Digital Inclusion Action Plan: First Steps
Chris Bryant Excerpts(5 days, 16 hours ago)
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The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)
Today, the Government have laid before Parliament the “Digital Inclusion Action Plan—First Steps”, which includes a call for evidence on the Government’s proposed focus areas.
It is estimated that 1.6 million people in the UK live largely offline, and we know that they are likely to experience lower pay, have fewer job opportunities, have worse health outcomes, and might pay more for goods and services. We know that there are many benefits to being online, whether it is connecting with family and friends, being able to manage your finances, or being able to apply for a new job that is advertised online.
We want to ensure that everyone can experience these benefits, no matter where you are in the country, and no matter your age, background, or current circumstances, because we believe that everyone should benefit from digital technology. The action plan sets out the first five actions and the leadership actions that Government will take to ensure we have a digitally inclusive society.
The Government have consulted with and listened to stakeholders, who told us locally delivered support has the biggest impact, so in the spring we will be launching a new digital inclusion innovation fund to support innovative local initiatives—because we know digital inclusion initiatives work best when they are embedded in the communities people live and work in. Where local initiatives work well, we will look to roll them out in other parts of the country.
Everyone needs to have access to the necessary training and support to develop the essential digital skills to live, work, and participate fully in the modern world. That is why we have committed to improving support for the framework that helps people and businesses get the skills they need to get online safely and with confidence. We will also measure what works on digital inclusion, identify where the need is greatest, and establish the economic and social value of upskilling adults with digital skills.
Having access to a suitable device to be able to complete key tasks such as applying for a job, completing homework, or managing your finances online is vital to participating in our increasingly digital society. The 37% of households who are offline say that lack of equipment is a barrier. To help address this, we are piloting a proof-of-concept multi-Department device donation scheme. We are working with the Digital Poverty Alliance to provide refurbished Government laptops to those who need them.
We want to break down barriers to digital services. This is why we have committed to making Government digital services easier to use. We will have a renewed focus on digital inclusion, for example by improving the whole experience for users and increasing the number of services that use www.gov.uk One Login.
The action plan is supported by 10 pledges from industry, working in parallel with and in support of this action plan. These pledges demonstrate the significance of partnership to promote and empower digital inclusion, and the shared responsibility to tackle this important issue.
The call for evidence seeks views on the focus areas identified for further work. These are opening up opportunities through skills, tackling data and device poverty, breaking down barriers to digital services, and building confidence and supporting local delivery. The call for evidence will close on 9 April 2025. The “Digital Inclusion Action Plan—First Steps” document will be made available on www.gov.uk.
[HCWS471]
Science, Innovation and Technology
Chris Bryant Excerpts(6 days, 16 hours ago)
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The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)
…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.
[Official Report, 12 February 2025; Vol. 762, c. 345.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms, the hon. Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant):
The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)
… The measure on the NHS and data is among the most positive in the Bill, and was welcomed by everybody today. It was in the previous version of the Bill.
Chris Bryant
…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.
[Official Report, 12 February 2025; Vol. 762, c. 349.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms:
Chris Bryant
…I can announce that we will be setting up two working groups, both of which will have people from the creative industries and from the AI companies in them. One will look specifically at transparency and what that looks like to be effective and proportionate.
Social Media Use: Minimum Age
Chris Bryant Excerpts(1 week ago)
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The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)
It is always a delight to see you, Mr Vickers—and particularly to see you in the Chair, where you cannot take part in the debate.
First, may I pay enormous tribute to Kim Campbell? Many other Members have already done so, but it is a significant achievement to force Parliament to debate something. Getting 130,000 people to sign up to the petition is a phenomenal achievement, so thank you very much. I think I can say that on behalf of all the political parties in Parliament and all Members of the House.
I also thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan): first because he is a Labour Member for Folkestone and Hythe, which is a great advance in the world, and secondly because he advanced the cause on behalf of the Petitions Committee so effectively. Many Members may not know this, but when I was first elected back in 1873 under Queen Victoria, we did not have online petitions. It is an irony, in a way, that today we are talking about an online e-petition about online activity.
If colleagues do not mind, I will not answer each contribution individually. Members have put their own arguments powerfully; there has been a mix of views, but with a general direction of travel, which I fully understand and to which I am very sympathetic. I want to lay out where we are at now and where we, as a Government, think that we could get to and should get to.
The first thing to recognise is the utter toxicity of large parts of social media. You do not have to be an MP to be aware of that, but being an MP certainly does make you aware of it. The toxicity for children is utterly degrading and pernicious, as I think everybody in society recognises. We all recognise, too, that the social media companies need to go much further to protect children. We have talked about some of the misogyny that is evident on many platforms and to which kids have access—it is pumped at them, in fact, because that is sometimes what the algorithm seems to support. Similarly, there are large amounts of utter misinformation. I do not know who is driving that or why it is being driven; sometimes it may be state actors from elsewhere in the world, and sometimes it is just pernicious actors in their own right.
Completely unrealistic body shapes are being promoted to girls and, for that matter, to boys. There was a time when the concern was solely that girls were being encouraged to be a particular shape, but exactly the same concern applies to many young men and boys today. I used to be a priest in the Church of England, many years ago; I was a clergyman in High Wycombe. While I was the curate there, a young girl took her own life, and then three of her friends took their own life in successive months. Undoubtedly, they had somehow or other managed to engage one another in that spiral. That was long before social media. Now, social media can play a pernicious role in undermining young people’s self-confidence and their belief in themselves through a whole series of images, videos and so on. That is very dangerous.
Tackling this is one of the most important things that the Government have to do. It is good to have a former Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), with us today.
Mr Frith
I thank the Minister; as ever, he has been very generous and is making excellent remarks. Away from the emergency—the toxicity and the worst aspects of this—the mundane sapping of hour after hour after hour is just as dangerous when we consider social media use and our ineffective guardrails for smartphone use. Yes, we all agree that the content the Minister has described should be done away with and prevented, but what is his reflection on the mundane drip and sapping away of the energy and attention of our young people and the doomscrolling ethos that has developed in their expectation of their everyday lives?
Chris Bryant
I do not want to be a hypocrite; this 63-year-old engages in all those things as well. In fact, it is a shocking shame for me every time I get that notification that says, “You spent on average x number of hours a day on your mobile phone.” I can make justifications—I have to find out what an hon. Member’s seat is, I have to send things back to my private office on WhatsApp and all of those kind of things—but the truth is that if somebody had said to us 40 years ago that they were going to invent something that would make us all, in an addictive way, spend hours and hours and hours looking at a phone rather than engaging with other human beings, we would have said, “Maybe not, eh?”
I was really struck by that when I went to a primary school in Blaengarw in my patch. The headteacher was saying that one of the difficulties is that all the parents waiting to pick up their kids were on their mobile phones outside, as the hon. Member for Mid Sussex (Alison Bennett) mentioned earlier. Whatever they did inside the school, the message that every single child got was that life was about being on a mobile phone. As has been said, one of the most important things that a parent can do is engage eye to eye with their children. If they are engaging eye to eye only with their phone, I would argue that that is as much of a problem. I will come on to some of the issues, but I do not want to be hypocritical about it.
I think we all accept that we have to do more. One thing that was not included in the list of things that someone might do if they did not have a mobile phone to spend all their time on was reading a book. I would love more young people to read a book. That longer attention span is one of the things that is an admirable part of being an adult human being.
Several hon. Members referred to the fact that legislation needs to keep up. I will put this very gently to Conservative Members: we argued for an online safety Act for a long time before one ended up becoming legislation. It went through a draft process, and there were lots of rows about what should and should not be in it, and whether we were impinging on freedom of speech and all those kinds of things, but the legislation did not end up on the statute books until the end of 2023. Even then, the Act provided for a fairly slow process of implementation thereafter, partly because Ofcom was taking on powers that, on that day, it simply would not have had enough staff to engage with. The process has been difficult, and I am absolutely certain that the Online Safety Act will not be the end of this story. That is why the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology has said clearly that everything is “on the table”, and that is why today’s debate is so important.
Of course, legislation has to be proportionate, balanced, based on evidence—I will come to that in more detail in a moment—and effective. That is why the Online Safety Act will require all platforms that are in scope, including social media platforms, to set up robust systems and processes to tackle the most egregious illegal content or activity proactively, preventing users from encountering it in the first place. Platforms will be required to remove all other illegal content as soon as it is flagged to them.
The Act will also require platforms easily accessed by children—this goes to a point made by several people—to deploy measures to protect children from seeing content that is harmful to them. That includes the use of highly effective age assurance to prevent them from seeing the most harmful types of content, such as that which promotes, encourages or provides instructions for self-harm, suicide or eating disorders. Platforms will also be required to provide age-appropriate access for other types of harmful content, such as bullying, abusive content or content that encourages dangerous stunts or serious violence.
Additionally, under the Act, providers that specify a minimum age limit to access their site must specify how they enforce that in their terms of service and must do so consistently. As many Members have said, this spring will be a key moment in the implementation of the Act, and that is an important point for us to recognise: later this year, things will change, because of the implementation of the Online Safety Act. Ofcom has already set out its draft child safety codes of practice, which are the measures that companies must take to fulfil their duties under the Act.
Ofcom’s draft codes outline that all in-scope services, including social media sites, will be required to tackle algorithms that amplify harm and feed harmful material to children. I would argue that that includes the process of trying to make something addictive for a child. Services will have to configure their algorithms to filter out the most harmful types of content from children’s feeds, and to reduce the visibility and prominence of other harmful content. In January, Ofcom published its guidance for services to implement highly effective age assurance to meet their duties, including the types of technology capable of being highly effective at correctly determining whether a user is a child.
Josh MacAlister
I and a number of colleagues have had fairly extensive dialogue with Ofcom over the past few months about some of the detailed points, and there are two important gaps in the existing legislation. First, social media companies might put in a minimum age requirement, but there is no power to provide that social media platforms need to have a minimum age requirement to start with, so there is a big gap in the legislation in that respect. Secondly, despite the fairly extensive drafting in the Act, there is no requirement on Ofcom to look at functionality beyond where it relates to harmful content. Ofcom has stated clearly in writing to myself and other Members that it cannot regulate functionality unless it is specifically about harmful content, so much of what has been discussed today would not be covered by Ofcom’s current powers.
Chris Bryant
There are four or five different areas where the legislation is not sufficient for the task. Both codes require parliamentary approval, but that process will happen in the next few weeks, with the powers coming into effect this spring. As a Government, we have to decide whether it is better to make that happen now and bed it in, or say that we will have another piece of legislation. I am not allowed to make commitments on behalf of the Government, but I would be absolutely amazed if they did not bring forward further legislation in this field in the next few years. All these issues—and the others that will come along—will definitely need to be addressed, not least because, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe said at the beginning of the debate, we need to make sure that the legislation is up to date.
My hon. Friend the Member for Whitehaven and Workington (Josh MacAlister) talked about the burden of proof, and he is quite right. Of course there should not be a one-way burden of proof. We have to bear in mind two things about proof—perhaps evidence is a better word, because it is not about criminality; it is about evidence-based policy. The first is that, as everybody has said, causation is not correlation. I apologise for the slightly flippant way of putting this, but Marathon became Snickers at the same time as Mrs Thatcher gave way to John Major. I am not aware of any causal relationship between those two events. Many people understand that, but it is often very difficult to weed out what is causation and what is correlation in a specific set of events. For instance, we have all laid out the problems in relation to mental health for children, but only one Member mentioned covid. I would argue that covid is quite a significant player. It was shocking that we strove hard as a Parliament to open pubs again before we opened schools, and that children, who were at the least risk, bore the heaviest burden and that sacrifice on behalf of others. I think we need to factor that in.
The second point is something that I have campaigned on for quite a long time: acquired brain injury. Children from poorer backgrounds are four times more likely to suffer a brain injury under the age of five than kids from wealthier backgrounds, and again in their teenage years. Acquired brain injury in schools is barely recognised. Some schools respond to it remarkably well, but it is likely that there are somewhere between one and three children with a brain injury in every single primary class in this land. Nobody has yet done sufficient work on how much that has contributed to the mental health problems that children have today. We certainly know that the use of phones and screens after brain injury is a significant added factor, but we need to look at all the factors that affect the mental health of children to ensure that we target the specific things that really will work in a combination of policy changes.
Damian Hinds
The Minister speaks with a great deal of knowledge and authority, particularly on acquired brain injury, but I want to come back to the covid point. Obviously, a Westminster Hall debate is not the place to establish correlation versus causality in any sense. However, if we look at a graph of what has happened with children’s and young people’s mental ill health in this country, France, Germany and the United States, while the data are not perfectly comparable, the shape of the line is not consistent with the hypothesis that it is mainly the result of covid. It predates covid, and it carries on going up afterwards.
Chris Bryant
I am sorry if I indicated that it was mainly covid; I was not trying to say that at all. I am simply saying that that is one factor, and there may be many others—social factors, personal factors and the structure of education. One could argue, as one of my hon. Friends did, that there are other things that kids could do in society. We might, for instance, want to intervene by having a creative education option. We hardly have a youth service in most of the country any more.
Damian Hinds
The Minister would be making perfectly adequate points if we were talking only about this country. We could make all sorts of points about what Government policy was and what happened to Sure Start, the curriculum and youth clubs, but those things did not happen in France, Germany or the United States.
Chris Bryant
I have not seen any of the statistics for what has happened to youth services and the cultural education offer in schools in France and other countries.
Chris Bryant
No, I do not. I am trying to make a very simple point: many factors have contributed to the mental health problems that many young people have, and social media is undoubtedly one. The question is, how do we rate and address all those different factors? As the hon. Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins) said, we must address this from a public health angle, and that is essential. But then, when we have the whole bag of evidence, rather than just individual bits of evidence, the question is, what is the most useful intervention that we can make?
