current production noted

“just the right amount of delightful mischief.”

There is “Nye”, the story of a hugely influential Welsh politician taking policies through against enormous opposition. But then I realised that we needed to go back a bit further, to the smash hit “One Man, Two Guvnors”, because the Minister finds himself working for both the Science Secretary and the Culture Secretary. Our story begins as he tries to justify the Government’s proposals on artificial intelligence and copyright.

The Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology has claimed that I do not understand the idea of consultations, and the Minister has claimed that I do not understand the detail of this consultation. I am beginning to feel a bit gaslit by it all, but I know that the Science Secretary is not saying the same thing to the creative industries, because I am told that he is refusing to meet them at all. I wonder whether the Minister is telling the creative industries that they do not understand the detail—because everyone I have spoken to in the sector seems to understand the detail perfectly, and they do not like it.

This is not about pitting the creative industries against Al. This is not a luddite sector; the creative industries use Al to great effect, and are always at the forefront of embracing innovation. The Minister said so himself: he said that they never abide by the straitjacket of conformity. The aim is a system that is transparent, as he said, but with licensing arrangements that protect intellectual property. The Government’s consultation paper says there is a “lack of clarity” in the regime, but the people I speak to tell me that the situation is perfectly clear, and that the large Al developers cannot legally use it to their advantage. Instead, the Government’s proposals move the onus on to creators to protect their work, rather than Al developers having to seek permission to use it. This is known as the opt-out. We have the opt-in, the opt-out, the opt-in, the opt-out—it is the legislative equivalent of the hokey-cokey.

The fact that unscrupulous developers are not seeking permission from rights holders does not mean that we should bend the system in their favour. Our world-leading creative industries have made it clear that the European Union’s opt-out model, which the Government’s consultation favours, does not work. They say that there is no existing technical protection measure that allows rights holders to easily protect their content from scraping, and web bots take advantage of that unworkable system to copy protected works, bypassing inadequate technology and the unclear copyright exception. Put simply, the EU opt-out system creates an even greyer area.

I know the Minister does not agree with me on that, but may I ask him to agree with me on just two points? First, if the Government are determined to go down the opt-out route, any opt-out must be tightly defined and enforced, so that developers cannot wilfully disapply it or plead ignorance. Secondly, any technical solution that protects rights must be adequately future-proofed, so that creators and developers do not simply end up in an arms race to find new ways to stop those who are hoovering up copyrighted works.

May I also ask the Minister to address two questions? I have always said that AI should provide the solution to AI, and that is what we all hope will happen, but what if a suitable technical solution that protects rights is not found? Do we stick to the status quo, and keep the onus on AI developers to follow the law? It is notable that the creative industries are not represented on the Science and Technology Cabinet Committee. Can the Minister confirm that they will have a voice when the final decisions are made? If they are not, as he says, to be the cherry on the cake, they will need that seat at the table.

I do not want to end my speech on a pessimistic note. There is much to be optimistic about for our creative industries; they are the envy of the world on virtually every front. The Minister loves a song quotation, and it is almost as if the top three songs of all time, according to Rolling Stone magazine, could provide the backdrop for him and his role right now. Do you know what they are, Madam Deputy Speaker? “A Change is Gonna Come”, but the Minister needs to “Fight the Power” and give our creative industries what they deserve: “Respect”.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Follow that, Jo Platt!

Artificial Intelligence Opportunities Action Plan

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Peter Kyle]

The people of Stoke-on-Trent are extremely lucky to have such a strong advocate, not just for the infrastructure of the future but for the skills and the talent that exists across Stoke-on-Trent. I can assure my hon. Friend that we are eagerly awaiting any interest that Stoke-on-Trent shows in the growth zone area and in all the other announcements that came out in the plan today. We will not do “to” communities; we will partner “with” communities, areas and the nations of the United Kingdom to ensure that everyone benefits. Those who are hungry to embrace the agenda will have an active partner in my Department and this Government.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

The action plan calls for an AI sector champion in the creative industries, but what the Government really need is a creative industries champion. The Government’s copyright and AI consultation, which is so crucial for the creative industries, does not close until 25 February. One option on the table includes maintaining our current gold-standard copyright regime. Why does it seem that the Government have already made up their mind on that consultation? This plan heralds the reform of the UK text and data mining regime to be as least as competitive as the EU’s. This plan makes a nonsense of that consultation, does it not?

