Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]

Chris Bryant Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 12th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Collins]

There is definitely a lot of opportunity in automated decision making, but the safeguards must be in place to make sure that human decisions and the right to safeguards around the impact of those decisions are upheld, because restricting enhanced safeguards to only certain categories of information, without further amendments, could exclude a wide range of significant decisions from meaningful human review and create a lack of transparency. Again, doing so undermines public trust and hinders the adoption of AI and emergent technologies.

We share the concerns of organisations including Justice and the Open Rights Group that clause 80 weakens safeguards by broadening the scope for automated decisions. Although the clause makes safeguarding requirements more explicit, there are concerns that it also provides the Secretary of State with considerable powers via secondary legislation to amend or set aside those safeguards. The Liberal Democrats are firm in our conviction that where a person is the subject of automated decision making, there simply must be a right to explanation, a right to appeal and a meaningful human intervention.

[The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)]

I hope the hon. Lady recognises that one of the changes we have made to the Bill is to insist on there being meaningful human involvement. That was not in the previous version of the Bill. I think that that helps considerably with the issue of automated decision making.

[Victoria Collins]

I thank the Minister for his intervention. For us, it is a question of making sure that any input from the Secretary of State—whoever that is—does not undermine those safeguards. [Interruption.] I am sure that the current Secretary of State will be around for a while.

[Chris Bryant]

What do you know?

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[Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume), whose speech was absolutely spot on—I agreed with it completely.

It will not surprise the Government Front Benchers that I welcome the Bill. There are very few parts of it, if any, with which I disagree—perhaps because it bears an extraordinary similarity to the Data Protection and Digital Information Bill introduced by the previous Government, which I spent many happy hours taking through Committee and Report. As the Secretary of State pointed out, unfortunately that Bill fell as a result of the calling of the general election, and I share his regret that it was not possible to get it on to the statute book. That is another reason among many why I regret the calling of the general election at the time chosen by the previous Prime Minister.

[Chris Bryant]

The right hon. Gentleman refers to all the happy days he had, but I do not think that he really enjoyed the Report stage of the previous Bill. I think—nobody else will notice if he admits it here now—that he did not really like everything that was in the previous Government’s version of the Bill, and that he rather prefers our version.

[Sir John Whittingdale]

Although the hon. Gentleman and I had a robust but nevertheless amicable exchange on Report, it was in fact his colleague, the hon. Member for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock), who took that Bill through Committee. It was not until Report that the Conservative Government decided to add measures to the Bill—measures that I fully supported, of course, but which nevertheless made the task a little more difficult, as they resulted in a lack of agreement across the Chamber, which had previously pertained throughout the passage of the Bill. It is a pleasure to debate these matters again, and, indeed, to see not just the hon. Gentleman but some of the officials who laboured to take that Bill through Committee with me, and are now tasked with doing it all over again.

One point about the Bill that the Secretary of State did not refer to is that a lot of it seeks to improve the working of data protection law in this country and make data more accessible while safeguarding important privacy rights. However, the fact that we are able to make changes to improve our data protection laws is a consequence of Britain no longer being a member of the European Union—otherwise, we were trapped by the GDPR requirements. This is an example of where we can draft legislation to benefit people in this country and not have to accept top-down imposed legislation from Brussels—another reason why I was an enthusiastic supporter of the previous Bill.

One issue that featured a lot during the previous debate, and which I am slightly surprised has not been mentioned so far, is whether the changes made in the Bill would in any way jeopardise data adequacy recognition by the EU. [Interruption.] I am sorry; the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins) did mention it, but the Secretary of State did not. Data adequacy is an important issue, and concern has been expressed outside the House that the Bill might put it at risk. We were very keen to ensure that that was not the case, and we worked closely—as I am sure the Minister continues to do—with the Information Commissioner, John Edwards, who has a lot of experience in this field, having previously overseen the data protection regime in New Zealand, which enjoys data adequacy but is not identical to GDPR. I am sure, given that this Bill is so similar, that there is no risk to data adequacy, which is of importance to many large firms.

The Bill covers a lot of other areas that we regarded as important and which have remained largely unchanged, such as the operation of the Information Commissioner’s Office, digital identification, the national underground asset register, the electronic use of the register of births and marriages, the extension of smart data use, automated decision making, and the retention of information where required by coroners after child deaths. All those areas were included in the previous Bill, and I am delighted that they are still there in this one.

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[Sir John Whittingdale]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that I have no wish to replace my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Alan Mak), who is doing an excellent job. Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman and I have been involved in discussions on copyright for many years, and I share his view. Indeed, I welcomed the debate that we had in this place just a couple of weeks ago on the creative industries, where a lot of these arguments were rehearsed, and the Minister helpfully agreed that there is no workable opt-out technology available.