I want to come on to the definition issues. Several Members raised the issue of what social media is. That is partially addressed by the Online Safety Act, but we may want to go further. As to the reason why the previous Government landed on 13 rather than 16—which was an option available to them—the consultation at the time came back with 13. It is interesting that Members referred to content availability and to there being two ages in the UK that are generally reckoned to be part of the age of majority: 16 and 18. Actually, for film classification, it is 12 and 15. There is an argument for saying that we ought to look at film classification because it is long established and—although the issues are different in many regards—some of them are similar. We might want to learn from that—I say this from my Department for Culture, Media and Sport angle—to inform the debate on this matter.
On enforcement, several Members referred to the fact that there is no point in just changing the law; if we do that but have no form of enforcement, that is worse than useless. That is one of the Government’s anxieties, and we need to make sure that the enforcement process works properly. I take the point that there are two areas where Ofcom feels it is unable to act, because the law does not allow it to do so, and we will need to look at that. That is why we are keen to get to the moment in April when the two codes will be voted on in Parliament. We will then make sure that Ofcom has not just the powers but the ability to enforce. As my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Mrs Russell) said, Ofcom has the power to fine up to £18 million, or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue in the relevant year, which could be a substantial amount, but it needs to ensure it is in a legally effective position to do so.
My final point is that the Secretary of State has made it clear that nothing is off the table. We are keen to act in this space. The question is, how do we act most proportionately and effectively in a way that tackles the real problem? Some of that is about how the evidence stacks up, and some of it is about when the right time to legislate is. But, as I said earlier, I do not think for a single instant that this debate or the Online Safety Act will be the end of the story. I would be amazed if there were not further legislation, in some shape or other, in this field in the next two or three years.
With that, I once again thank Kim Campbell for bringing the petition to us, and I thank my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe for introducing the debate on behalf of the Petitions Committee.
Science, Innovation and Technology
Chris Bryant Excerpts(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)
The chief scientific officer has previously stated the importance of this investment in the UK’s pandemic preparedness. In the light of the announcement, what assessment has the Minister made of the impact on the UK’s ability to respond to future pandemics?
Chris Bryant
It is not entirely dependent on our AstraZeneca programme, and indeed, as I have already pointed out, the piece of work in which it was intending to invest—I hope I will get the science right—was changing the way in which it would create the nasal flu vaccine for children from an egg-based to a cell-based system. It has now decided not to do that, but to stick to the egg-based system. I think that if the chief scientific adviser or the chief medical officer has anything on which to update the House, he and/or she will do so.
[Official Report, 3 February 2025; Vol. 761, c. 559.]
Written correction submitted by the Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms, the hon. Member for Rhondda and Ogmore (Chris Bryant):
Chris Bryant
It is not entirely dependent on our AstraZeneca programme, and indeed, as I have already pointed out, the piece of work in which it was intending to invest—I hope I will get the science right—was changing the way in which it would create the nasal flu vaccine for children from an egg-based to a cell-based system. It has now decided not to do that in Speke, but to stick to the egg-based system there. I think that if the chief scientific adviser or the chief medical officer has anything on which to update the House, he and/or she will do so.
Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]
Chris Bryant ExcerptsWednesday 12th February 2025
(2 weeks, 5 days ago)
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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—
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.
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.
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.
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.
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—
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.
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—
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.
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
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—
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 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—
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
Designated Vendor Directions: Enforcement
Chris Bryant Excerpts(2 weeks, 6 days ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)
Today the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has published guidelines on how the Secretary of State will approach compliance and enforcement of designated vendor directions (DVDs) issued under the Communications Act 2003, as amended by the Telecommunications (Security) Act 2021.
The 2003 Act introduced powers for the Secretary of State to issue designation notices to vendors whose presence in UK networks poses national security risks and DVDs to public communications providers (PCPs), placing controls on their use of goods and services provided by a designated vendor. The Secretary of State can issue a DVD to a PCP if they consider that it is necessary in the interests of national security and the requirements imposed by the DVD are proportionate to what is sought to be achieved by the DVD.
The Act also provides the Secretary of State with powers to ascertain whether PCPs are complying with the requirements imposed by a DVD and to enforce against a PCP where they are found to be non-compliant with the requirements in a DVD.
This guidelines cover:
the background to DVDs and the powers available;
the approach to enforcement action;
how to establish whether there has been a contravention of a DVD requirement;
how to determine whether to enforce against a contravention;
the process for coming to a proposed penalty;
issuing formal enforcement action;
issuing a confirmation decision; and
the governance for how decisions on enforcement are made and communicated.
This document acts as a guiding framework for His Majesty’s Government when considering enforcement and imposing penalties in relation to non-compliance with requirements in a DVD.
[HCWS435]
AstraZeneca
Chris Bryant Excerpts(1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Alan Mak (Havant) (Con)
(Urgent Question):To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology if he will make a statement on AstraZeneca.
The Minister for Data Protection and Telecoms (Chris Bryant)
As the largest company listed on the London Stock Exchange, employing more than 10,000 people and investing about £2.5 billion every year in the UK, AstraZeneca is a close and valued partner to this Government and is critical to the UK’s thriving life sciences sector. We saw that in the covid-19 pandemic, when AstraZeneca partnered with the University of Oxford to create a safe and effective vaccine that was manufactured and distributed around the world, saving millions of lives.
This type of partnership for the prevention of illness is critical to achieving the Government’s ambition of reducing the burden on the NHS. AstraZeneca’s decision not to invest in Speke, Liverpool is therefore deeply disappointing and follows intensive work and collaboration between the Government and the company. This collaboration on Speke dates back to 2020 and led to an announcement at the spring Budget 2024 when AstraZeneca set out its intention to invest £450 million into its flu vaccine manufacturing facility. To secure that investment, the previous Chancellor provided assurance of His Majesty’s Government support, valued at around £90 million, subject to successful completion of due diligence. That support was based on His Majesty’s Government’s initial assessment of figures provided by the company.
Both the previous Government and this Government have always made clear that full due diligence would be required before a final Government offer could be confirmed. Since the spring Budget, AstraZeneca confirmed a significant change in the composition of its proposed investment, resulting in a smaller level of research and development being conducted in the UK. As the shadow Minister would expect, that change in AstraZeneca’s UK investment resulted in a corresponding change in Government support.
Our revised Government offer sought to ensure value for money for the taxpayer and followed due diligence of the investment put forward by AstraZeneca. We remain closely engaged with AstraZeneca as we develop our new industrial strategy, build a health system fit for the future and drive up economic growth. In the spring, the Government will release our industrial strategy, containing a comprehensive plan for growing the life sciences sector. That will build on the significant momentum generated by the plan for growth, including delivery of the Oxford-Cambridge growth corridor, as well as the Budget announcement of the life sciences innovative manufacturing fund, the suite of inward investment announced at the international investment summit and the strategic partnerships announced with Oxford Nanopore and Eli Lilly.
Alan Mak
Thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting this urgent question.
Just five days ago, in another speech about growth designed to divert attention from the total lack of growth caused by Labour’s high taxes and anti-business approach, the Chancellor specifically praised AstraZeneca: she knew that the last Conservative Government had successfully negotiated a deal for Britain’s biggest public company to invest £450 million into Britain’s economy.
Under the Conservative deal, AstraZeneca would have expanded its flu vaccine factory on Merseyside, creating new jobs, improving the UK’s pandemic preparedness and sending a clear message to the world that Britain’s life sciences sector is open for business. Instead, Labour has cut the funding that we agreed and has imposed a national insurance jobs tax. That has destroyed the business case for expanding the factory and the deal is now off. Will the Minister explain why the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology failed to stand up to the Chancellor when she cut his funding, destroying the deal and handing high-quality jobs and investment to our competitors?
In the past 12 months, AstraZeneca has committed to investing more than £1 billion in Singapore, nearly £3 billion in the US and more than £450 million in Canada. It could have invested £450 million in our country, too, so what are the Government doing to bring back the jobs and investment that they have just turned away?
By last July, all that was required was for Labour to confirm that it would proceed with our deal. AstraZeneca wrote to the Chancellor and the Science Secretary on 9 July, but received no reply. It wrote to the Secretary of State for Business and Trade in early July too, but he fobbed it off. The company did not receive its answer until last October. By then, it was too late to deliver the project and now the deal is dead. Will the Minister and the Science Secretary write to the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Chi Onwurah), offering to appear before her Committee to explain what went wrong and how such failures can be avoided in the future?
Delivering this deal secured by the Conservatives was a big test of Labour’s economic credibility, and it has failed. In the same week that it talked about growth, it has botched a deal that was vital to our economy. Labour promised growth, but delivered failure and let Britain down again.
Chris Bryant
What utter nonsense. We endured 14 years of growth that even the shadow Minister’s own Back Benchers used to describe as anaemic and feeble. Average growth under Tory Governments is 1.2%; average growth under Labour Governments is 2.4%. We are far more likely to secure growth in the British economy under a Labour Government.
The shadow Minister simply did not listen to what I had to say. The Conservatives sat on this so-called deal with AstraZeneca for four years. The process started in 2020, and it is interesting what was announced to the House and what was actually announced in the paperwork. In the House, the then Chancellor said that AstraZeneca had announced plans to invest to
“fund the building of a vaccine manufacturing hub in Speke in Liverpool.”—[Official Report, 6 March 2024; Vol. 746, c. 845.]
He did not make any mention in the Chamber of the money that was needed from his Department to be able to pay for it. The paperwork that attended that announcement stated:
“AstraZeneca’s investment decision is contingent upon mutual agreement with the UK Government and third parties, and successful completion of regulatory processes.”
That was absolutely typical of the previous Government: they thought that when they had announced something it had come to pass, but due diligence is needed to ensure the best possible financial advantage for the British taxpayer.
We have seen clearly that AstraZeneca’s original intention last year was to deliver £150 million-worth of R&D, but then it decided to cut that to something like £90 million-worth. That was its decision, based on its own investment decisions, and we as a Government had to assess whether £90 million from the UK—as supposedly promised by the previous Chancellor—was the right amount of money to put into the pot, or whether it was better to offer slightly less. Unfortunately, at the end of that process AstraZeneca decided that it would not proceed.
Let me make it absolutely clear to the hon. Member that this is the best country in the world in which to invest in the private sector. Some £63 billion of investment was secured at the growth summit last year, and £14 billion—[Interruption.]
Mr Speaker
Order. The shadow Secretary of State for Wales, the hon. Member for East Grinstead and Uckfield (Mims Davies), keeps pushing it a little bit. I think we should hear no more of that.
Chris Bryant
Thank you, Mr Speaker. And £14 billion was secured following the announcement of our artificial intelligence opportunities plan. We have cut the rate of corporation tax to 25%, which is the lowest in the G7. We are creating a pension mega-fund to be able to invest further. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ last CEO survey, we are, for the first time ever, the second-best place in the world to invest in the Government, and that is because we have a Labour Government, not a Conservative reject.
Mr Speaker
I call the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)
The UK Government are committed to growing the economy through increased R&D and advanced manufacturing. AstraZeneca tell us that it is committed to investing in the UK, which is where it is headquartered and where one of its largest customers—the NHS—is based. It is like hearing that two people are madly in love with each other, yet the wedding is off. I look forward to the Minister of State for Science explaining the background to this to the Select Committee when he appears before us next week.
In the meantime, will the Minister confirm that the UK is committed to incentivising R&D investment? Will he set out the mix of R&D and manufacturing investment agreed to by AstraZeneca under the last Government, and to which it was committed when it dropped the deal? Finally, the deal, as well as growing the economy, would have made our pandemic supply chain more resilient by reducing our dependence on mRNA vaccines. Will he set out how he intends to address that?
Chris Bryant
It is good to hear from the Chair of the Select Committee. I want to make it absolutely clear that AstraZeneca is not leaving—people are not losing their jobs because of this decision. There are still 10,000 people employed by AstraZeneca in the UK and, for that matter, it is proceeding with its nasal-based flu vaccine for children, just in a different way. All of that is important.
My hon. Friend asked about the precise details of the R&D mix that was part of the investment. As I said, it was to have been £150 million of investment. AstraZeneca decided to cut that to £90 million, which is why the contribution that the previous Chancellor had suggested of £90 million into that pot simply did not add up for the UK taxpayer, which is why we came to that set of decisions. However, she is absolutely right that we are fundamentally committed to the life sciences sector for the saving of life, for making sure that we have an NHS that can really deliver for people, and because we want to have valuable jobs that we do better in this country than anywhere else in the world.
Victoria Collins (Harpenden and Berkhamsted) (LD)
This news makes for yet another disappointing day for the UK’s investment landscape. We could be a global leader in innovation, but ever since the previous Conservative Government’s scrapping of the industrial strategy businesses have been left with uncertainty. The life sciences sector is vital not just for economic growth, but for our health and technological innovation. It contributes over £43 billion to the UK economy, supports thousands of highly skilled jobs and drives breakthroughs in medicine and healthcare, yet in conversations that I have had with businesses, I have heard time and again how the UK’s fragmented approach to investment is holding them back. That is why I have highlighted those concerns in previous questions to the Secretary of State.
The Government have promised to publish “Invest 2035” this spring, but right now companies still have no detail on what support will be available and when. Without urgent action, we risk more world-leading firms following AstraZeneca’s lead and taking their investments elsewhere. Will the Minister please confirm exactly when the final Invest 2035 strategy will be published? The Government said that the decision was based on value for money, so will the Minister and the Secretary of State also publish the impact assessment, so that we can see for ourselves?
Chris Bryant
I am afraid that I will have to write to the hon. Lady on that last question, as I am not sure precisely where we are with an impact assessment. She is absolutely right that the UK’s life sciences sector generated something like £108 billion in turnover in the financial year ending 2022—a sharp 13% increase on the previous year. We want to build on that. The sector has seen year-on-year growth since the financial year ending 2015, and turnover is now 40% higher than in the financial year ending 2022. We are keen to publish, as part of our industrial strategy, our precise plans for the financial services sector. We said that will be in the spring—it certainly still felt like winter in the Rhondda at the weekend, so I am afraid she will have to wait until spring has sprung.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
AstraZeneca is a key partner in the Liverpool city region’s life sciences innovation zone, as is Maghull health park in my constituency, with its research and development plans. Will my hon. Friend confirm that the Government will engage with partners in the city region, including the University of Liverpool, the metro mayor Steve Rotheram, council leaders and the region’s MPs, to try to recover ground on this deal, which will add to the success we have already seen with AstraZeneca in the city region and across the country?