[Peter Kyle]

The hon. Lady, unfortunately, does not understand the idea of a consultation. We are open minded and we are listening eagerly to the sector. What I will not do is be forced to make a choice. We have the second-largest creative industries market in the world and the third-largest AI market in the world. This is a gift for a country like ours: two great sectors that are rooted in the future of where global economic prosperity lies. She and the Conservative party want us to make a choice between one or the other. We will not make that choice. On her call for a Government champion for the creative arts, we have one: the Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism, my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant). I sit alongside him and am very grateful to do so.

Live Events Ticketing: Resale and Pricing Practices

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

I call the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I welcome the Government’s putting music fans at the forefront of these consultations, although the Minister will know that I would like him to go further and have a full fan-led review of music. Meanwhile, looking at the details of these consultations, it is telling that while Ticketmaster welcomed the resale consultations, it is silent on the dynamic pricing issue. The Minister will recall that Oasis told their fans that dynamic pricing was a

“tool to combat ticket touting”.

Does he agree that if the Government act decisively to stop large-scale touting from inflating ticket prices, there will be less need for promoters such as Live Nation to have to use dynamic pricing?

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Member makes a good point, and it is a delight to be able to agree with her on something in this area at the moment. We might yet have a little bit of a disagreement over copyright and artificial intelligence, but I think that is only because she has misunderstood what we are trying to do. I hope to be able to sit down with her and talk it all through.

We want to ensure that we get the legislation right, and that is why we are doing a consultation rather than just storming ahead with a piece of legislation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Washington and Gateshead South (Mrs Hodgson) said, there is no point in carrying out any of these measures unless we have a proper system of enforcement.

Online Safety: Children and Young People

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Lola McEvoy (Darlington) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered online safety for children and young people.

Just give me one second to get my notes in order, Mr Dowd.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Lola McEvoy]

I will!

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Lady has called a debate on a really important issue. Could she set out why she thinks that now is a really important time to discuss this vital topic?

[Lola McEvoy]

I will—and I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. It is my great honour to open this debate on online safety for our children. I welcome the Minister answering for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), answering for the official Opposition. I tabled this as my first debate in Westminster Hall, because I believe this issue is one of the most defining of our time. I promised parents and children in my constituency of Darlington that I would tackle it head-on, so here I am to fulfil that promise.

I would like to put on the record that I have long been inspired by the strength of the parents of Bereaved Families for Online Safety—a group of parents united by the unbearable loss of their children and by their steadfast commitment to get stronger online protections to prevent more children’s deaths. I say to Ellen, who is here with us this afternoon: thank you for your courage—you have experienced unimaginable pain, and I will do everything I can to prevent more parents from going through the same.

The consensus for action on this issue has been built, in no small part due to the incredible drive of parents to campaign for justice. It is felt in every corner of the country, and it is our job as a Government to step in and protect our children from online harm. In my constituency of Darlington, at door after door right across the town and regardless of background, income or voting intention, parents agreed with me that it is time to act to protect our children. I am taking this issue to the Government to fight for them.

I am standing up to amplify the voice of the girl who sends a picture of herself that she thought was private but arrives at school to find that it has been shared with all her peers; she is not only mortified but blamed, and the message cannot be unsent. I am standing up to amplify the voice of the boy who gets bombarded with violent, disturbing images that he does not want to see and never asked for, and who cannot sleep for thinking about them. I am standing up for the mother whose son comes home bruised and will not tell her what has happened, but who gets sent a video of him being beaten up and finds out that it was organised online. I am standing up for the father whose daughter refuses to eat anything because she has seen video after video after video criticising girls who look like her. I say to all those who have raised the alarm, to all the children who know something is wrong but do not know what to do, and to all those who have seen content that makes them feel bad about themselves, have been bullied online, have seen images they did not want to see or have been approached by strangers: we are standing up for you.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I start by paying tribute to the hon. Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy), who made really powerful and impactful comments, as have all those who have spoken today. I join her tribute to the bereaved families who have done such incredible work to campaign on this vital issue. I should, before anything else, direct everybody to the work of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), who was the architect—the genesis—behind the Online Safety Act. I was one of the many Ministers who took over that baton for a couple of years and pulled the Act together.