The existing opt-out, which the European Union has suggested, simply does not work. On top of that, it is unenforceable. The Minister and the Secretary of State have suggested that they would not proceed unless a workable opt-out could be developed. It would be a first if it were. In any case, I am opposed to opt-out in principle, but it is at present practically impossible to introduce. I hear the Secretary of State talking about the technology companies working to bring a workable solution forward, but I hope that the Minister will again make clear that the Government will not proceed unless there is a viable, workable technological solution that allows rights holders to make clear that they do not wish to have their works used by artificial intelligence training models, and have that enforced.

[Chris Bryant]

I think it might be easier if I respond to that now. Yes, I completely and utterly agree with the right hon. Gentleman. That is our settled view. We want to get to a process where there is more licensing of content, and we have said that repeatedly. It is one of the aims of our consultation. He says that copyright does not need changing, but the amendments tabled by Baroness Kidron in the Lords do change copyright law. We will somehow have to square that circle at some point during the Bill’s progress.

[Sir John Whittingdale]

The amendments that Baroness Kidron tabled put in clear terms what we believe the law is already. A number of cases are going through, and the hon. Member for Scarborough and Whitby referred to one in America. That important judgment said that AI training did not constitute fair use. That was an American court, but previously we had been told that America was ahead in encouraging and promoting the use of this technology. It is reassuring that even in America, they recognise the importance of protecting creative works. A news publisher brought forward that case.

It is important that we recognise that creative industries in their broadest definition are affected by this issue, and the newspaper publishers are particularly anxious about the consequences. One of Baroness Kidron’s amendments, which is now in the Bill, emphasises the importance of transparency, and I know the Minister agrees with that, but it also requires companies to make clear, in meeting the transparency requirements, exactly what kind of activity the web crawlers are involved in.

Newspaper publishers depend upon search, and it is important that the search engines can find and flag up their content, because without that they will not get the audiences they need. That is a different exercise from training for ingestion and AI-created content. If the Bill is about requiring transparency, the amendments passed in the Lords seek to achieve that, and I hope they will be preserved, because it is important that we have that transparency, not just as a general principle but in detail in that way.

Two weeks ago, the Minister gave some welcome assurances, and he has done so again this afternoon. We need to continue the debate. As he said, if the Government proceed, legislation will be required in due course, which we will obviously want to examine carefully.

A view has been expressed on behalf of the creative industries and publishers that while the Minister and other members of the Government have been open to discussions, the Secretary of State has not met them, so I was pleased to hear him earlier give the assurance that he would meet them, because this is of such vital importance to them.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Havant said, there is a lack of any economic impact assessment on the proposals in the consultation paper. I hope that the Government will produce such an economic impact assessment.

This is a subject that was not intended to be included in the Bill—I welcome the fact that it is—but it is obviously one that we will debate again many times.

[Chris Bryant]

In Committee.

[Sir John Whittingdale]

Perhaps outside Committee as well. I will rely on my colleagues who serve on the Committee to carry out the work at that point as well. I thank the Minister for his willingness to engage and assure him that we will continue to do so.

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[Pete Wishart]

Absolutely—the hon. Lady is spot on. I know that several Members across the House are looking just now at some of those who took part in the debates we had on the European copyright directive and what it was doing; again, there were disagreements about its value. The hon. Lady is right; we can keep ourselves alive. That is my hope. I just hope that the provisions of the Bill do not do anything to further alienate us from our European colleagues, because it is very important that we keep that alignment.

This Bill is also important because it removes a number of the unnecessary and harmful clauses in the previous Conservative Government’s Bill. We will just have to take with a pinch of salt the ambitions of this Bill, such as the £10 billion in growth anticipated from it. All I will say is that I have heard that all before. I know this is a Government desperate to find growth anywhere—they have made such a mess of the economy since coming to power that everywhere they see the green shoots of growth. We will wait and see whether we will get this £10 billion of growth.

The Government have a first test, which comes with clauses 135 to 139. We do not know if we will get growth from the Bill when it comes to data, but we do know that we get growth from the creative industries in this country, which in 2022 contributed £125 billion to the economy and provided 2.4 million jobs. That is real growth. We should not mess with that and undermine it in the way the Government might be doing with the watering down of the copyright provisions and giving generative AI access to our nation’s creative treasures—I will just say that gently to the Government. However, I do very much welcome the inclusion of clauses 135 to 139.

[Chris Bryant]

The hon. Gentleman has talked quite a bit about clauses 135 to 139. He may end up on the Bill Committee, in which case we will be able to talk through the intricacies of those clauses then. Several of them actually require Ministers to introduce very significant changes via secondary legislation. Is that really what he would like? Surely such matters should be properly included in a Bill.