Chris Bryant
Regional mayors have an important role to play in helping bring investment into key areas. I am happy to ensure that the meetings that my hon. Friend has asked for take place. This has to be a joint venture between everyone. I want to underline that it is not the case that AstraZeneca is leaving the United Kingdom, or that it does not have confidence in the United Kingdom, because it clearly does—it invests more than £2.5 billion every year into the UK economy. It is a key partner of the UK and will continue to be so.
Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)
What a shame the Minister has chosen to substitute aggression for what should be regret for what is, whichever way he paints it, obviously a terrible failure of negotiation. I chair the all-party parliamentary group for life sciences, and I can tell the House that this is a terrible blow not just for Speke and Liverpool—the city of my birth—but for our vaccination development environment generally. The lack of this production facility means that there will be no pull for vaccination development in the UK and the various technologies that come with it. What will he do to replace that?
Chris Bryant
Of course we feel regretful. We would have preferred to get this over the line but that was not possible, in large measure because AstraZeneca decided that it did not add up in whatever particular way for it. The right hon. Gentleman makes one very good point: we want a manufacturing provision in the country, and my colleague Lord Vallance is working on that very closely with the sector.
Paula Barker (Liverpool Wavertree) (Lab)
Friday’s announcement was deeply disappointing. The Liverpool city region is home to one of Europe’s largest pharma clusters. The Government were prepared to put millions into the project with AstraZeneca, which it has now walked away from. Is that money still on the table for other viable life science projects in our region? Will the Government commit to meet our metro mayor, Steve Rotheram, to discuss that further?
Chris Bryant
That is the cleverest bid for finance that I have ever heard, so my hon. Friend gets an award for that. She is right that we stand ready at any point to assist key investments of this nature, especially in the life sciences sector. The difference between the amount of money that was theoretically made available by the previous Government and the amount that we were prepared to put forward was remarkably small. The issue is how to ensure that similar investments get over the line. Someone from the Department will meet Steve Rotheram.
Esther McVey (Tatton) (Con)
How does losing £450 million of investment on Merseyside and into the wider north-west area equate with the Chancellor’s stated priority of economic growth?
Chris Bryant
The right hon. Lady puts it in a particular way, but it is not a way that is consonant with the facts. The fact is that this deal had not been signed or got over the line by the previous Government, who, as I have said, would quite often announce things and not actually deliver in the end. In spring 2024, the then Chancellor made it very clear in the documents that accompanied the Budget that all of this was contingent—his words, not mine—on due diligence. The then Government had not yet done the due diligence.
Tim Roca (Macclesfield) (Lab)
More than 5,000 people are employed at AstraZeneca’s Macclesfield campus, producing world-class medicines and contributing £1.8 billion in GVA and 1% of total UK exports. AstraZeneca has confirmed to me that the Speke decision does not impact Macclesfield, a site that it is committed to. Will the Minister confirm that the Government are committed to working with AZ so it continues to have a bright future in Macclesfield?
Chris Bryant
Yes, 100%. I know that my hon. Friend has visited AstraZeneca and spoken to it many times. He is absolutely right to note that there are, I think, 4,000 working at the Macclesfield site, and will continue to do so. I am sure that AstraZeneca has a very strong future in Macclesfield. Nothing in this decision changes that one iota.
Sir Julian Smith (Skipton and Ripon) (Con)
We in this House often underestimate how many options companies such as AstraZeneca have on where to invest. The Minister is not known for taking no as an answer, so can I urge him to continue to make the case for this investment, be flexible on VFM and keep fighting for this specific deal?
Chris Bryant
Not necessarily for this specific deal, but certainly for a deal with AstraZeneca, yes.
Anneliese Midgley (Knowsley) (Lab)
AstraZeneca’s decision to pull its £450 million investment in the Speke manufacturing plant is a blow for the creation of jobs across the city region, including in my constituency. I commend my right hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool Garston (Maria Eagle) for her tireless efforts in trying to get this deal over the line. Will the Minister join me in recognising the brilliant work of the scientists at the facility, and will he meet me and colleagues to explain how he can guarantee investment in R&D in the city region going forward?
Chris Bryant
I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend knows, as she knows, although I think it would probably be more useful for her if she were to meet Lord Vallance, who is the Minister for life sciences. My hon. Friend is absolutely right; we would of course much prefer this investment to go ahead and to have been able to get this deal over the line. However, it has not been possible, and we now have to look at different ways of ensuring that we strengthen the relationship with AstraZeneca. However, I would point to other investments that have been made in recent months, including in life sciences, to quite significant effect.
Alison Bennett (Mid Sussex) (LD)
The Financial Times reports that, during its negotiations with the Government, AstraZeneca raised concerns about the vaccine plant, but also about the rejection of one of its breast cancer drugs and the drug pricing mechanism. Does the Minister agree that AstraZeneca’s rejection of his Government’s final offer is not the only concerning issue for our biopharma industry, and will he assure me that he is raising issues around the regulatory and reimbursement processes with the Health Secretary and the Treasury as barriers to growth in a sector already struggling with post-Brexit red tape?
Chris Bryant
The hon. Lady’s first point was on the voluntary scheme for branded medicines pricing and access, which is reduced to an acronym that is not really an acronym: VPAG. This is, as it says on the tin, a voluntary agreement between Government, the pharmaceutical industry and the NHS, which is designed specifically to ensure that we protect the NHS’s medicines budget. It is voluntary, and AstraZeneca has always been a party to it on a voluntary basis. I am not sure that is the problem the hon. Lady thinks it is—although, if she has further evidence, I would be happy to speak to her.
I think she is also referring to the rejection by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence of a breast cancer drug. This is the first time in six years that a breast cancer drug has been rejected by NICE, and it is obviously concerning for everybody who wants to be able to use these drugs. However, we have an independent and much-respected system in the UK. I stand by that independence; I am not going to undermine it.
Graham Stringer (Blackley and Middleton South) (Lab)
May I say in the gentlest possible way to my hon. Friend the Minister that losing investment in Merseyside and the north-west is not compensated for by investment in the Oxford-Cambridge corridor, particularly as some years ago we lost Diamond Light Source from Daresbury? I would also like to ask him a question on a deeper issue beyond the normal party political dance: it’s their fault. it’s not, or whatever. When Kate Bingham, the heroine of covid and developing vaccines, finished she made excoriating comments about our civil servants and their ability to understand science and biological sciences. What is the Minister doing to improve that situation, so that distinguished people like Kate Bingham do not say that officials in the civil service treat this huge industry with suspicion and contempt?
Chris Bryant
If I might just refer to the first comment first, I am the Member for Rhondda and Ogmore, so I fully understand that investment in one part of the country is obviously great for that part of the country, but it does not necessarily mean that every part of the country is rising with everybody else. Trying to make sure that economic investment spreads across the whole of the United Kingdom, including in the north-west, the north-east and in the south Wales valleys, is a really important part of our historic mission.
On my hon. Friend’s other point, AstraZeneca complained about the length of time all of this has taken. As I say, it started in 2020 and it was only in 2024 that the first announcement was made—as I understand it, by a text message from the then Chancellor of the Exchequer to the chief executive of AstraZeneca. We might need to learn better ways of informing our decisions about science.
Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
Did the Government’s rise in national insurance contributions and the over £400,000 a year extra that AstraZeneca would have needed to pay for the site contribute to its decision to withdraw?
Johanna Baxter (Paisley and Renfrewshire South) (Lab)
I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on vulnerable groups to pandemics. More than 1.2 million clinically vulnerable people are still shielding from covid because their mRNA vaccine does not provide efficient protection for immunosuppressed people. Will my hon. Friend set out how the Department is putting the UK at the forefront of international R&D in life sciences to support those very vulnerable people?
Chris Bryant
Not only have we set aside £520 million precisely to be able to invest in the life sciences industry with an innovation fund, we are very keen to work with specific businesses to understand how they can make more secure, long-term investment. The single most important thing for most people making an investment in the UK is whether they believe there is political, fiscal and financial stability in the UK. That is what we are absolutely determined to deliver. My hon. Friend makes a very good point about those who are immunosuppressed for all sorts of different reasons, whether their medication or a condition. I will take that point back to the Department.
Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)
The Chancellor said that economic growth is the most important thing and this was an opportunity to get some of that economic growth. This was an opportunity to get something over the line and the UK Government failed to deliver it. How can the House and the public trust anything the UK Government say? How can they say that this is the founding mission if they then fail to deliver for a region that could really do with that economic growth?
Chris Bryant
The thing is that spending taxpayers’ money has to be proven to be good value for money. That is why, whenever we are making an investment such as this, we have to make sure it delivers more return on investment than £1 for £1. When AstraZeneca made the decision to cut the R&D part of its budget from £150 million to £90 million, it made sense for the UK Government to look again at the amount of money we could legitimately put in on behalf of the taxpayer. If the hon. Lady had been in my place, I think she would have made exactly the same decision.
Chris Vince (Harlow) (Lab/Co-op)
Does the Minister agree that the Chancellor’s announcement last week of investment in the Oxford-Cambridge corridor shows very clearly that the Government see a bright future for life sciences in the United Kingdom, and will he forgive me for giving a brief plug to a post-war new town—my constituency of Harlow—which would very much like to be part of that future?
Chris Bryant
There are all sorts of bids coming in now, none of which I am in charge of, but we have seen significant added investments in the UK since the autumn. For instance, Iberdrola is doubling its investment through Scottish Power from £12 billion to £24 billion over the next four years, and Blackstone has confirmed a £10 billion investment in Blyth in Northumberland. What is essential, however, is for us to ensure that that investment stretches across the UK, that we have the skills we need in order to deliver those investments, and that we have the economic structures in place to enable them to remain, because they are long-term investments, not just short-term ones. Also, sometimes, we have to tackle the over-regulation that exists in some elements of the economy, particularly in relation to planning, so that we can get down to making the decisions that the Tories should have made for 14 years.
Dr Neil Shastri-Hurst (Solihull West and Shirley) (Con)
The chief scientific officer has previously stated the importance of this investment in the UK’s pandemic preparedness. In the light of the announcement, what assessment has the Minister made of the impact on the UK’s ability to respond to future pandemics?
Chris Bryant
It is not entirely dependent on our AstraZeneca programme, and indeed, as I have already pointed out, the piece of work in which it was intending to invest—I hope I will get the science right—was changing the way in which it would create the nasal flu vaccine for children from an egg-based to a cell-based system. It has now decided not to do that, but to stick to the egg-based system. I think that if the chief scientific adviser or the chief medical officer has anything on which to update the House, he and/or she will do so.
Josh Fenton-Glynn (Calder Valley) (Lab)
Despite AstraZeneca’s decision, the UK biotech industry almost doubled last year to £3.4 billion, but it was concentrated in just a few companies. Will the Minister commit to looking at some of the trial research rules to enable smaller companies to work better with NHS trusts so that start-ups and local firms can prosper?
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend is right: not only do we need to enable smaller companies to start up, but we need to enable them to grow to scale. Otherwise, the danger is that we develop the good idea, someone else ends up buying the intellectual property, and all the value disappears out the UK’s back door. When I met the husband-and-wife team who run BioNtech—they are amazing, not least in respect of some of the work they have done in developing immunotherapy, which is probably the stuff that saved my life when I had stage 4 cancer—they spoke warmly and glowingly about all the work that they want to do in the UK, alongside the work of AstraZeneca. As my hon. Friend says, we need to get small companies set up, to grow them, and to enable them to be world leaders like AstraZeneca.
Sammy Wilson (East Antrim) (DUP)
Investment in highly paid industries producing good-quality research and development, and the spin-offs from that, are, of course, important to the economy and to long-term growth. I agree with the Minister that when it comes to using public money we have to be careful about how it is spent, and not just throw it at a company because it has threatened to walk away from investment. In fact, I should have thought that those on the Opposition Front Bench would be quite happy to hear the Minister talking about the proper use of public finance like a prudent Conservative Minister. My question, however, is this. Although due diligence had to be done, and it may well have been assessed that this was not a good use of public money, was the investment lost because of a lack of communication between the Government and the company during the assessment process, when perhaps the company could have been convinced that it could proceed, even with less support?
Chris Bryant
I will take support from wherever I can get it, so I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. It is a very simple point that when the Government invest in businesses of whatever kind, we have to make sure that we get value for money for the taxpayer, even when there is a very large cheque on the table. AstraZeneca decided to change the structure of its research and development, which is one of the reasons why we had to change the amount of money that we were prepared to put in, but the right hon. Gentleman’s other points are very good and well made.
Chris Curtis (Milton Keynes North) (Lab)
Alongside other Members representing Milton Keynes, I attended the Chancellor’s speech last Wednesday and spoke to many companies, including those from the life sciences sector. There were two really important points that they wanted to make, after being reasonably pleased with what they heard from the Chancellor. The first was about the importance of talking up our world-leading universities, after the previous Government continually talked them down. Will the Minister commit that this Government will continue to sell our world-leading universities, including Oxford and Cambridge, on the world stage?
The second point that companies wanted to make was that investing in life sciences right across the country requires a successful Oxford-Cambridge arc. Will the Minister commit to doing whatever it takes to make the entire corridor successful, including by getting a devolution deal for the midlands and speaking to his colleagues in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to ensure that that happens?
Chris Bryant
Yes, and I agree with everything my hon. Friend says. The Oxford-Cambridge corridor is really important. Reading the newspapers over the weekend, I was intrigued by how many Conservative commentators kept on saying, “What I don’t understand is why the Conservatives didn’t do this over the last 14 years.” It is not enough simply to build the Oxford-Cambridge corridor; we need to make sure that we build on creative and scientific innovations at all our universities in the United Kingdom, and not just at Oxford and Cambridge.