As the hon. Member for Darlington said, only when we meet families who have been deeply impacted by online dangers and online harms does the impact of this really land with us. For me, meeting Ian Russell, whose daughter Molly took her own life in 2017 as a result of the content that she had seen online, underlined how incredibly disastrous for young and vulnerable people the harms of the internet can be.

As the hon. Lady said, it is not just about the sites that are hosting inappropriate content; it is about the algorithms that take someone’s fears and anxieties and put them into an echo chamber where they are normalised and reinforced, which is the most dangerous part of this. Unfortunately, it is the algorithms that social media companies prize above everything else; they are the most jealously guarded parts of their organisations. Molly was one example resulting from that, but there are so many other examples of suicide, self-harm, anxiety, eating disorders and body image issues that come out of that world.

A year on from the Online Safety Act, it is interesting to see how it is fully implemented, particularly against the backdrop of the speed at which technology is evolving. It is frightening because, virtually every week in our constituencies, we see examples of the harms that are out there. In my constituency, just in the last couple of weeks, junior-age children were using the online world to bully and harass each other. That is something that used to stay within the school gates. Bullying still happened—I am so elderly, and it happened when I was at school—but it was something that was left behind at the school gates; it did not follow you home. Also, 27% of children have seen pornography by the age of 11, which brings a very toxic view of sex and relationships.

The Online Safety Act will hopefully encourage providers to do what they say they are doing when it comes to protecting children online, but the Minister has a huge responsibility to make sure that that happens, and to hold not just them but Ofcom to account to make sure that it is robustly implementing the guidelines that it is setting up. There are some amazing champions of that—Baroness Kidron has made incredible strides in the other place—but we need to make sure that Ofcom has not only the powers but the capacity. It has a huge amount under its jurisdiction and there is a huge amount of pressure. I know that the Minister will work very hard to ensure that it is held to account and equipped with what it needs.

Edinburgh Festivals: Cultural and Economic Contribution

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

It is a huge pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Efford. I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray) on securing the debate and on the excellent way in which he championed his city. As someone who has visited the festivals during August many, many times over the years, he has made a fine case for the value of them and makes me want to go back again.

Anyone who has visited Edinburgh at any time of the year will say what a wonderful, vibrant and historic city it is. I was not at all surprised to find out that of all the cities in the UK, Edinburgh receives the highest proportion of international visitors to the UK: 68% of the total. The challenge for policymakers is how to grasp the strong pull factors and turn them into gold dust that benefits not only Edinburgh but the rest of Scotland and indeed the rest of the UK. The festivals play a massive part in that.

How can we best use our cultural heritage to further our soft power abroad and promote prosperity at home? The 11 major festivals that comprise the Edinburgh festival are a perfect tool to do it. The international festival, the Fringe and the tattoo always get the limelight, but of course 11 festivals make up the complement. The Edinburgh international book festival, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, remains the biggest in the world, with more than 900 authors in attendance.

However, the reports that have been released by the festivals lay bare some of the significant challenges, including the rise in the cost of living accommodation and security expenses, and the costs are being exacerbated by the frustrating, restrictive and punitive bureaucracy that has been imposed on Edinburgh’s landlords by the Scottish Government. I also have concerns about the future of funding for acts at festivals such as the Fringe. Both those issues tie into the all-important question of how and why the Government should and could be stimulating cultural activity, specifically to develop artists, actors and creators.

This issue is too big for Edinburgh council to deal with alone: it has an impact on the whole of Scotland and the whole of the UK. In short, it is for all of us to work out how the various festivals can continue to play a role as the incubator—a sort of research and development department for world-class artistic talent—and a role in tourism, expanding the horizons of those who come along and see them. That is why, despite the fact that both culture and tourism are devolved, the previous Government spent £1 million supporting the festivals with their digital offer.