[Pete Wishart]

Yes, at this stage it is definitely what I would like, because we have got them—they are in a Bill that we will decide and vote on and look at in Committee. They are a security and a guarantee for our creative sector, because they are already in a piece of legislation that we will hopefully pass.

[Chris Bryant]

rose—

[Pete Wishart]

If the Minister is going to say something positive about ensuring that we respect our copyright regime—that it will stay intact and continue to do the job it has been doing so effectively for the past few decades—then I will look at this now. I think I heard the Secretary of State say something about another piece of legislation. It might be necessary to bring in another piece of legislation, and I think we would all welcome that. However, it has to be on the basis of defending and protecting our intellectual property and our copyright regime. I will give way once again to the Minister.

[Chris Bryant]

I am very grateful; the hon. Gentleman is being generous. I completely agree that we need to ensure that the rights of rights holders are protected, that they are able to be remunerated properly for their work, and that human creativity is at the heart of everything. The amendments tabled in the House of Lords state that Government Ministers should basically write the law in secondary legislation, so it would not be on the face of the Bill. He normally opposes such power-making powers being given to Government Ministers, so I am slightly surprised that he is so passionate about them now. I wonder whether it would not be better for us to legislate properly, with all those things laid out for proper scrutiny.

[Pete Wishart]

Again, I am grateful to the Minister for intervening in such a helpful manner. I am not particularly averse to secondary legislation—it has its place and purpose, and if it helps achieve desired outcomes then I have no issue with it. This is what my constituents want. I have been knocked out by the number of emails I have received and secured from my constituents asking me to support the creative sector in the consultation on copyright and AI, and to back the amendments as the Bill goes through the House. There does not seem to be any doubt that most of our constituents seem to be in partnership with their artists and the creative sector on this matter. I think what they want to see is the Government showing the same determination and ambition for our creative sector and our artists. They have that opportunity. I will be patient with the Minister. He has hinted occasionally about having some sort of solution that defends and protects our copyright regime, while at the same time supplies what he requires to ensure ambition in the AI sector. We are all looking forward to doing all that.

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[Sir John Hayes]

We should not be naive about this, because the tech companies have form. All of their pedigree suggests that they cannot be trusted to do the right thing—to manage their affairs, or to protect either the public interest or the interests of the creative industries—so I hope that the Government will take exactly the robust approach that the hon. Gentleman has described. Perhaps one way in which they could do so, given that copyright has been introduced into these considerations via the amendments, is to extend existing copyright to the internet, so that people who publish online are subject to the same restrictions—

[Chris Bryant]

They already are.

[Sir John Hayes]

The Minister says that they are, but they should be subject to exactly the same restrictions as those who print and broadcast.

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[Mr Frith]

I agree with everything my hon. Friend says, and I suspect he is a better musician than I am.

[Chris Bryant]

He is, yes.

[Mr Frith]

The Minister got the memo.

AI is giving the creative sector indigestion, frankly, and this is the problem we are facing, so aiming for a smoother future through collaboration is absolutely right.

As with previous technological shifts, such as the introduction of the internet or indeed the printing press, laws should be based on use, not on the technology itself. The principle of tech neutrality should be reaffirmed as a guiding principle for our laws and culture.

In the absence of a clear solution, we must return to first principles and stand for transparency, fairness and the fundamental right to be paid for one’s work. Or will we entertain the risks of an opaque system, built on unnecessary secrecy, freely extracting value from copyrighted works without payment? We are in a defining moment. Innovation should uplift, not exploit. The future of AI must be built on trust, so I urge this House and this Government to ensure that AI innovation does not come at the cost of our world-leading creative industries.

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[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I will attempt not to give a rerun of the speech I made during the general debate on the creative industries the other day.

[Chris Bryant]

No Paddington?

[Max Wilkinson]

The Minister will be delighted to hear that there will be no Paddington references. Ministers have set out the core objectives of the Bill: growing the economy, improving public services and making people’s lives easier. No one is going to disagree with any of that. Those aims are laudable, and I support them, as do the Liberal Democrats.

However, there are concerns. I will focus on an area that others have already touched on, and speak in support of amendments that have come to us from the House of Lords relating to the creative industries and copyright. While the Bill seeks to improve lives, we worry that the consultation currently being undertaken by the Government leaves open a risk that incentives for human creativity will be removed entirely, and that we will end up in future with many tens of thousands of shades of pale grey.

At the heart of our creative sector is the ability of the human hand to paint or draw, or to write music that moves us, and of the human brain to compose verse that persuades people, makes the hair stand up on the back of our necks and changes the world for the better. Protecting that must be absolutely central to what we do as we embrace technology, but the risk of AI is that those protections are lost.