Lewis Cocking (Broxbourne) (Con)
We received terrible news from AstraZeneca over the weekend. It is businesses across the country, such as those in my constituency of Broxbourne, that create economic growth, not the Government. The Government have increased red tape and employer’s national insurance contributions. Can the Minister outline how he is promoting businesses and encouraging them to invest in the United Kingdom?
Chris Bryant
As I have already said, we had £63 billion of investment at the summit before Christmas, and we have had £14 billion of investment since Christmas. I have a specific responsibility for data in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and the number of data centres investing in the UK is significant. We now have 500, which puts us third after the United States of America and Germany. We are determined to grow the economy. The hon. Gentleman is sort of right to say that it is the private sector that creates growth, but it is also true to say that the Government contribute to growth. For instance, if we manage to build 1.5 million additional homes in the UK, that will contribute to growth. If the Conservatives do not believe that, they are living in cloud cuckoo land.
Kevin Bonavia (Stevenage) (Lab)
The wider context of the issue before us today is that this country is at the forefront of the global life sciences sector, of which there are clusters across the UK. In my constituency of Stevenage, which was the first post-war new town in the Oxford-Cambridge corridor, we have GlaxoSmithKline, Autolus, and the Cell and Gene Therapy Catapult. Will my hon. Friend tell the House how this Government are committed to spreading growth in the life sciences sector across the whole country, and thank all our hard-working scientists?
Chris Bryant
That is precisely the job that Lord Vallance is engaged in. We are trying to make sure that our research and development budget across the whole of the UK is spent in a way that delivers economic growth and investment in companies that are start-ups, but also in ones that need to scale up. We are also working with the Department for Education to make sure that we have the skills that we need in the UK—not just to come up with a good scientific idea, but to develop entrepreneurialism and to be able to take an idea to market and make a living out of it.
Dr Andrew Murrison (South West Wiltshire) (Con)
I am grateful to the Minister for providing some insight into the way in which the Government and their Ministers look on economic matters. Does he appreciate that investment per capita in R&D is very much greater in America than in this country? There are now a range of incentives at federal and state level that will act as a draw to life sciences, notwithstanding what has happened in Washington over the past few days. What is there to tie a company such as AstraZeneca to this country? Why would it not look more favourably on America as a destination of choice?
Chris Bryant
To be honest, that sounded like a bid to send AstraZeneca to the United States of America. I do not think that is what hon. Members of this House should be doing; I think they should be standing up for the UK as the best place for AstraZeneca to invest. [Interruption.] There is no point in pointing at me like a child: that does nobody any favours. The honest truth is that AstraZeneca is and will remain one of the biggest investors in the UK economy.
Wendy Morton (Aldridge-Brownhills) (Con)
No matter how the Minister tries to dress it up, this is a blow to the UK economy, to life sciences and to manufacturing. What message about the Government’s lack of support for manufacturing does this decision send to global investors and, importantly, to the local jobs market?
Chris Bryant
It does not send any kind of message like that. The point is that in the UK we have secured dramatic amounts of additional investment since the general election. What is interesting is that all the Conservative Members are praising something that was never delivered by the previous Government; it was only announced. It is like so many parts of the DSIT budget that I discovered when I became a Minister. Theoretically, the previous Government had said that they were doing this, that and the other, but they had not actually set aside a single penny, because they had not done a proper comprehensive spending review for many, many years. That is precisely the black hole that we have had to fill.
Mr Joshua Reynolds (Maidenhead) (LD)
Given the protectionist policies of US President Trump, can the Minister confirm how he will seize the opportunity to make the UK the best place for pharmaceutical investment in the world?
Chris Bryant
Some of what I have already pointed out is really important. We have already said that we will have the lowest corporation tax rate in the G7, at 25%, and we are sticking with that. We have made sure that we are investing in our public services so that people can have a guarantee of proper public services in this country. One thing that affects many businesses in this country—I have heard it repeatedly—is that if we have 7 million people on NHS waiting lists, we will not get people back into work. I would argue that the public sector and the private sector both have a role to play in enabling each other to flourish. It is not a question of “private sector good, public sector bad,” or the other way around; the two have to work hand in hand.
Sir Christopher Chope (Christchurch) (Con)
For all the virtues of AstraZeneca, let us not forget that thousands of people suffered serious injury or death as a result of having the AstraZeneca covid-19 vaccines. Why, then, are the Government continuing to waste taxpayers’ money on indemnifying AstraZeneca against claims for civil liability brought by those victims of AstraZeneca vaccines?
Chris Bryant
I think the hon. Gentleman needs to speak to the hon. Member who spoke earlier—oh, he’s left. I actually believe that the vaccines saved lives; I do not believe that they lost people their lives. I am afraid that the hon. Gentleman and I will never be united on that front.
David Reed (Exmouth and Exeter East) (Con)
A pattern is forming around this not so new Government’s ability to negotiate effectively, from their disastrous approach to Chagos to the terrible deal with train unions and this latest debacle with AstraZeneca. Is it fair to say that when this Labour Government negotiate, Britain loses out?
Chris Bryant
It is almost sad, sometimes. I just wish the hon. Member had been here for the last 14 years. I wish he had been here when we had endless strikes in every single part of every Department and we could not get the NHS waiting lists dealt with because we were not paying our nurses and our doctors properly. The first thing that we did was a deal to get them back to work. The hon. Member thinks that somehow or other that is buying off the trade unions. It is not. It is making sure that the people who work in our public services are properly rewarded, get back to work and get this country back on its feet.
Tom Gordon (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (LD)
The Minister said that the numbers no longer added up for AstraZeneca, but in response to the hon. Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson), he said that employer national insurance contribution increases were not a factor. How can both those things be right? When I speak to the local science sector and to businesses like Labcorp in my constituency, they say that employer NICs have a massive impact. Can the Minister really say in all honesty that he does not think that this Government’s changes to employer NICs had an impact on the deal?
Chris Bryant
First, let me clear up a point about national insurance contributions. I know that the Conservative party likes to bang on about them, but many people do not know that 50% of businesses and organisations in the UK will pay either exactly the same amount of national insurance or less. That fact is not often, if ever, repeated by Conservative Members.
Secondly, the hon. Gentleman asks whether AstraZeneca had cited national insurance contributions as a reason for withdrawing. It has not, so far as I am aware. I would not tell the House anything that I did not believe to be true.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I thank the Minister for his answers, and I have a respectful question. The axiom “it takes money to make money” is a foundational policy for many businesses but, for some of us in this place, another phrase comes to mind: “penny wise and pound foolish.” Saving a little now may help a lot in the future, so will the Minister kindly and respectfully explain how the Government intend to encourage long-term, renewable investment so that businesses can rely on the Government to fulfil their obligations? How will the Minister ensure that companies throughout this great United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland feel that growth and investment will be supported and fostered?
Chris Bryant
I could read out the long list of investments made in the last few months, except I do not think that Mr Speaker would let me. I do not think we have time, and you would get bored with me, Mr Speaker. The hon. Member makes an important point. At the moment, I am engaged in negotiations on a significant possible investment.
We must ensure that we are delivering value for money for the British taxpayer, and that we are not throwing money away unnecessarily. Of course, there comes a moment when we have to make a judgment, and we made a judgment that came remarkably close to the £90 million offered by the previous Chancellor of the Exchequer, despite the fact that AstraZeneca’s R&D contribution had gone down from £150 million to £90 million. We made a significant offer, but for whatever reason, it did not get it over the line.
Obviously, we always want to get deals over the line if we possibly can, and there are competing demands for different kinds of investment, but I assure the hon. Member that our aim is always to try to make sure that we are at the forefront of all the nations seeking such investment, especially in this kind of technology.
The hon. Member is right about Northern Ireland. I, as a Welshman, bang the drum for Wales, and he bangs the drum for Northern Ireland—and quite rightly so.
Creative Industries
Chris Bryant Excerpts(1 month ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism (Chris Bryant)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the creative industries.
I have of course noted the point of order that was just raised, and I will pass on the comments and make sure that an answer is provided. I should declare an interest of my own in this debate. Two of my books are optioned, one to Mother Films and another to Pathé, so if we stray into talking about film and high-end television, I will have to be careful. [Interruption.] Have Members come across Paddington and his stare before?
The UK is home to world-class creative industries; I think we can all agree about that. Every single day, our arts and culture bring joy to millions of people, not just in our four nations but all over the world. They are part of our soft power, part of our economic power and part of the joy that we give to the world. They enrich our lives, they bring our communities together and they drive our economy. These are industries powered by extraordinary artists, musicians, dancers, publishers, architects and game designers who, year after year, find ways to break out of the straitjacket of conformity. I know this because on Saturday night I went to see the Matthew Bourne version of “Swan Lake”, and if that is not an example of people breaking out of the straitjacket of conformity, I do not know what is.
While Governments of every stripe have appreciated the social value of our creative industries—some more than others—many have underpriced the huge economic potential of industries that are already among our most powerful engines of growth. This Government understand the true economic value that these industries have now and can have in the future. They generated £125 billion for the economy in 2023. They account for one in 14 jobs across the country now, and I would guess that by 2029 that will be one in 10. They have shown growth at one and a half times the rate of the rest of our economy in the past decade, despite all the economic headwinds they and we have faced. Today, we are the third largest art market in the world, larger than all the European art markets combined, and I want to make sure that we remain at the top of that list. Only the USA exports more advertising than us, and nobody exports more books than us—although not necessarily mine.
To put this in perspective, our creative industries were worth more to the economy in 2022 than three of our heavyweight sectors—aerospace, life sciences and automotive industries—combined. When we think about growth, our first thought should therefore be of the creative industries, and I am proud that that is precisely how this Government are viewing them. I would argue that these industries have managed all this in spite of, not always in partnership with, their Government over the past 14 years. They have been built by ordinary people doing extraordinary things: rule breakers, convention breakers and trend defiers who have pioneered thousands of small revolutions in our arts and culture.
I believe that with a genuine partner in Government—one that bulldozes barriers, that creates stability and certainty for businesses and international investors, that collaborates with businesses and artists as equal partners to turbocharge growth, that does not try to persuade every ballerina in the country to retrain, and that ensures that creative education is at the heart of all our education in schools and that every single child in this country does not go through their education without a proper creative education —we can create even greater British success stories.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I observe no Paddington stare. The point is well made about young people starting off and growing into the creative industries. The pantomimes and local amateur dramatics that I get involved in are the seedcorn of these things by getting kids on stage, but does the Minister agree that if the local newspapers go down—and so many of them are in danger right across the UK—those things will not get the publicity and support that helps to grow the industry?
Chris Bryant
The hon. Gentleman asks four questions in one, which is quite creative of him. He says he is involved with pantomime; some of us on the Labour Benches would say that he has been in pantomime for much of his political career. He makes an important point about journalism, which is a very important creative industry in this country. The Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock), who is sitting beside me, has responsibility for print journalism. She takes ensuring the survival of local journalism very seriously. How on earth could people otherwise hear stories from their local community? There is also a job to do on tackling misinformation. If the only information people ever hear about their local community comes from social media, a lot of it might not be as accurate as we would like.
Jim Shannon
I thank the Minister for setting the scene so positively. Does he agree that one of the great benefits of this United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is that all the cultures and regions come together? If I have the chance, later I will talk about Northern Ireland’s contribution. We can all gain if we work together.
Chris Bryant
I agree 100%. So many programmes made in Northern Ireland are an intrinsic part of what the UK has to offer. I am not sure whether “Derry Girls” is necessarily the hon. Gentleman’s thing, but it is one of the funniest programmes we have seen in many years. “Game of Thrones,” of course, was made in Northern Ireland, and many Northern Irish actors have done extraordinarily well on the British scene, and on a much wider canvas.
I am particularly stimulated by the fact that Albert Finney and Glenda Jackson were born on the same day. Those working-class kids both ended up going to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and having phenomenal acting careers, with Oscars, awards and so on. Where are the Albert Finneys and Glenda Jacksons of the future? Whether they come from Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales or a difficult estate in England—even Stoke-on-Trent—we will have failed so many of our young people if the only schools that provide a real creative education, in art, music or drama, are the Etons of this country, and we will not have the creative industries we need.
Since last July, creative businesses have been nothing but straight with us about what is holding them back, and this Government have heard them loud and clear. They want investment, innovation, international competitiveness and skills. Each one of these has to be a litmus test for what we are doing as a Department and as a Government.
Today, I want to set out some of the challenges, as we see them, and what this Government are doing to address them. Our starting point, right across Government, has been an appreciation of what the creative industries give us. They are not a “nice to have” or a cherry on the cake; they are an essential part of who we are as a country and what we are trying to achieve as a Government.
We are very aware that brands like the BBC and the Premier League are an important part of our soft power around the world, which is one of the reasons why the Foreign Secretary and the Culture Secretary recently launched the Soft Power Council, because we think we can do far more with that.
People sometimes focus on the BBC, which I worked for many moons ago. I remember getting into a taxi in Brussels, and the driver asked me what I did. I said that I worked for the BBC, and he said, “Oh, I love the BBC and all those wonderful TV programmes: ‘Inspector Morse’ and ‘Brideshead Revisited.’” He basically gave me a long list of ITV programmes.
Jamie Stone
“The Traitors,” which attracted 7.4 million viewers on the BBC last Friday, was filmed at Ardross castle in my constituency.
Chris Bryant
I was at a tourism conference last Thursday, and our tourism offer is especially good at giving people the opportunity to visit places where films have been made. One of the biggest investors in our country in the past few years has been Tom Cruise, who has another film coming out in the near future. Many film locations are wonderful places for tourist visits. I notice the hon. Gentleman has gone from panto to “The Traitors”—need I say more? Of course, “The Traitors” was originally a Dutch format, but the BBC has made it better than anybody else made it, and has given it new life. I will not spoil it for anyone, but I thought the final episode was very unfair, ending as it did.
From the outset, the Chancellor and the Secretary of State for Business and Trade made our creative sector one of eight growth-driving industries at the heart of our industrial strategy. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and I are developing a long-term sector plan, along with Baroness Shriti Vadera and Sir Peter Bazalgette.