It is the talent that brings visitors in their hundreds of thousands. There were 700,000 unique visitors last year alone, and that number does not account for the many artists who require somewhere to live. They are the up-and-comers who are looking for their big break. They are young, not well off and looking for somewhere cheap to stay, but for many the heavy-handed licensing and prohibitive legislation around short-term lets is destroying any chance of their being put up for the night. Gone are those days when a well-meaning, friendly person who wanted to support aspiring artists could just give over their spare bedroom for a few weeks.

New regulations require landlords to be compliant with rigorous safety rules, fit and proper person tests and assurances that the let will not adversely affect the community. The measures have adversely impacted the availability of short-term lets, which is especially ironic considering the fact that 72% of locals say that the festivals make Edinburgh a better place to live. If my local city was inundated with people every year and I could not find a table to go out and eat, I am not sure whether I would feel the same way, but people do feel the benefit of the festivals.

I urge anyone with a stake in the future of Edinburgh festivals to engage with Edinburgh council’s consultation on the scheme, which closes on Monday. The Scottish Government would do well to review the 2022 regulation and ask themselves why they have decided to restrict access to one of our most successful cities and festival programmes at a time when the events are inevitably finding it more expensive and difficult to operate.

I hope the Minister will have a conversation with his counterpart in Holyrood and emphasise the benefits not just to Scotland but to the nation as a whole, and the need to cut through the bureaucracy and enable the market to work a lot more effectively. I am worried about the effect of the Scottish Government’s budget cut to Creative Scotland. The almost £700,000 fund was a vital resource for participants in the festivals. It was already extremely over-subscribed, so it is difficult to rationalise the decision by both the Scottish Government and Creative Scotland. Artists cannot rely on pots of money such as Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s “Keep it Fringe” fund. We need artists whose careers have started at the festivals to pay into support to help others coming up behind them, but we also need all the authorities to feed in and support them.

Festivals such as the Fringe are often the first big test for an emerging artist. They are a way for people to have the most amazing experiences, and the cultural contribution is second to none. They also bring the world and its cultural wonders to Scotland, whether that is through the Tattoo or the international festival. It is vital that the Scottish Government recognise the part that they can play, and I hope the Minister will do his bit to encourage co-operation with the festivals in future years.

Dynamic Ticket Pricing

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Tuesday 10th September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I welcome the Minister to his place and very much look forward to working with him to promote our world-class creative industries, including our music industry and all the other fantastic sectors that his Department promotes.

Today, I want to talk about music ticketing and recognise the remarkable circumstances that have provoked this debate. News of the Oasis reunion has dominated the news cycle for the last week or so, but some might say for all the wrong reasons. What should have been a moment to celebrate one of the UK’s most significant cultural exports—and the chance to revisit the music that, for many, me included, was the soundtrack to our youth—has morphed into a conversation about exploitative practices in the music industry that hurt fans and the grassroots sector. Some of the issues have been rumbling away for years. In fact, earlier this year, the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport published a report on grassroots music that outlined some of the major challenges facing the live music ecosystem and suggested some ways forward.

The Minister knows the facts. On 31 August, some 14 million people from 158 countries logged on to a digital queue to buy tickets to the Oasis Live 25 reunion tour, 15 years after the band broke up and 30 years on from their seminal first album, “Definitely Maybe”. Fans were locked in an online queue for up to 10 hours and, when many of them, it seemed almost at random, made it to the front of the queue, the tickets were in many cases more than double the price that had been advertised. The dynamic pricing mechanism employed by Oasis, their promoters and management via Ticketmaster served to increase the price of tickets in line with demand, but in reality it resulted in a kind of lucky dip game in which the price got worse and worse by no clear mechanism except the secret and opaque rules of a computer algorithm in the hands of Ticketmaster.