For the avoidance of doubt, and in the absence of clarity from the official Opposition, we back a system that would protect the IP of creatives; that is, an opt-in system. I would give way to the shadow Minister if he wanted to clarify the Conservative party’s position—he does not. The default must be that creative content is protected. Even AI models, if we ask them, admit the risk to human creativity if IP is not protected by an opt-in model. While the Conservative party has criticised us on that, at least we have an opinion.

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[Steff Aquarone (North Norfolk) (LD)]

I am enjoying the debate and feel regretful that I no longer have any disclosable interests in the creative industries. I am grateful to Members for sharing their powerful testimonies. I do have a couple of disclosable interests in relation to tech, and I want to address my comments to some of aspects of that.

Over the course of human history, we have found ourselves in possession of resources that can radically change how our society operates and the quality of life that we lead. Over thousands of years, we have revolutionised society by harnessing fire, oil, electricity and even cassette tapes. I truly believe that the great opportunity for our generation is to harness the power of data for the public good.

Before I came to this place, I worked with large companies across the world, talking to them about how they should restructure and reform their organisations to make the best use of the power of data, not only to improve their businesses but to improve the experience of their users and customers. When they used data best, they brought prosperity to their organisations and made people want to come back to them time and again. How many of our constituents could honestly say that they want to engage with Departments and public services time and again? We have to face a hard truth: when citizens engage with Government, they are far from impressed. In so many cases, they feel that they are battling with sclerotic bureaucracy and a system built of silos, which feels designed for the convenience of the administration and not the user.

[Chris Bryant]

My biggest gripe is that everywhere I go in the country, when I need to park my car I have to download a new app because the local authority has decided what app it will use. Smart data might actually allow us to have an interoperable, interchangeable system for parking our cars.

[Steff Aquarone]

I could not agree more. Some of the conclusions that are reached through the procurement of technology services by local councils defy sense and are utterly baffling. I am sure that all of us are guilty of that; I will not go any further than that—

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[Chris Bryant]

So you’re guilty?

[Steff Aquarone]

All of us are guilty, I am sure, of being part of decisions that sometimes defy sense when it comes to usability. I can speak only on behalf of the citizens who contact me about having to go round in circles, sharing the same stories, digging out new and old reference numbers and wondering why nothing seems to want to work for them. I am sure the Minister would agree that it does not have to be this way. We have already seen the transformative impact of the improved usability of gov.uk services, and that is just the very front end of the machine. Total transformation of how data is used in our public services could radically change how we deliver services for citizens.

I hope the Government will look to Estonia for inspiration on how to have a truly data-driven Government with the citizen at the centre. It is a place I visited in my past life to talk about data-driven success stories. I am sure that it is no coincidence that, for the past 20 years, the Estonian digital transformation has been led by liberal Governments from our Estonian sister parties. After the fall of communism, in the late 1990s, Estonia embarked on an ambitious programme known as the “Tiger Leap” to expand internet access and computer literacy—the first step in embedding the digital environment into all levels of the citizen and Government experience. Their Government proudly say that their e-cabinet, which streamlined the decision-making process, brought the average length of an Estonian Cabinet meeting down from five hours to 30 minutes—an appealing prospect to those on the Treasury Bench, I am sure.

Estonian citizens can access 100% of their public services online at any time. The Estonians have transformed their healthcare system with the e-health and e-prescription initiatives, which free up GP time by allowing prescription refills to be dealt with online and ensure fast and simple access to key medical information during emergencies.

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[Peter Prinsley (Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow my medical colleague, the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), in this debate. This is a wide-ranging Bill, but I would like to talk this afternoon about the role of data access in healthcare, and what I think is a transformative proposal for the patient passport.

NHS IT and case records are chaotic. I know about this chaos from my own clinics, where I spend—or waste—too much time looking at PDF readers; we also have dictaphones, and we even still have fax machines. Half the consultation can easily be spent opening up websites and computer programs for all sorts of different things.

The standard of information kept by different hospitals varies quite widely and IT interoperability is often very poor, so that if I transfer a patient from one hospital where I work to another hospital where I work, the other people in the hospital cannot easily work out what is going on with the patient. Sometimes we are unable to treat the patient because we are unable to access their medical record. Imagine an elderly lady lying on a trolley in a hospital corridor at 3 o’clock in the morning, unable to give a full account of her medical history. If we cannot access her file, how will we best treat her?

That is not an imaginary situation; it is an actual situation that is probably happening in our hospitals today. I therefore welcome the measures in the Bill that will standardise information and improve the flow of data between hospitals. Actually, I am pleased that West Suffolk hospital, in my constituency, has very good IT standards, and I hope the Bill will allow more hospitals around the country to follow its example.