John Glen (Salisbury) (Con)
I commend the hon. Gentleman on the passionate case he is making for investment in the arts. Does he recognise the work of Darren Henley and Arts Council England? I suspect that we have all received copies of the third edition of Darren Henley’s book, which sets out very clearly the case for public investment in the arts and the multiplier effect that has. In the months running up to the comprehensive spending review, is it not essential that the whole sector comes together to ensure the hon. Gentleman is well equipped to go into battle with Treasury officials?
Chris Bryant
The right hon. Gentleman used to be a Treasury Minister, so perhaps he can give us some tips on how we can secure that funding. I note that since July last year, Conservative MPs have developed a tendency to call for more expenditure and less taxation on things. I gently suggest to him that those two things do not meet together. If he gives me tips on how I can get more money out of the Treasury, I will give him tips on how to talk about demanding more money.
The right hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the sector: some of our biggest creative industries are completely commercially focused, including publishing, architecture, advertising and video games. However, I have tried to make the argument that the sector is a whole ecosystem; we do not get Great British films and a Great British film industry without a Great British theatre industry, and we do not get a Great British commercial theatre industry without having a subsidised theatre industry as well. We need to foster a combination of broadcasters, subsidised performing arts and commercially centred creative industries, and build on that.
The right hon. Gentleman refers to Arts Council England. As he knows, we have initiated a full review of how Arts Council England works, to ensure that the money does what it is intended to do around the whole of England. The review will be led by Baroness Margaret Hodge, who will be doughty—I think that is the best word—and I look forward to seeing what she comes up with.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
The hon. Gentleman talks about the ecosystem, but he has done something that we have not seen for a long time: he has united every creative sector in opposition to his plans to water down copyright. Copyright has underpinned the success of our creative industries and made them global powerhouses. Yesterday, Sir Paul McCartney warned against those plans, and spoke about what could happen to all creative industries. Does the hon. Gentleman take on board what he says, and will he revisit the plans?
Chris Bryant
As I have said to the hon. Gentleman privately, and am happy to say again in public, I do not believe for a single instant that the legislation that we will eventually put to the House will undermine or water down our copyright regime in this country. It has been absolutely essential to the creative industries that they own their intellectual property and can control their right to it, and we will not change that. However, we face a real problem in this country, as do many countries around the world, which is that there is legal uncertainty around—
Chris Bryant
There is such legal uncertainty that the matter is being contested in different court cases around the world. This afternoon, I met Getty Images, which has brought one such case. We cannot simply wait for the court cases to resolve the matter for us somehow. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would endorse elements of the consultation—for instance, those around transparency. Let us have that conversation. It is a genuine consultation. Earlier this afternoon, I said to my office that I am very happy for Sir Paul McCartney to come in; we can talk it all through with him.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
The Minister talks about the ecosystem and bringing together all the sectors. There is no better example in this country—perhaps in the world—than the Edinburgh international festivals, which bring all the sectors together. Edinburgh is also a heartland of small venues. What will the Government do to help small venues, which have been suffering for five or six years, to cope with the national insurance changes, because they are employers and are being hit by them?
Chris Bryant
The hon. Lady makes a very good point about the Edinburgh festivals; I hope that the Hansard Reporters heard the “s” at the end. Sometimes people just refer to the Edinburgh international festival, but there is a series of festivals, including book and television festivals. That ecosystem has managed to grow and grow; it is precisely the kind of thing that we want to do. Another element of the Edinburgh international festivals is that there is a cluster there. The previous Government rightly identified that where we can create a cluster around a creative industry, we stand a greater chance of building it and enabling greater growth. For instance, Royal Leamington Spa is a cluster for the video games industry, as is Dundee. There are various clusters around the country; that is something that we want to build on.
The hon. Lady asks about small venues. As she may know, we have backed the call made in the previous Parliament by the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage)—I wanted to call her the Secretary of State—for a voluntary levy on tickets for gigs in arenas to provide money for small venues. I am very hopeful about that. I am pushing as hard as I can for the industry to adopt the measure on a voluntary basis, but we have made it very clear that if it does not, we will make it happen on a statutory basis. I hope that we can move forward on that relatively soon. Likewise, many small venues in the hospitality industries thought that there would be a cliff edge at the end of March for the 70% relief on business rates. We have said that the relief will be 40%, and there will be a renewal of and change to business rates in future years. We are trying to help small music venues in all those ways, but in the end, if there is nobody to perform in a small music venue, it is not a small music venue. That is why I return to the effort to ensure that we have creative education in all our schools.
As hon. Members will be aware, there are many creative businesses in this country that have a great idea or product and are ready to expand, but cannot access the finance that they need to take their growth to the next level. Like every part of the UK economy, the creative industries have amazing start-ups that struggle to scale up. As a first step to addressing that all-important finance barrier, the British Business Bank, which supports over £17 billion in finance for business, committed in the last week to increasing the scale of its support for the creative industries. Possibly one of the most important things that we can do over the next couple of years is try to improve access to finance for all our creative businesses, whether at the moment of their inception, at the point of scale-up, or when they are 10 years in. We should back venture capital funds investing in UK creative industries, and support experts who understand the unique strengths of the sector in the UK.
To provide creative businesses across the country with the support that they need to scale up, we have confirmed over £16 million of funding for the Create Growth programme. In addition, we are backing early-stage games developers with £5.5 million funding for the Dundee-based UK games fund. We want the next generation of hit UK games to be made across the UK.
Jessica Toale (Bournemouth West) (Lab)
I welcome the measures the Government are bringing in to support our important creative industries. Those businesses also need a talent pipeline, and my constituency has a world-leading arts university and a higher education and further education system supporting film, television and games development. What are the Government doing to support that talent pipeline and our educational institutions?
Chris Bryant
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Indeed, I have often wondered whether we should have a specific programme for her area, because she is right that there is a concentration of courses, universities and businesses devoted to those same industries. I would be happy to meet her, and perhaps if she would like to come into the Department, we could go through some of the specifics about how we will be assisting in her area.
Joe Robertson (Isle of Wight East) (Con)
The Minister makes the good point that creative industries need to be backed with finance that they can access. Will he ensure that grassroots, small-scale projects away from the big cities, such as on the Isle of Wight where my constituency is, receive the finance they need, so we can realise our aim and endeavour of getting a film studio set up?
Chris Bryant
I have heard tell of a film studio in the hon. Member’s constituency, so I wondered whether he was going to refer to that. Obviously, the previous Government and this Government have been committed in different ways to ensuring that we expand the provision of film studio space in the country. We are almost up to the level of having more space than Hollywood, and we are keen to progress that. Again, if he wants to come into the Department and talk about the specifics of what we might be able to do in his constituency, I would be happy to do that. He is right that sometimes we have focused on the massive projects, but we cannot get many massive projects in the creative industries without starting with the small and medium-sized businesses, and that is where we need to go.
One thing that has stood in the way of film studios for quite some time is the re-evaluation of business rates. I am glad that we have got to a much more sensible position over the past 12 months on the matter. Likewise, planning applications have been phenomenally difficult in many cases. We were proud to put £25 million into the Crown Works studio in Gateshead, which I look forward to visiting soon.
One of the principal barriers to innovation in 2025 is that not enough investment is going into research and development in the creative industries, and I know the Select Committee has looked at that. It is why the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology recommended that
“Public investment in R&D in the creative industries should reflect the size, economic contribution, and future growth potential of the sector.”
That is why we confirmed earlier this month that we will strengthen the investment from our national research funding agency—UK Research and Innovation—into creative research and development.
Another part of the equation is, of course, tax relief. One of the great catalysts for the strong growth of our creative industries has been targeted tax reliefs for different sectors, introduced by both the Conservative Government and this Labour Government. We built on those reliefs in our first 100 days in government, with an enhanced independent film tax credit to support home-grown talent and UK co-productions and an enhanced tax relief for visual effects from the start of this year. That tax relief sends a clear message to our directors, visual effect artists and actors: “Be courageous, take risks and reap the rewards. Your Government are behind you.” I hope to be able to say more on film and high-end television at the Select Committee tomorrow morning—I am sure the Committee has some difficult questions for me.
On skills, education and the workforce, we want to see more good-quality creative jobs and more creative businesses popping up across the country. But too often what I hear from young people is that they could no more dream of getting those jobs than going to the moon. That is not just a tragic waste of human potential; it is bad business. That is why Steven Knight, the creator of “Peaky Blinders”, who is working to bring a film school to Birmingham, is recruiting and training 20% of the workforce from local postcodes, and I applaud him. It is essential for investors to know that they do not have to incur the cost of shipping people in to work on a project when that talent exists everywhere, but the opportunity does not.
That is why we made it a core priority in our manifesto to improve access to the arts and music as part of our opportunity mission. We wasted no time in getting that work under way, with the Education Secretary launching an expert-led independent curriculum and assessment review within a month of the general election. On top of that, we provided a further £3 million to expand the creative careers programme, so that we can broaden and diversify the talent pipeline in the creative industries.
Only by restoring culture’s place in the classroom and beyond will we be able to get young people ready for the creative jobs of tomorrow. We set up Skills England to work with employers and to help give us a coherent national picture of where skills gaps exist and how they can be addressed through further qualifications and technical education. In its first report, Skills England highlighted the importance of the creative industries for both current and future opportunity and growth.
We also need to ensure that there are opportunities in the workplace. We know that apprenticeships can be incredible springboards into creative careers, but that relies on there being a levy that works in the interests of employers and apprentices. For years before the general election, I heard repeatedly from the creative industries how difficult it was to use the apprenticeship levy in their industry. If someone is making a film, it might be a six, seven or eight-month project, which was not enough to meet the previous criteria for the apprenticeship levy. That is why I am really proud that we are working with Skills England to transform the apprenticeship levy into a new growth and skills levy, to create opportunities and provide greater flexibility for employers and apprenticeships. We plan to bring forward changes so that shorter apprenticeships are available from August 2025, recognising the particular needs of the creative industries. A 12-month apprenticeship is no good for employers who need skills for projects that are shorter than that. We are knocking down that needless hurdle.
For sectors such as music, the grassroots is always where it all begins. We are therefore not only continuing to support Arts Council England’s supporting grassroots music fund, but working up a 12-point plan for music—it says 10-point plan here, but when I looked at it this morning, it was already a 12-point plan. The truth of the matter is that music is a vital part of our lives, whether it is classical music, opera, pop music or heavy metal, which some people like—I see the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale), nodding in a heavy metal sort of way; he has to be careful at his age, although I think he is younger than I am. The point is that we all have our different tastes in music, but we know how important it is to people’s enjoyment of life and to their being able to express themselves.
There is also nothing as important as being able to go to a live music event. One thing we are working very hard on—I made a statement about it earlier this year—is trying to make sure that the secondary ticket market, which has behaved in a frankly duplicitous and often parasitical way towards the music industry, is brought to heel and actually operates in the interests of fans.
I also want to talk about exports. We have some remarkable export strengths in the creative industries. Publishing achieved year-on-year growth and is now worth £11.6 billion to our economy, with export income accounting for almost 60% of its revenue. We are the largest book exporter in the world, and we should be proud of it. However, we need more success stories like publishing, and we need to make sure that the problems that publishing is having with exporting books—for instance, to the European Union—are overcome.
If we are to have such success stories, we need to fix some of the issues that the last Government unfortunately failed to address, such as touring. If we want the next generation of Ed Sheerans, Dua Lipas, Adeles and Stormzys to stand any chance of breaking into new markets, they must be able to perform overseas without having to navigate a maze of rules and regulations. That is why we are engaging with the EU and EU member states to find an answer that improves arrangements for touring across the European continent, without seeing a return to free movement.
That equally applies to the art market. Artworks are being brought to the UK to be sold in the UK art market, where they might command the highest price, but they are facing great difficulties entering the country. That is the kind of thing we also need to sort out.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)
Order. The Minister is giving a very substantial speech, but he has been on his feet for 30 minutes. Hopefully he will be coming to a conclusion at some point.
Chris Bryant
I am afraid that I inherited this speech, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I will try to shut up as soon as I possibly can. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear!”] I think I have united the House there. That was very unkind—I feel a bit upset now.
It will not have escaped hon. Members that the challenges I have outlined today are all interconnected. As I have said, we cannot have thriving creative businesses without creative talent with the right skills. We will not see strong export growth numbers if businesses are unable to access the finance they need to expand. The independent film tax relief will be worth nothing if we do not have a curriculum that values culture and fosters, champions and promotes creativity. That is why we are focused on the whole creative ecosystem—from the first spark of inspiration in the classroom, through the first leap into the unknown at a theatre or grassroots music venue, to getting the first foot on the ladder to take a local business national or a national business global. This Government recognise that it all matters, and through the partnership I have spoken about today, we hope to make sure that growth in those industries continues for many decades to come.
Stuart Andrew (Daventry) (Con)
It really is a pleasure to speak in today’s debate. Right at the outset, I apologise that I will not be here for the closing of the debate, because I have to travel back to Leeds for a funeral tomorrow.
As the Minister said, our creative industries are world leading. With limitless creativity, imagination and entrepreneurial spirit, our creative industries are fundamental to the UK economy, and the contribution they make has often been underappreciated. These industries generate £124 billion a year and employ over 2.4 million people in every corner of the country, and as we have heard, growing the economy means growing our creative industries—even if there was a desperate attempt by the Minister to boost his book sales during his speech.
The importance of the creative industries goes beyond the economy. They provide the news that informs our democracy, the events that showcase our talent and the films that we all love. The imagination of our designers, writers, artists and creators is world leading and brings joy, inspiration and opportunity to our lives. It is testament to the UK being a world leader in many things, events included, given the phenomenal success of events such as the Olympics and other sporting events, the coronation and, of course, the Eurovision song contest. A moment ago, my right hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (John Glen) mentioned Darren Henley’s book. He actually mentions me in that book as the first and only Minister for the Eurovision song contest. It was probably the only position I have held in government that my partner was actually interested in.
Stuart Andrew
No.