I should declare an interest: after four hours of queuing, I had become wistful about the halcyon days of real-life physical box offices, where we queued almost overnight to get our tickets, but at least we could see the queue in front of us and we knew how long we would have to wait.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I commend the hon. Member for bringing this debate. She is right and many of my constituents experienced the issue that she mentions. We understand the economic principles of supply and demand, but we also understand the principle of price gouging. For those who believed they would be charged one price to have just a few moments to decide whether they would be prepared to pay double is unfair pressure. We must always encourage free trade, but we must also be mindful of consumer protection in Strangford, Gosport or any part of this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

I could not have said it better myself—that is exactly what it is. We understand the laws of supply and demand, but we also understand the laws of transparency and fairness. What is more, once ticket purchasers were through to the payment screen, fans realised that they only had a very limited time to decide whether the hugely inflated prices were worth paying. Someone compared the ticket purchase after such a long wait to the dopamine rush of a gambler. The £150 to £400 price increase meant that the transaction was no longer a choice, but more of an impulse buy.

I have heard many people say that the dynamic pricing method is used effectively in other sectors, and that the technology is a perfect demonstration of the dynamism of a free market. Even within the music industry itself, there is dispute as to whether dynamic pricing has a place and is an acceptable way forward.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. I was hoping to secure a debate on the subject myself but she beat me to it. There seems to be an issue about who is to blame for all of this—no one is taking responsibility for the issue of dynamic pricing. Ticketmaster is blaming the management and artists, and they are blaming those who were promoting the events. As she is now the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, will she look into this on behalf of the House and find out exactly why this has happened, with a view to having it stopped and outlawed entirely?

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

I am very fortunate to have been re-elected as the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, but we do not have any members of the Committee yet. Any decisions about what the Committee will look at will very much be a group decision jointly taken, but this is certainly something I will be putting forward. I know the Minister has already announced some consultation of his own.

To return to dynamic pricing and the laws of supply and demand, mentioned by the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), this is something that is used across different marketplaces. Uber employs a smart dynamic pricing mechanism that adjusts the cost of journeys in line with changing variables, such as traffic and current rider-to-driver demand. Hotels and airlines are another market that uses dynamic pricing, but they are very different. If people are stuck at Waterloo station, as I sometimes am, an Uber is not the only option of travel and, when people go on holiday, multiple airlines offer flights to the same city and different hotel options, but when it comes to live music, particularly in cases such as this one, there is one artist and one opportunity to buy a ticket.

The imperfections of the dynamic pricing mechanism were obvious to anybody who attempted to buy a ticket on this occasion, but whatever the rights and wrongs of its suitability for music ticketing and this market place, the most important issue is that fans were not warned about the use of dynamic pricing before they entered the digital queue. Those are the faults that led the Competition and Markets Authority to open its investigation into this debacle. It meant that people had no idea how much a ticket would cost when they logged in. Many fans ended up paying at least double the original listing price of £148, so four standing tickets could cost an eye-watering £1,400 once service and order processing fees were included. The CMA says that it will investigate whether fans were given “clear and timely information”.

Any free market economist would call this a classic case of information asymmetry. There was certainly a lack of clarity over how high ticket prices might eventually go, with the additional chaos of a time limit putting pressure on fans to make an imminent decision about whether they were going to buy.

Ticketmaster claims that the dynamic pricing mechanism is the best way to deter ticket touts, the logic being that any tout buying tickets in bulk would increase demand and therefore see his or her prices and margins slashed. The Guardian has already said that secondary ticketing platforms are advertising more than 4,500 tickets for this tour already, including from one tout who claims to have at least 33 tickets for Cardiff, Wembley and Murrayfield listed, for a combined price of over £26,000.

I am glad that this summer the Government announced a consultation on the secondary ticketing market, where tickets are sold in bulk by touts who often use bots to scout for tickets at face value and sell them well beyond the market value, but will the Minister set out the parameters and timescales for the work? When will it happen and what is it likely to include? He has now announced that the investigation will be widened to consider dynamic pricing and what happened in the Oasis situation, so can we have a reassurance that the eye will not be taken off the ball of the original consultation that he announced in the summer?