However, I urge the Government to look further when considering reform to medical data. Here is what I think may be a transformative proposal: we should give ownership of the medical record directly to the patient. Let us make the clinicians ask the patient to see the record, and not the other way around. Nine out of 10 Britons want better access to their medical records, and we should simply listen to them. Let us create a patient passport that has all the patient’s medical data on it. It would be transformative.

People organise their lives on their phones, so let us put the passport there. We could just expand the NHS app to become a digital front door for the health service. People are happy to bank on their phones, send emails on their phones and book flights on their phones—

[Chris Bryant]

My mother-in-law is not.

[Peter Prinsley]

Well, the Minister’s mother-in-law might not be.

I do not think it is such a leap of the imagination to let everybody access their medical information in this way. As we heard from the hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone), who has gone for a cup of tea, other countries such as Estonia do this.

I urge us to think carefully. One record, one patient—it would simplify so much of our healthcare, and this Bill is the opportunity to do it. I was heartened to hear that my right hon. Friend the Health Secretary supports such a proposal. It will be the future of healthcare, so let us simply make it happen.

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[The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)]

I am a DSIT Minister today, but the debate felt remarkably like the creative industries debate a couple of weeks ago, when I was responding as the Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism. I will get on to some of the points about AI and copyright later, so if anybody wants to intervene on me they can wait for that bit.

I will start with some of the points hon. Members have made. The measure on the NHS and data is among the most positive in the Bill, and was welcomed by everybody today. It was not in the previous version of the Bill; it is one of our additions. The other day, a colleague was telling me about her local hospital, and I was struck by the fact that it employs 42 people simply to carry around physical medical records. We have put our backs into changing that. That is not a good way to preserve records, or to ensure they are secure and not getting lost, let alone anything else.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury St Edmunds and Stowmarket (Peter Prinsley) was absolutely right when he talked about patient passports. We need to turn the issue on its head, so that people have access to their data and can participate in and make better decisions about their own healthcare. As I said to my hon. Friend yesterday, that is similar to the change that happened a few years ago. After an appointment, consultants used to write to GP about the patient in doctor gobbledegook, but now many of them write to the patient in plain English, copying in the GP. That is the kind of change we need to see.

I am very hopeful about the changes that will be introduced by the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Sam Carling) said, they will make dramatic difference. We need to ensure the interoperability of all the IT systems used across the whole of the NHS. I would like to extend that beyond England and Wales; I would not mind if we could manage to do the same for Scotland and Northern Ireland, but I fear that even my friend the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart), who likes me sometimes, would baulk a little at a United Kingdom-wide approach to such matters.

I am also excited about the elements of the Bill on smart data, which have barely had a look-in in today’s debate but which could be transformative in many sectors. Many of us will know that when we use our banking app, we are enabled to go not just to our bank but to our insurance, including our car insurance, and all those things can be related to one another in a secure way. That is because of the smart data system that has been in existence for the last few years. We need to roll that out in many other sectors, and that is precisely what the Bill allows. For instance, in the gig economy, it will mean that Uber drivers and those delivering for Deliveroo will have a better understanding of whether they are actually earning a living from each delivery.

Thirdly, nobody has referred to the reform of the Information Commissioner’s Office. It is an important part of the Bill. There have been brief mentions of the register of births and deaths, which basically brings the modern world to the register office. As a former vicar, I suppose I am more interested in that than most, as I have hatched and dispatched quite a few in my time.

[Chi Onwurah]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Bryant]

On births and deaths? Of course.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for his excellent comments. I want to point out that I welcomed the strengthening of the Information Commissioner’s role.

[Chris Bryant]

Hurrah. Incidentally, the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) referred to John Edwards, who, in my experience, is a very capable leader of the team there. I am sure my hon. Friend and her Select Committee will have him in for evidence soon.

A couple of Members referred to data adequacy, including the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins). That is obviously important to us. As the right hon. Member for Maldon said, the Secretary of State has been working keenly with the European Commission. Unfortunately, the previous Government ended up with a data adequacy agreement with the EU that expires later on this year. That means that our time is tight to make sure we maintain that. That is absolutely vital to our economic success as a country and, for that matter, for the rest of the EU. I know that everybody wants to get there. It is not for us to tell the EU what processes it should go through, but we have had very constructive conversations so far. They will not want to comment on a Bill that is still in flight, so the sooner we can get it on to the statute books the better.

My hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley) referred to music remuneration. For me, the issue of remuneration of musicians is not just about the AI copyright debate; there are many other issues. I do not think we have finished with the issue of streaming, incidentally. I had a successful meeting with the record labels, lots of musicians and the Musicians’ Union on Monday afternoon. I have given them a clear timetable for coming back with a better offer to make sure that musicians are properly remunerated.

A quite famous tenor, who I will not name, texted me yesterday to say:

“Musicians all feel that they have been sooooooo ripped off by streaming.”