For all the reasons I have mentioned, we as Conservatives backed our creative industries in government. Our record on supporting the creative industries speaks for itself: between 2010 and 2022, those industries grew at more than twice the rate of UK gross value added, expanding by more than 50%. More than 1 million new jobs were created in the sector during that period. During the pandemic, we introduced unprecedented support for the creative industries, including the £1.57 billion culture recovery fund, the £500 million film and TV production restart scheme, and the £800 million live events reinsurance scheme. That support protected over 5,000 organisations and supported 220,000 jobs, ensuring that our creative industries have been able to bounce back.
Our commitment to support the creative industries also extended to significant tax reliefs. We introduced over £1 billion of tax reliefs for the creative industries, including support for filmmakers through the UK independent film tax credit and business rates relief for theatres and cultural venues. This investment complemented our creative industries sector deal, which put £350 million of public and private investment into the sector. A key example is the £37 million and the new devolved powers to the North East mayoral combined authority to create a film and TV powerhouse up in the north-east, which will enable £450 million of private investment to build the new Crown Works studio. This is an important measure as we seek to spread the opportunities for the creative industries right across the United Kingdom.
We published a sector vision setting out our ambition to grow the creative industries by £50 billion and to create 1 million extra jobs in the creative sectors. This sector vision set out not warm words or platitudes, but a real plan backed by real investment. Our plan included a £28 million investment in the Create Growth programme to support high-growth creative businesses across the UK; an additional £50 million for the second wave of the creative industries clusters programme, building on the £56 million announced in 2018; and £3.2 million for the music export growth scheme to enable emerging artists to break into new international markets. It was a real plan backed by real investment to grow our creative industries by £50 billion.
Personally, I do not doubt any of the Ministers’ personal ambitions for the creative sectors. Where the Government are ambitious, we will always seek to be a constructive Opposition, because the potential to grow is huge and the UK has such a great reputation. Equally, we will do our job by highlighting the impact when choices made by the Government pose a significant risk to the sector, because that is the right thing to do.
In opposition, Labour Members promised to
“fire up the engines of our creative economy”,
and said that they would make the creative industries
“central to a decade of national renewal”.
That was a great ambition, which makes it even more confusing that Labour failed to support every single tax relief the Conservatives introduced for these industries after 2010. I am afraid to say that the reality so far is that significant harm is being done by the Government. In the Chancellor’s Budget of broken promises, Labour drove the tax burden up to its highest level, surpassing the amount after the second world war. Far from firing up the economy, they have extinguished growth by introducing a national insurance jobs tax that will cost employers in DCMS sectors £2.8 billion.
Stuart Andrew
I think we have absolutely shown our commitment, as I have just illustrated, to the creative industries and to wanting to grow them. Equally, we want to make sure that the courses people are doing equip them well for the opportunities of the future, and I do not see that there is anything wrong in always raising such questions.
Chris Bryant
The shadow Minister said that we—Labour Members in opposition—voted against every single tax relief for the creative industries, but he knows perfectly well that we supported every single one of them and that we originally initiated them. Can I just suggest that we stop this silliness? I am guessing that at some point Conservative Members will vote against the Third Reading of the Finance Bill, which will have a tax relief in it, and if that means that we start saying that they vote against every tax relief, it will be a nonsense. It would be better if we all just grew up, and started saying that we all support tax reliefs for the creative industries.
Stuart Andrew
Given that the Minister has just been going on about 14 years of the last Conservative Government, I find that a bit hypocritical, but that does not surprise me.
The Government have also slashed retail, hospitality and leisure relief, and set out plans to burden businesses with more than 70 radical 1970s-style regulations, imposing £4.5 billion of additional costs on business. I am worried that there seems to have been a failure to protect the creative industries from the Chancellor’s growth-killing Budget, just as the Department failed to protect them from the Deputy Prime Minister’s radical Employment Rights Bill.
I welcome the £60 million support package, but will it touch the sides when measured against the impact of the Budget? Do not take it from me—take it from Arts Council England, which warned that the Government’s national insurance jobs tax will have
“significant implications for cultural organisations.”
Take it from the Music Venue Trust, which has warned that changes to retail, hospitality and leisure relief will put more than 350 grassroots music venues at
“imminent risk of closure, representing the potential loss of more than 12,000 jobs, over £250 million in economic activity and the loss of over 75,000 live music events.”
Max Wilkinson
The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. I agree that the concepts of opt-out and opt-in need to be pursued at greater length.
Thirdly, the expert told me that the preservation of value offered stronger protection:
“By requiring explicit permission, an opt-in model helps maintain the value of original creative works.”
The expert did point out two drawbacks. First, an opt-in approach has potential drawbacks in the form of an extra administrative burden on creators. Interestingly, this expert’s second listed drawback was that an opt-in model would place limits on AI’s ability to gather data for training and development, which does not seem to me like much of a drawback for creators.
I asked that very same expert what would happen if creators lost their intellectual property rights to AI. The expert told me there was a risk of
“a loss of income and motivation, a devaluation of creative work, ethical concerns, legal uncertainty”
and, intriguingly, “domination by AI operators.” I use the word “intriguingly” because this expert seems aware of its own power—the expert was Google Gemini.
At this stage, those considerations are unknowns, and there is much uncertainty. Google Gemini is pulling information produced mostly thanks to human endeavour and discussion sourced from across the internet, but the fact that this view is being presented by AI itself surely suggests there is cause for some concern. Our role as parliamentarians must be to protect the interests of humans, not big tech companies; to scrutinise the proposals of big tech companies; to avoid the luddite tendency, crucially; and to build in suitable safeguards.
Chris Bryant
As the Minister, I do not want to intervene too much. I sympathise with a great deal of what the hon. Gentleman has said. One of my concerns, however, is that if this country legislates in a particular direction, in order to reinforce copyright in the way that several hon. Members have suggested, the danger is that companies would simply train overseas, using the UK’s creative talent and intellectual property without any form of remuneration whatsoever. That is why I think it is really important that we get to a place where we have both sides working together.
Max Wilkinson
Of course. The Minister will not be surprised to hear that I will be moving on to that in a moment.
If, against the will of the creative industry, the Government are to proceed with an opt-out approach—I hope they do not—it seems logical that such an approach must come with strong safeguards, which may come in the form of automatic attribution, in order to identify the creative inspiration for any work that has been crawled and reproduced. However, more importantly, we need suitable levels of compensation to be automatically awarded. In short, if the big tech companies want default access to our creators’ work, they must expect the default to be that they pay for it. Tech firms will argue that an opt-in approach, or one that places the burden on them, would place us out of step with other nations, and I accept that that might be the case. However, let us look at it from another perspective. Is the suggestion that we might give our creative industry more respect really such a terrible idea? I do not think so. Given the widespread threat to the UK’s creative industries from this and other economic circumstances, I would suggest not.
Having touched on AI, I will now address a few other subjects more briefly. First, I turn to the unfashionable topic of Brexit. The previous Conservative Government’s disastrous Brexit deal excluded artistic provisions, and the effect of that is reflected in a shocking statistic: between 2017 and 2023, we suffered a 23% drop in the number of British artists touring the EU. The Liberal Democrats backed free and simple short-term travel arrangements for UK artists to perform in the European Union.
Secondly, I turn to education. It is well known that changes to policy in the past decade or so have diminished arts education in state schools, with more than 40% of schools now no longer entering students for GCSE music or drama, and almost 90% not offering GCSE dance. Universities are also scaling back their arts offerings. The Liberal Democrats would restore arts subjects to the core of the curriculum, ensuring that every child has the opportunity to study music, dance, drama and the visual arts.
Finally, I turn to local government. Local councils are historically the single biggest funders of culture in their areas, but their spending powers have been much reduced. There is a risk that as part of the devolution process, and as local government reorganisation happens, additional pressure will be placed on social care and children’s services. Although those things need attention, we must not allow the arts to be forced further to the fringes of public spending debates.
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”.
Mr Paul Kohler (Wimbledon) (LD)
We have heard from many hon. Members about the power of art and the impact that culture can have on lives. From Shakespeare to The Smiths and from Hockney to Hitchcock, the UK has a proud cultural heritage that has touched all corners of the globe and continues to inspire millions. I am proud that my constituency of Wimbledon has played its part, hosting everything from the filming of the first “Carry On” film at Merton Park studios to the world premiere of Lionel Bart’s “Oliver!”. The University of the Arts London and countless creative businesses, not to mention three theatres and two cinemas, call Wimbledon home. However, it is clear that many challenges face the industry. The growth in generative AI and streaming platforms is changing and threatening many. Meanwhile, the pandemic and the cost of living crisis have left many creative businesses facing huge financial pressures. The debate is therefore welcome and could not come at a more important time.
Before I proceed further, I must declare my interest in the industry: I am the owner of a small cabaret bar in Covent Garden and chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the night time economy, and as such I am greatly concerned about what is happening at the grassroots. Somewhat more embarrassingly, I must confess that I am a failed creative. In my youth, I was the lead singer of an obscure new wave outfit, the Gotham City Swing Band. Although my motley crew and I made little impression on the music scene, we still have a small place in history: we were the final band to play the Roxy—the infamous birthplace of British punk—before it closed its doors for the final time that night.
Mr Kohler
The Minister has anticipated my joke. I will leave Madam Deputy Speaker to decide whether it was my performance that ended it all.
That brings me to the first issue that I would like to highlight: the crisis facing grassroots music venues. The Roxy played a crucial role in shaping British musical history; it provided a shared space for creatives, leading to the formation of bands and genres that are still loved today. The Roxy was critical to the development of punk and so much that followed in its wake. Grassroots music venues fulfil that purpose, and help keep Britain at the forefront of music. Furthermore, in the age of streaming, when artists struggle to make a living from recordings, live performances are more crucial than ever in providing the essential income that fledgling musicians need. Grassroots venues are the backbone of the industry and provide millions of people with access to affordable live music. Without them acting as a pipeline for the music industry, there is no industry. However, they are disappearing at an alarming rate. The Music Venue Trust estimates that over a third of grassroots venues have closed over the past 20 years, and soaring rents, rising utility bills and the cost of living crisis are putting the remaining ones at risk. In 2023 alone, 125 of them—one in six—closed or stopped hosting live music.
Club music venues are also at risk. Britain’s leading role in electronic and dance music is well documented, and nightclubs such as Fabric and Ministry of Sound are more than just places to dance; they are cultural institutions. However, due to increasing economic pressure, 10 clubs close every month. That is clearly not sustainable. How can we expect to produce the next generation’s David Bowie, Norman Cook or Amy Winehouse if we have nowhere for them to play? If Britain wants to retain its position in the vanguard of popular culture, the closures must end.
It is disappointing, therefore, that the Government’s recent decisions have only made the situation worse. Their first Budget brought the industry even closer to the brink. The Chancellor’s decision in October to reduce business rates relief from 75% to 40% will put 350 grassroots music venues at immediate risk, with the potential loss of 12,000 jobs, as it will mean a more than doubling of their business rates. The Government must urgently rethink that measure. If they are serious about supporting our music industry, they must quickly take steps to ensure that venues can survive, including by recognising them as cultural, heritage and community assets in the same way that other cultural spaces, such as theatres and galleries, are protected.
It is not just music venues feeling the pinch. Local museums and galleries provide millions of people with access to inspiration and history on their doorstep, and a sense of place and community in an age of increasing division and isolation. We are lucky in Wimbledon. Merton Arts Space, based in Wimbledon library, provides a vital venue for exhibitions and community performances, while the Wimbledon museum and Wimbledon windmill provide residents and visitors alike with an important perspective on the past. The Polka theatre’s award-winning productions inspire and entertain children from across south London and beyond, while the New Wimbledon theatre is the sixth largest in London and home to the wonderful Studio theatre.
However, in many places, such venues have long gone or are at risk. The Museums Association says that the civic museum sector faces an existential crisis, as local authority budgets are under increasing pressure and, with the cost of living crisis, many venues cannot rely on community donations to keep them going. The Government must take steps to provide local authorities with the funding they need to help keep these institutions going. Without them, our communities will suffer.
It is not just the decline of venues that is denying people access to the arts. Over the past decade, the Conservatives cut access to the arts in schools, with consistent deprioritisation of creative arts in the curriculum, and budget cuts. Access to arts education is not a luxury; it should be viewed as a right. Every child, regardless of background, deserves the chance to explore their creative potential. Currently, however, that is simply not the case.
There are fewer specialist teachers than ever before—since 2010, the number of creative arts teachers in the UK has fallen by 14%—and fewer and fewer students are studying the expressive arts to later stages of their education. In 2010, 40% of all GCSE entries were in such subjects; by 2023, that figure had halved. That is not due to a lack of demand—one just has to be around children and young people to see that they crave creativity—but due to the previous Government, for years, not taking seriously the task of creating the next generation of creatives.
The loss of teachers and decline in students not only deprives individuals of enriching experiences, but depletes the talent pipeline. Studies have repeatedly proved the positive impact that arts education can have on young people by boosting mental health, enhancing memory and increasing cultural awareness. Arts education is an investment worth making.
The lack of provision in schools is making creative education and therefore many careers in the arts increasingly the preserve of the wealthy, depriving our culture of different views, voices and perspectives. Although I appreciate that the Government have pledged to include arts and creative subjects provision in the curriculum review, they must take further steps. Schools’ budgets are tighter than ever, and extra funding must be provided to ensure that they can provide a full, well-rounded educational offering.
We cannot afford to view the creative arts as a luxury. They are central to our economy, history and cultural identity. Creative industries contribute £125 billion to the UK economy and entertain, engage and employ millions of people across the country and the world. It is clear that if we want to maintain our place as a global cultural leader, we must invest in the future. The Government must act to support our musicians, artists and actors of the future. Without intervention, what was once a source of immense national pride will be just another footnote in an avoidable tale of national decline.
Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
It is a pleasure to take part in this debate and indeed to echo what has been said by many Members on both sides of the House. I think this debate will produce pretty much unanimity on the importance of our creative industries. It is a particular pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage)—my successor but three, I believe, as Chairman of the Select Committee—and I am going to concentrate on one or two of the things she said.