There are so many aspects at play. This method of resale is also the culprit for a large amount of money lost to fraud, with Lloyd’s estimating that £1 million was lost to scammers during Taylor Swift’s Eras tour alone. Will the Minister tell me whether the secondary market consultation will include conversations with digital search engines that are signposting customers into the hands of touts and not doing enough to get them direct to principal sales sites?

There is scope for an entire primary market review and for ticketing to be reviewed on a much wider scale. The Oasis episode has opened the eyes of fans to potential anti-competitiveness within the industry. As complaints about the ticketing process began to flood in, Oasis said it was their management and promoters who had agreed a dynamic pricing strategy with Ticketmaster. But, of course, their three tour promoters all have links to Live Nation, Ticketmaster’s parent company and, in effect, they are all the same party. So that party is making money hand over fist through the system, which keeps everything under the Live Nation umbrella.

For a typical tour, a Live Nation subsidiary promoter might take 10% of the face value of a ticket. A service charge of perhaps a quarter of that face value will then be applied, and some of that money will be going to Live Nation-owned Ticketmaster. The venue will take a cut at this stage, which, in all likelihood, will be a Live Nation-owned venue, too, as it owns 28 festivals and venues UK-wide. The process is repeated at resale, if people go through Ticketmaster at a higher cost than before, leaving Live Nation with an even greater cut.

The Minister does not need to be a public intellectual to see that there is a real perverse incentive for Ticketmaster to see tickets in the hands of touts. He will know that the US Department of Justice has slapped Live Nation with a lawsuit, citing anti-competitive conduct, while it is now well established that the company has a near monopoly in the UK.

Dynamic pricing is quite an effective way of rewarding a near-monopoly, with no upper limit on ticket prices, meaning a greater cut for the parent company. The great sadness of all this is not only that the system is punishing the fans—in this case, those Oasis fans for whom the music was so totemic, so life changing back in the ‘90s—but that, to add insult to injury, there is no trickle down to the live music ecosystem, like the grassroots music venues that Oasis first played in while honing their skills, the venues that made them, such the Boardwalk in Manchester and King Tut’s in Glasgow.

Although Oasis have since announced further tour dates, tickets to new dates will be sold at face value via invitation-only ballot. I cannot help feeling that the fans who paid through the nose via dynamic pricing are going to feel very hard done by.

I encourage the Minister to look at ways to amplify fans’ voices within the live music ecosystem. He might start by responding to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s report into grassroots music, which I have already mentioned. It was published in May. I know that we have had the small matter of a general election since then, but I would like to know when the response is likely to be forthcoming and whether the Government are minded to accept its recommendations. The recommendations include one for a fan-led review of music—something like the fan-led review of football that was led by my still friend, my former hon. Friend, the former Member for Chatham and Aylesford, Tracey Crouch—to look at how the music pyramid functions and how the money trickles down from the big players to those small venues and fledgling songwriters and artists.

The recommendations included a targeted VAT cut, which to grassroots venues would have represented a final hour of salvation in a sector that is widely accepted to be in crisis, and a live music levy, which would take a small proportion of the service fee from the pockets of the big venues and bring them right down to the struggling businesses at the grassroots. What is most pertinent to me about all this is that, while many of the 28 venues and festivals in which Live Nation owns a stake are flourishing, grassroots music venues are closing at a rate of two a week.

I am sure that the Minister is aware that, of the 34 music venues in which Oasis played on their first tour back in 1994, only 11 are still open today. And those venues are so crucial. They are absolutely fundamental to incubate our world-renowned talent. They are the R&D department for the music industry. They are a massive feeder into something that is fundamental to the UK economy and crucial to our soft power around the world. In a ticketing market gone wrong, there might have been a gram of comfort to some of the fans paying through the nose for their ticket if they knew that, in paying it, some of the money was protecting grassroots music venues in their communities and germinating the Oasis of the future.

I know that, like me, the Minister wants nothing more than to see our musical talent continue to thrill fans both at home and around the world, but behind every great act is a chance performance at a low-capacity venue that is struggling to keep the lights on, that is at financial breaking point, and that is a hair’s breadth away from closing its doors.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Minister.