That is “so” with seven o’s—I do not know what Hansard will do with that.

“I used to get two or three concert fees as advance royalty for a CD. Now, it is effectively zero. It is theft, really.”

Those remarks have been repeated in a different context today. We are working on that, and I am determined that we will have a proper look at how we properly remunerate our musicians in this country, even if it is only to make sure that the shadow Minister, who declares that live music is one of the most important things in his life, has people to go and listen to.

The hon. Member for North Norfolk (Steff Aquarone), who has just come back into the Chamber, made a very good speech about digital government. All the points that he made are ones that we are determined to take up. Several Members referred to Estonia—Tallinn, incidentally, is one of the best cities in Europe to visit—but we also need to make sure that there is a digital inclusion element to that. If 19% of poorer homes in the UK have no access to the internet, they will not have any access to Government digital services either. We need to transform all that, and the Secretary of State and I will probably have something to say about that in the near future.

The right hon. Member for Maldon noted one other Labour change, on subject access requests. We would argue that one of the problems with the previous Bill was that it would have made it more difficult for people to get subject access request information. That is why we have a system where we think we have strengthened those rights, and that we think is better for the average person in the street.

The hon. Member for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty) referred to Baroness Owen’s amendments. We are not quite sure that these are right. We want to ensure that we have a workable solution that everybody agrees with by the time we finish in Committee. I am not sure whether he will be serving on the Committee, but perhaps that is a debate we will have—I look forward to that. We are very open to seeing how we can make sure that all the i’s are in the right place and all the t’s are correctly crossed—not dotted.

The hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) made some important points, although I have to say that I disagree with her—she may not be entirely surprised by that. In relation to the amendments brought forward by Lord Lucas, public authorities must assess what information is required for a particular purpose. This governs whether and how sex or gender data is processed in a given situation or a given case. They are bound by data protection legislation to ensure that the personal data is accurate for this purpose. Where sex at birth is not an essential part of an identity check— for instance, when renting a property—organisations are not lawfully able to request this information. I think that is absolutely right for protecting people’s privacy.

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

My hon. Friend will know that I was one of the first Labour MPs to raise in the Chamber the issue of sex-aggregated data. Can he assure me that the Government will ensure that data on sex is accurate and reliable where necessary and will he expedite the publication of the Sullivan review?

[Chris Bryant]

We have to make sure it is accurate to the precise process for which it is being used, just as a passport has to be accurate for the precise purpose for which it is being used. I am not sure whether my hon. Friend is intending to be on the Committee as well—

[Tonia Antoniazzi]

indicated assent.

[Chris Bryant]

Oh dear, she is. I am not sure about having world-class rugby players on the Committee, but it is one of the issues I am very happy to debate with my hon. Friend. We want to make sure we have got it right and that we manage to embrace everybody as much as we can.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

Oh dear, I have started something off.

[Dr Johnson]

I am interested in the hon. Gentleman’s concept of “for the purpose”. Can he be clear that when he is writing his dictionary of definitions, as per clause 140, he will ensure that the definitions are clear so that when people are looking at information on sex, they know whether they are dealing with biological sex or some other definition that the Minister may have come up with?

[Chris Bryant]

I am going to call the 25th amendment—or whatever we have—and say that I will write to the hon. Lady on that. We are getting a bit more technical than I am able to answer precisely, but my bottom line is that if somebody is applying to rent a property, the landlord should not have to know both sex at birth and gender. That is an inappropriate invasion of people’s privacy. I should add that the hon. Lady also referred to people being able to change in changing rooms, and I completely agree with her points about women being able to change in protected spaces. It just seems to me we need to use a great deal of common sense in this area.

The Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Chi Onwurah), referred to the national data library and open standards and open source. Again, I will have to write to her. As she will know, this area is moving fast in relation to legislative and IT ideas, so we will want to work with people, including her Select Committee, to make sure we reach the right set of decisions.

Turning to the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted, I made a mistake earlier and have to apologise to her. When referring to automated decision making, I talked about meaningful human involvement. That was indeed in the original Bill introduced by the right hon. Member for Maldon, but I think it is a vital addition to the current framework, which is why it is important. I am pleased that our new Government have gone further by committing to require the Information Commissioner’s Office to do a code of practice on automated decision making and AI to make sure this really works in the interests of everybody. That will support the safe adoption and deployment of the technology.

The hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) quite rightly raised the case of his constituent Ellen Roome, which we have discussed previously. Unfortunately, I was unable to speak in the debate he took part in, because I was speaking in the main Chamber at the time. I can tell him that coroners will be able to use a data protection process under the Bill and we hope that will be sufficient, but I am quite happy to discuss whether we can go further. I have discussed with several Members the question of whether families should have access to their children’s social media accounts. There are obvious dangers in that because of safeguarding issues that might arise, but I think he understands that as well.