It is happily now recognised how important the creative industries are to the UK’s economy. There has been a growing awareness of this over a long period, ever since a separate Department was founded in the form of the Department of National Heritage, which became the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. The creative industries are something that the UK is extraordinarily good at. It is still the case that the best-selling music artists of all time, the Beatles, are British, as is the best-selling author of all time, Agatha Christie. And now, today, when we go to a Hollywood movie, the chances are that it will have been made in Pinewood, even though that is not immediately obvious from what we see on the screen. Advertisements also originate in this country, as does publishing, as the Minister and many other Members have highlighted.
As the Minister said, there is an ecosystem whereby our most successful commercial creative enterprises rely on the subsidised sector, and vice versa. Let us take David Tennant as an example. He started life in “Hamlet” with the Royal Shakespeare Company, went on to “Doctor Who” and ended up in “Rivals”. I have seen all three, and they were all highly enjoyable. The subsidised sector has also benefited over the years from a Conservative invention, the national lottery. It has produced an enormous amount of money, which the taxpayer probably could not have afforded to invest, and many enterprises have benefited from that.
I echo what has been said about the importance of education and the need to ensure that arts are at the core of our curriculum, and also about the importance of grassroots music venues. I went to a Music Venue Trust reception last week, as a number of Members did. I was really interested to hear the remarks of the hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler). I did not quite get to the Roxy, but I did go regularly to the Marquee club in Wardour Street, with its sweaty atmosphere, where I heard people such as Buzzcocks and the Clash, and great bands such as Iron Maiden, who started off life in those small venues. It is a shame that the Marquee club is no longer with us and that so many venues still struggle, but I must say that had it not been for the culture recovery fund, which my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport oversaw as Minister in the Department during the covid pandemic, there would be virtually no small venues, or indeed large venues, left in this country. The culture recovery fund kept venues from the Hot Box in Chelmsford all the way up to the Royal Albert Hall going. They were looking over the precipice until the Government stepped in.
The creative industries also bring enormous benefits to this country internationally. I, too, welcome the Government’s creation of the Soft Power Council. Having served as Chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, I now sit on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and we continue to collaborate between Committees in looking at the importance of soft power. About two weeks ago, we heard from the British Council, which was mentioned earlier in the debate. The British Council does an extremely important job, and it is ridiculous that it has to go to the Government every year and ask to have the loan rolled over, and that it is staring at insolvency until an agreement is reached. I hope that is something that the Government will now address.
The British Council does many worthy things, but I have a soft spot for one thing in particular that it administers—I hope that both Ministers on the Front Bench share this—and that is the cultural protection fund. That is another initiative from this country in which we use our world-beating expertise from places such as the British Museum to help to ensure that some of the world’s greatest heritage is preserved, particularly when it is at risk from conflict.
We need to recognise that there is an increasingly competitive environment across the creative industries. British music is still extraordinarily successful, but 2023 was the first year when there was no British artist among the top 10 best-selling artists across the world. Four of the best-selling artists in the world in 2023 were Korean. That shows where the markets are developing. They are developing in south America, too. It is important that we continue to support creative industries such as the music industry through, for instance, the music export growth scheme, which was set up by the last Government and which I know this Government are continuing. I welcome that and hope that it will be maintained.
I also want to say a word about copyright, as almost every other speaker in this debate has done. I chair the all-party parliamentary group on intellectual property, and we recently had a meeting with the chairs of all the APPGs representing music, publishing, the visual arts and the media, who came together to listen to representatives of those creative industries express their deep concern about the Government’s suggestion that they might introduce an exception to the copyright protection, which would benefit AI.
There are good things about AI. It is not a threat to be beaten off; it can be of real value to the creative industries. Companies such as Universal Music are using AI, and it is a new technology that consumers and those industries will benefit from. At the same time, protection is needed to ensure that intellectual property rights are not abused. The Minister says that there is legal uncertainty, but the fact that intellectual property rights owners are defending their rights by going to court does not mean that the law is wrong. They are using the law, but that does not necessarily mean that the law is not perfectly clear.
We welcome elements of the Government’s proposals, and transparency is vital. If rights owners are to be able to protect their property, they first need to know where their property is being used. Transparency is the first essential requirement for that to happen, so I very much welcome the Government’s proposal to ensure transparency where AI large language models use content from across the internet to generate their own content.
The consultation highlights the alarm about a text and data mining exception. On one hand, the Government say they are consulting on that, but on the other hand, when the Secretary of State made his statement in the House just a couple of weeks ago, he said that the Government were accepting all of Matt Clifford’s recommendations. One of those recommendations is to introduce a text and data mining exception, so I hope the Minister can say something about that.
Chris Bryant
Matt Clifford made that recommendation —recommendation 24—and, in response, we have said that we are consulting. We have not decided; we are consulting. It is a consultation, not the Second Reading of a Bill.
Sir John Whittingdale
I am extremely grateful to the Minister, and it is of some reassurance that the Government’s mind is still open. I hope they will listen to the voices across the Chamber expressing concern.
There is an objection in principle to option 3, which is the idea that rights holders have to opt out. It reverses what has long been the case—that people can rely on the protection of their rights unless they choose to give them up. They should not have to ask for their rights to be protected, and that is what an opt-out system entails. There would no longer be automatic protection under an opt-out system, and it would put a huge burden on many small rights holders. There is a suggestion that photographers might have to seek an opt-out for every picture they have ever taken. Now, I hope that is not the case, but a lot of uncertainty has been created.
Each creative industry is different. As the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society told us last week, writers may want their works to be used for some purposes but not for others, but it appears that this will be a binary system in which they either opt in or opt out.
This is also incredibly difficult to enforce. If somebody takes a picture of a painting on their phone and puts it on social media, how can the rights owner prevent it from being used by a large language model that goes out and absorbs all this content? As has already been said, there is no workable system in existence that allows for opting out. The EU has tried to introduce one and, as I am sure the Minister is fully aware, the robots.txt standard is supposed to identify—
Sir John Whittingdale
The Minister is entirely right—it is useless.
The problem, therefore, is that there is no workable solution at the moment. The Minister and the Government have said that they will not introduce this option until there is a workable system in existence. That is reassuring, but how will the Minister decide whether a proposed system is indeed workable? If it is workable, how will it be enforced? Will individual rights holders have to go to court if they believe they have opted out but find that their works are still being used? There is a whole host of questions.
I recognise the Minister’s commitment and wish to find a way to protect rights, but there are an awful lot of questions at the moment, and there do not appear to be any answers. I hope he can address some of those questions.
Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)
Madam Deputy Speaker, if I were to ask you to name a city in the UK that is a hotbed of creativity—
Gareth Snell
The Minister has stolen my thunder! As always, he has pre-empted what I was going to say. I was going to say that Stoke-on-Trent is a city that is steeped in history, but fizzing for the future of creativity. We are home to nine Arts Council England national portfolio organisations; we have a burgeoning CreaTech cluster in the Spode building; and we have some of the best performances of theatre-in-the-round at the New Vic theatre, which although not in Stoke-on-Trent is so close to the border it might as well be.
I highlight these points not for the flippant response I should have pre-empted from the Minister, but because all too often when we think about places where creativity happens and where arts and culture thrive, we do not think about places such as Stoke-on-Trent or other historical industrial cities. All too often, those places are written up as wastelands, with derelict buildings shown in articles in The Guardian, rather than the focus being on the things that make them special and strong: our heritage and our future.
Stoke-on-Trent is the only city in the UK that has world craft city status for our industrial history in the potteries. Some of the great creatives of our past are intrinsically linked to Stoke-on-Trent: Wedgwood, Spode, William Moorcroft, Clarice Cliff and Susie Cooper. They are people who had creativity not only in their artistry, but in their industry. They pioneered new methods of working so that we could have the finest bone china, and came up with new techniques for design; the illustrations on the plates, cups and tiles that we all enjoy were at the cutting edge of new methods, technologies, pigments and materials. The creativity that they drew upon as part of their industrial heritage remains, and we have the same skills and burning ambition to demonstrate who we are and what we do in Stoke-on-Trent today.
Some 4,000 jobs in Stoke-on-Trent are linked directly to the creative sector; if the supply chain is included, it would easily be two or three times that number. Some 638 artists and artist organisations are recognised by the Stoke-on-Trent and North Staffordshire Cultural Education Partnership. In 2019, there were 5.5 million tourist visits to Stoke-on-Trent—a narrative that we do not often hear from those who seek to denigrate the city I am proud to call home and represent in this place. Sadly, some of that snobbish approach to my city comes from our nearest neighbours, who seek to use the challenges that our city faces for their own short-term political gain. I doubt that will stop any time soon. However, we are home to “The Great Pottery Throw Down”, which is on Channel 4 on Sunday evenings; Keith Brymer Jones and the team have made pottery glamorous Sunday night TV viewing. It demonstrates that the history of who we are is still very much part of the society and city that we want to be.
Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)
I refer Members to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. It has been a long time since we have had the Floor of the House of Commons for a debate on the creative industries, and it is always a fantastic debate.
Pete Wishart
I see the Minister nodding along. We find out about all the dynamic enterprises and cultural activity in Members’ constituencies but, more than that, we find out about our colleagues’ hidden talents. I was as surprised as anybody to hear that we have a veteran of the punk days at the Roxy, as well as singers and film writers. We have an abundance of talent in the House, so I feel a bit more confident now: I lost my colleagues in MP4 when they stood down at the last election, so I am actively recruiting, and my door is open to any aspiring musician who wants to perform in MP4.
As usual in these debates, there has been a chorus of approval, support and satisfaction—as there should be—when it comes to the quality of the UK creative industries. We just do these things so well, and that quality has been ingrained in our cultural output. There is something that we do across the whole of these isles that just produces this conveyor belt of talent, imagination and creativity. We have successful creative industries because of the imagination of the people of this country. Is it not great that we can turn around and say that we could power our economy based on the creativity, invention and imagination of the people who inhabit these isles? But we need more than that to be successful. These things are mostly down to the creativity of the people who work in our creative industries, but we also need the right conditions: we need to provide the context and the environment for these creative industries to survive, develop and thrive.
For the last 60 years, we have been quite good at doing that. We have intervened when necessary. We have had conversations and debates about investment, what sort of support should go into the creative industries and whether we get the balance right. Of course, there have been political debates about Budgets and national insurance contributions, but we have basically had the right conditions for art and creativity, and the industry that comes with them, to develop and thrive. We have those things because we have an IP system embedded in UK law that is the envy of the world. It is the bedrock of our creative industries and the foundation of our success. Part of that is our wonderful copyright regime, which, again, is the envy of the world. It makes sure that artists are properly compensated for the wonderful works they produce, and ensures that they get recognised for the works they deliver.
We tamper with all of that at our peril. We have been here before. Back in the 2010s, when copyright exceptions were quite the fashion, the threat to so many of our creative industries was not from AI companies; it was from the internet service providers, the pirates and digitisation. Isn’t it funny that it is always the creative industries that are on the frontline when there are technical innovations? It is always the creative industries that seem to have to suffer because of what we are trying to achieve through technological innovation.
Looking around the Chamber, I think that only the Minister and the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) are veterans of the Digital Economy Act 2017. That was probably the high point of the interest in copyright exceptions. Then, of course, the general philosophical debate was all around an unfettered internet that was to be free at the point of use for everybody. There was this absurd business model that we could somehow have all this high-quality content, and we would not have to pay for any of it. Of course, that was quickly knocked on its head, but we have its legacy with the arrival of the huge tech platforms, with tech brothers getting together and developing their own companies. We have massive tech companies that provide nothing other than platforms and that create very little of the content, and they are growing rich and fat off the creativity and invention of the people who actually provide that content—the artists and musicians themselves. The value gap between the musician, or the artist, and these big platforms and companies is something that we will have to address.
However, I do not think that we have ever had such a threat as generative AI; that is what we are looking at now. It says in my notes that I should have a go at the Minister now for having already made up his mind, but I am actually a bit reassured by what he said, and I think all of us should be encouraged. I really did think that the Government had made up their mind; I thought that they were going to go down the opt-out route without qualification. All the things they have said up to this point certainly seemed to confirm that, and the Minister’s grumpy tone during the statement on these issues did not help matters much, particularly when he had a go at the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. It is good to have that reassurance, but what we now have to do—I am looking at colleagues who have contributed to the debate and expressed their concerns—is encourage the Minister gently, through persuasion. He knows the view of the industry and the sector, and I think he knows that it is overwhelmingly negative. He will not be able to find anybody in any creative sector who is telling him that what he proposes with the opt-out will work or is good for the creative industries or even for AI.
We have heard from several colleagues about this idea of a model breakdown, where AI starts to feed on itself. That is what we can expect, and I think the analogy with “Blade Runner” was fantastic. That is exactly where we will be going if we allow unfettered AI development to continue along the same lines. We have reached a really interesting point tonight. I think the Government are probably going to reconsider their position. They are going to take on board what Members have said—
Pete Wishart
I see the Minister shaking his head, but perhaps he will clarify all this when he gets to his feet. I know that the Government think they have a solution that somehow supports both the AI sector and the creative industries sector, but nobody actually believes that. I am sorry, Minister, but no one could go along with the idea that somehow, opening up the nation’s creative works to be scraped and mined would ever get us to a situation that could possibly be useful for the creative industries. I do not think it would be useful for the AI sector, either. That is a really important point when it comes to all of this, and we need to look at it properly.
Lastly, we have heard a few myths, including the idea that there is somehow unclarity about the laws that embed our copyright regime. That is just nonsense—nobody actually believes that. I do not think that even AI companies would say that there is any question about the legality of the copyright regime; it is just something that Ministers trawl out to try to create uncertainty in the sector, and it does not work. The one thing that is absolutely certain is that if we do allow AI companies to engage in unfettered text and data mining, there will be real difficulties. Some of the scenarios that have been painted by other Members who have spoken will be realised, and that will be very damaging for this Government.