[Max Wilkinson]

To clarify, the Jools Law Bill would simply require access to the social media accounts and data of deceased children. There is no risk to those children in those circumstances because they would already be dead.

[Chris Bryant]

That was the original point that I was trying to make, and I obviously did not make it as well as the hon. Member did, so I congratulate him on that.

The hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) was a bit critical of article 70, but I think that he is being a bit unfair. The requirements in subsections 8 and 9, and then later in 11 and 12 of the article are very clear about the circumstances—and they are the only circumstances—in which the Secretary of State can bring forward changes of the kind to which he referred. I hope that we will be able to please him, if not appease him, if that matter appears in Committee or on Report.

I just want to finish with some comments on AI and IP, not least because there has been so much focus on this area. All of us on the Front Bench wanted to have a data Bill, because we think that it is really important for our economy and for so many different aspects of the way that we deliver Government services. We also want a debate about AI and copyright, which is why we launched the consultation, but it feels odd to be doing a bit of that in this Bill.

Let me turn now to what the shadow Secretary of State said earlier. I asked ChatGPT what the view of the shadow Secretary of State was on AI and copyright. It replied, “Regarding his views on copyright, there is no publicly available information indicating that he has expressed specific opinions on this matter.” Well, yes, we heard that this afternoon, didn’t we? I hope the Opposition manage to find some ideas at some point.

This is a very serious matter and it is one of the trickiest issues that any country has to face at this point. I think that it is trickier for our country than most others, because we are the third largest AI economy in the world, and we are probably the second or, at worst, the third greatest IP country in the world. We have creators in every single sphere. Some countries specialise in one particular form of the creative industries, but we manage to do all of them. That is why I was listening very attentively to the contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Bury North (Mr Frith) and for Stirling and Strathallan (Chris Kane), and the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire and many others as well.

I just want to focus on the things on which there is some agreement. I think there is agreement across the House on the idea that transparency is an important part of what we need to ensure in this legislation, and on the aim of control over intellectual property rights, and on possibly ending a stronger version of rights reservation for the creative industries. I can announce that we have set up two working groups in the past week, both of which have people from the creative industries and from the AI companies in them. One is specifically looking at transparency and what that looks like to be effective and proportionate, and it will start work on that next week.

Secondly, on the question of rights reservation, I fully understand that people are sceptical about whether there is a simple technical means of everybody being about to assert their rights—

[Pete Wishart]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will in a moment, if the hon. Member lets me finish this point. I know that people are sceptical because such a means does not exist at the moment. I have said before that the robots.txt system does not work; it effectively means that a person is wiped from the internet, and lots of people do not know how to use it—it is far too technical. If, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North said, there were a system of simple digital fingerprinting where people could say, “No, you can’t use my work” or, “Yes, you can use my work for large language model training once you’ve remunerated me,” that would be a great outcome for everybody, because it would lead to a new system of remuneration. That could be done individually or for an artist, it could be done through DACS, and for a musician it could be done through their record label.

[Ms Billington]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Bryant]

I will in a moment. That is why I am keen on not selling the pass on that possibility by having undermined it before we get there.

[Pete Wishart]

The Minister is right—there is not much difference between us now. We are getting to a place where we are beginning to agree about the way forward, but we are dealing with this Bill, which has clauses that protect copyright and ensure transparency. What I think he is asking us to do is to set those concerns aside for a Bill that might come in the future, which may include the provisions that we already have. Is that roughly a correct characterisation of where we are going?

[Chris Bryant]

No, it is not. What is true is that, as I said, we want to get to a concrete idea of what transparency might look like. Not enough work has been done in the EU or in different territories—in the United States of America, for instance, where different states have different arrangements—and we need to do more about what that should look like in the UK. As I say, if the creative industries and the AI companies can do that together, that could give us a nugget of useful progress. Likewise, if we can get to what I am calling fingerprinting, for want of a better term—I know there is a system of fingerprinting—that would get us to the licensing of 60%, 70% or 80%, and that would be significant. I do not want to sell the pass on that whole package by taking too many steps at this point, but we will discuss this in Committee and on Report. I am conscious that I have Margate behind me, so I give way.

[Ms Billington]

It is not only Margate; East Thanet has three cultural drivers—Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs—all with phenomenal amounts of cultural engine throughout the centuries. Many writers such as Wilkie Collins and Jane Austen are well out of copyright. Musicians, visual artists and writers often earn little money. It is great to hear that we will have those working groups. They need to be confident that they will be paid by the machines, as it were, because otherwise they will end up even worse off than they are at the moment. Some 40% of greetings card designers have lost their job because of this issue. I urge the hon. Gentleman to come to Margate to hear what is being said by the creative industries here, and I am glad to hear that the Secretary of State is also keen to meet those in the creative industries.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

Tracey Emin and Russell Tovey have also invited me to Margate, so I think it is inevitable at some point.

We are trying to get to a win-win, and we do not believe that is unachievable, which is why I am keen on sticking with the process of the consultation. We will respond to the consultation as soon as we can, although a large number of people have responded and we want to take the response seriously. Whatever we choose to do in the end, I would have thought that it will look like a full, stand-alone Bill. That may include elements of what Baroness Kidron has put in, elements from elsewhere or, for that matter, bits of the copyright directive, such as articles 18 and 20, which the former Government helped draft and then did not incorporate into UK law. It might be a whole series of different things, but it needs to be considered in the round.

[Chi Onwurah]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Bryant]

Oh Lord! I was sort of trying to get to the end.

[Chi Onwurah]

I share my hon. Friend’s desire to get to the end, and his faith in the ability of technology to deliver solutions. As I said in an earlier intervention, my Science, Innovation and Technology Committee and the Culture, Media and Sport Committee brought together technologists and creatives with exactly that ambition. I am pleased to hear about the working groups that he has put in place, but I urge him to be transparent about who is in them—not necessary now, but perhaps he will write to my Committee—so that we can see how they are progressing in a transparent way. It is important that the technological solutions are viewed as openly as possible.

[Chris Bryant]

Yes, we will be transparent about the transparency working groups—it is a good point. For that matter, I am happy—as are any of the Ministers—to give evidence to my hon. Friend’s Committee, or to a joint Committee, on those inquiries.

[Dr Caroline Johnson]

The Minister is being extremely generous with his time.

[Chris Bryant]

And everybody else’s.

[Dr Johnson]

He talked about deepfake pornography—the purported intimate images. One undertaking that the Government gave Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge was that they would remove the prosecution limitation of six months from the offence being committed. However, I have not seen that in the Bill. Do the Government intend to table an amendment in Committee, or would they accept an Opposition amendment at that stage?

[Chris Bryant]

I will not accept an amendment that I have not yet seen, but that is one issue that we are definitely already working on, and we intend to address it in Committee. Government amendments for Committee must be tabled within a fortnight from yesterday, so that will all be happening fairly soon. If the hon. Lady can bide her patience for a while, I would be grateful. We are working to get to a resolution that everybody will be happy with.

I will make a few final points about AI and intellectual property. Several Members spoke about legislative change in that field. I completely agree that there will have to be legislation change, and I think it would be better if that were done in a single stand-alone Bill. That is why we launched the consultation. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies) was absolutely right to say that we must get this right for this country’s creative people and our economy—it is about both those things together. My hon. Friend the Member for Makerfield (Josh Simons) was absolutely right: there might be a win-win solution that provides certainty, clarity and remuneration for both AI and creative industries, and that is what we are striving for.

My hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume) was rather shy about her own successes in life. In 2008, she was named Royal Television Society writer of the year for “Summerhill”. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!] She was absolutely right about three things: first, that we should look after the rights of creatives, and I agree; secondly, that we should protect their income, and I agree; and thirdly, the importance of human beings—I 100% agree.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), with whom I look forward to giving the Bill the proper scrutiny that the House expects in Committee—alongside our Liberal Democrat counterpart, the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins)—said that he likes live music. I do, too; the next gig I am going to is Kylie, again—I am not a stereotype at all.

Last night, I went to the Royal Opera House to see “Festen”, the new opera by Mark-Anthony Turnage, based on the movie and the play. The shadow Minister is right that absolutely nothing beats live music, and we will do absolutely nothing to undermine it. Interestingly, the libretto, which was written by Baroness Kidron’s husband, ended with the words of Dame Julian of Norwich:

“All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

I think that also applies to AI and copyright.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] (Programme)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),

That the following provisions shall apply to the Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]:

Committal

(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.

Proceedings in Public Bill Committee

(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Tuesday 18 March 2025.

(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

Consideration and Third Reading

(4) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.

Other proceedings

(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Gerald Jones.)

Question agreed to.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] (Money)

King’s recommendation signified.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—

(1) any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by the Secretary of State, the Treasury, a government department or another public authority, and

(2) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under or by virtue of any other Act out of money so provided.—(Gerald Jones.)

Question agreed to.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] (Ways and Means)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords], it is expedient to authorise:

(1) the charging of fees or levies under or by virtue of the Act;

(2) the requiring of payments in connection with costs incurred by the Gas and Electricity Markets Authority for the purposes of a tender exercise relating to a smart meter communication licence; and

(3) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.—(Gerald Jones.)

Question agreed to.