We know that the Government are invested in AI. They are in an economic mess, and they are looking to grab at anything that will give them some sort of comfort. AI is obviously one of the areas they have identified that might bring this promised growth, giving them some sort of confidence and reassurance that what they are trying to do with the economy might get it to where they are seeking to take it, but we cannot be obsessively fixated on AI at the cost of so much of our heritage and culture. Where it is right that this Government proceed with AI, they have to take a balanced approach, one that looks after the interests of our nation’s creators, inventors and artists. So far, they have not been able to do so, but there are encouraging signs, so I am looking forward to the Minister’s response this evening. I hope that what he says will encourage us further.
Jim Allister (North Antrim) (TUV)
The creative industries undoubtedly make a significant contribution to our economy, but they are about much more than that. They make a broad and deep contribution to who we are, to our culture and to our nation. When it comes to economic contribution, in Northern Ireland we have a thriving creative industry in a number of spheres. Under the guidance of Northern Ireland Screen, which has as its honorary president the redoubtable Sir Kenneth Branagh, we have seen significant success in the screen industry and many successful productions, none more so than “Game of Thrones”. Happily, quite a bit of it was filmed in my constituency of North Antrim, at the famous dark hedges—where, sadly, on Friday we lost four of the large trees in the storm—and at Ballintoy harbour, among other places.
We are appreciative of that economic contribution, which does not end with the creative industries but creates, in the very names I mentioned, an advantageous spin-off in tourism. Many tourists come to North Antrim to see the dark hedges, and many tourists visit various filming locations. We are happy to have had that benefit in Northern Ireland. Of course, we also have the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is, in a manner of speaking, a creative industry in himself. There is no more creative Member of this House when it comes to finding an intervention in each and every debate.
Chris Bryant
Siri, show me an example of political hyperbole. Madam Deputy Speaker, I am terribly sorry, but it is me again—I am winding up the debate tonight. It was a really good debate, and it was going exceedingly well, as Mr Kipling would say, until the last few moments. Given all the demonstrations of talent that we have had from around the Chamber, I feel that we should put on a show. In fact, I gather that while we have been debating these issues, Mr Speaker has appeared on television in the 10,000th episode of “Emmerdale”, so we are a talented House.
As I think everybody has said, the creative industries have enormous economic importance. If any Members have not yet seen the “Starring GREAT Britain” campaign, which we launched in the last few days for our tourism, I really hope that they will google it and have a watch—but not during the debate, obviously. It is hilarious and very clever. It is all about trying to get tourists, because somewhere between 60% and 70% of international visitors to this country want to see places where films and TV were made.
As has been mentioned many times, the creative industries have massive social importance. They are about shared experiences, walking in other people’s shoes, and having empathy for those with a different meaning of life. So many Members referred to the personal importance of discovering ourselves and discovering confidence. Several Members referred to young people who have never had the opportunity for of proper creative education, and who find it difficult to have confidence going into any line of work.
We have also heard quite a lot about the interconnectedness of all the different aspects of the creative industries. I went to a play last night at the King’s Head theatre in Islington called “Firebird”. It is based on a film that is based on a book. The Royal Shakespeare Company’s new video game, Lili, is based on Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth”. No film is made without costumes, design, make-up, hair and all the rest of it, and no industry in this country would last without design or marketing. It is a simple fact that the creative industries are woven into every part of our British economy. If I might steal a moment from the hon. Member for Caerfyrddin (Ann Davies), she is quite right—the poem is a good one:
“To be born in Wales, not with a silver spoon in your mouth, but with music in your blood and with poetry in your soul, is a privilege indeed.”
I sort of agree, but it should not be a privilege. Songs, poems, books, plays, films and television stories—all those things are part of our birthright as British people. We should never sell that birthright for a mess of pottage, to quote the Old Testament. I say to my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough and Whitby (Alison Hume) that we should always be on the side of the humans.
Chris Bryant
I have two Liberal Democrats wanting to intervene. It is very difficult to decide between them. I will give way to the one who has not taken part.
Clive Jones
Shinfield studios, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Earley and Woodley (Yuan Yang), has created jobs for many people in my constituency of Wokingham and has been singled out in the Financial Times as having high ambitions for growth this year. It is using the UK’s tax credit scheme for film and TV production, and it is a great domestic skills base. Will the Minister visit Shinfield studios with me and the hon. Member for Earley and Woodley, and have a conversation with the owners?
Chris Bryant
I have already had several conversations with the owners. It is a brilliant facility. As I said in my first speech today, we have a large number of studios. Incidentally, I am delighted that we launched the Labour campaign for Earley and Woodley just outside those studios. That obviously brought us good luck. Of course, I am happy to visit when time allows.
I am not sure that I will be able to answer every single question that has been asked, but there was one subject that exercised quite a lot of Members: access for all to the arts and creative industries.
David Chadwick
I thank the Minister for giving way; it is very gracious of him. Many young farmers in Wales have told me that they would love to watch the output of the UK creative sector, particularly on Netflix, but they cannot. They are not able to download Netflix because their broadband is not good enough. What would the Minister advise them to do?
Chris Bryant
They should get in touch with the Telecoms Minister, but unfortunately he is rubbish. That is me. I am very happy to talk about the broadband issues in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency at any point, and if he wants a meeting with Building Digital UK, we can go through the specifics area by area. I have offered that to as many Members as I can.
Getting back to the creative industries, my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Gareth Snell) was channelling his inner Frank Sinatra; he basically said, “If we can make it here, we’ll make it anywhere.” He made a very good point: we need to make sure that creativity is perceived not as something that we see only in the big cities of this country, but as something that we need to exercise in every single part of the country. My hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Nesil Caliskan) made a very similar point about her constituency. My hon. Friend the Member for Leigh and Atherton (Jo Platt) made precisely that point—that creativity is not just about cities, but towns—as did my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Joe Morris).
The hon. Member for Guildford (Zöe Franklin) said, “If only we could recruit from not just one demographic.” I feel that so strongly. Perhaps the most famous actor from my constituency was Sir Stanley Baker from Ferndale, famous for “Zulu”, a film that every Welsh person has to watch about 52 times a year. Bringing people into the creative industries from every demographic is a really important part of what we need to do.
Chris Bryant
Well, my speech was meant to be brief. I will give way as long as Madam Deputy Speaker does not complain later.
Blair McDougall
I will be very brief, and I thank the Minister for giving way to a rampant socialist. In the light of the comments from the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, does the Minister agree that just like people in all other sectors, the people who sell our programmes, build our sets and provide catering for our film sets deserve regular hours, and not to face zero-hours contracts that exploit them?
Chris Bryant
I completely agree. One of my colleagues—I cannot remember which—made a point about freelancers. One of the problems in the creative industries is that so many people today are freelancers, and it is very difficult for them to enjoy a regular income, take out a mortgage and so on. My mother was a make-up artist at the BBC in the 1950s—she looked after Shirley Bassey’s wigs, among other things—and in those days that was a full-time paid role, but hardly a single make-up artist is afforded that today.
My hon. Friend the Member for Luton South and South Bedfordshire (Rachel Hopkins) made a point about the Hatters, but also about music and games in her constituency, and the importance of enabling emerging artists to prosper. My hon. Friend the Member for Hartlepool (Mr Brash) likewise made the point that we have to get beyond London and the south-east. That is sometimes a major issue in trying to attract commercial money into the creative industries, on which we are very focused.
My hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald) made a point about the importance of devolution, because we want to be able to make sure that this extends across the whole United Kingdom. The hon. Member for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey (Graham Leadbitter) made points—different cultural points—about books in Scots and the Gaelic song sung by Runrig. It is hardly ever mentioned that the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) used to play in Runrig. [Laughter.]
Another subject that was predominant in the debate was about creative education and skills. The hon. Member for Bridgwater (Sir Ashley Fox), who I think is in every debate I ever take part in, was absolutely right about the need to provide for greater skills in film. That is one of the things international companies come to the UK for, because we have such great film skills. In the past, such people were often trained by the BBC, but there is now very a different structure.
The hon. Member for Wimbledon (Mr Kohler) told us about his musical past, but he clarified for us the difference between correlation and causation: I think the Roxy closed on the day he sang there or played there, not because he played there. My hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Jayne Kirkham) made a very important point about Falmouth School of Art, where Tacita Dean, among others, trained. Of course, being able to have those centres of excellence spread across the whole of the United Kingdom—whether down in Falmouth or in Margate in Thanet—is really important.
In fact, my hon. Friend the Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) made the point about the next generation and the inequality of access to the arts for many people. She also made a really important point about neurodivergent people. An interesting fact I came across when working with people in the jewellery industry is that more than 50% of people who work in jewellery are neurodivergent, and that is enabled by the Responsible Jewellery Council. The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Liz Jarvis) made an important point about the drop in A-levels and other exams. We need those skills not just for the arts themselves, but for all other industries, because those skills are needed by everybody.
I will come back to the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim (Jim Allister) and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), but I notice that they want to bulldoze barriers. The hon. and learned Member almost persuaded me that Brexit was not a very good idea—I am probably not meant to have said that.
On financial burdens—a couple of Conservative Members mentioned the issue of national insurance contributions—I understand the political points that are being made. However, I would just point out that 50% of businesses will pay less in national insurance contributions or the same under the new scheme. Considering that most businesses in the creative sector are smaller than in the wider economy, that probably means there is a higher percentage in the creative industries. I do not want to diminish the concerns of many in this sector, but I do want to get this right.
I think my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling and Strathallan (Chris Kane) referred to the problem of people not paying for content and, for that matter, not paying artists when they come and perform. How often is it that everybody says, “Oh, we’ll get a singer along—I’m sure they’ll do it for free”? That is one of the things we need to put an end to, because in the end it should be possible for people to be able to make a living properly in the creative industries.
Several Members referred to the issue of music venues, including the hon. Member for Bath (Wera Hobhouse), who also spoke about financial backing in her own constituency, and the hon. Member for Brighton Pavilion (Siân Berry), to whom I have to say that I was really not convinced by the idea of curtailing the period of copyright to 10 years. I think that would destroy the livelihoods of thousands and thousands of people in the creative industries in the UK, but if she wants to put it to the electorate, then good luck with that.
I do not know how to refer to them—the Waldorf and Statler over there—but it is great that the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) and the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) both talked about the Soft Power Council, and I am glad we have got that up and running. I would be interested to hear whether they have specific ideas about what we should do. Good points were made by several Members about the British Council. I thought it was an act of vandalism a few years ago when it was effectively cut into ribbons, and it is a job of work for us to put it back together.
The hon. Member for Gosport is right about the Creative Industries Independent Standards Authority. We are committed to that, and I do not think that work is yet completed. I praise Jen Smith and Baroness Helena Kennedy for the work they are doing, and anything that we can do to help, we will. The hon. Lady is also right about British stories. We want a mixed economy. We will talk about this more at the Select Committee tomorrow morning, but we want a mixed economy in film and for everybody to come and make their films here—American movies, Korean movies, Spanish movies, whatever—but we also want to make British stories in Britain that reflect the Britian that we live in, keeping some of that British IP in the UK so that the value remains here. The right hon. Member for Maldon rightly referred to the cultural protection fund, which of course we are committed to. That is important, not least in relation to our work in Ukraine.
Many Members mentioned artificial intelligence, and I fully understand the levels of concern, so let me say a few things. First, intellectual property is central to the viability of the creative industries, both individuals and the industries themselves. What are they selling, other than intellectual property?
Secondly, many creative industries of course use AI— my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Frith) referred to this in his very good speech—including Paul McCartney in the last year. I do not for one minute suggest that the creative industries are luddites—people seem to think that I have said that, but I certainly have not and it is not what I believe.
Thirdly, good generative AI needs good quality data, and that means licensing—paying for and getting permission for good quality data that is embodied in creative intellectual property. Mike Gross of Data Conversion Laboratory has made that point, and he knows his stuff. I suspect that in future the really good successful generative AI companies will be ones that go down that route.
Fourthly, we seek more licensing—in other words, more remuneration—greater control of rights, and legal clarity for all, and we are seeking to achieve those three things combined. As I said earlier, this is a genuine consultation. All of us are listening. I am doing most of the meetings with the creative industries. I know my counterpart in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Feryal Clark) is doing lots of meetings with the creative industries and people in AI, but most meetings with the creative industries are my job.
Doing nothing is not an option for us, as that would simply mean that we would have to wait for the courts to do their work. In truth, several court cases are already going on. Some of them have come to mutually contradictory views in different jurisdictions, and they do not necessarily provide the clarity of precedent that we might want. It is surely wrong that the only people who can enforce their rights are those with the deepest pockets who can afford to go through long, protracted and expensive court cases. I do not think doing nothing is an option. I am very much in the business of listening to what people think we should do. I have heard quite a lot of the things that people think we should not do, but I would love to hear things that people think we should do.
Quite a lot of people from the creative industries have knocked on my door. We have had meetings. Indeed, we have had very open meetings, and people have expressed their concerns. They have expressed support for some elements, including some that have not even been mentioned in this debate. I am determined to keep on listening to the debate, and to try to find a solution that delivers for the creative industries and for artificial intelligence. It cannot be beyond the wit of humanity to be able to deliver that.
Pete Wishart
It is encouraging that there is real positivity to the Minister’s comments, and I understand that he is trying his hardest to resolve a tricky question. He has heard the creative industries, and he knows that this idea of an opt-out does not work for them. It is all good telling us what we are not supporting and what we would support, but what does he support? If the opt-out is not going to happen, what would he do?
Chris Bryant
I support securing more licensing, greater control of rights and legal clarity for all. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. As I said to the right hon. Member for Maldon, there is not a version of rights reservation that works at the moment and is simple and easy. As an author, I know that if someone wants to register for the public lending right, they have to go online and register each of their works. That is relatively simple and straightforward for someone who writes books, because they have only two or three or four. For a photographer, it is a completely different business. We have to come to a technical answer that works for everybody. If there is not a technical answer, we will have to think again. That is the sum total of where we are at. Everybody has supported the transparency measures that have been referred to. It might be that Members would also want to support some of the rights to a personality that have been exercised in some parts of the United States and other parts of Europe that have not been referred to.
I am sure everybody wants me to stop by now. The hon. Member for Gosport referred to several songs that she thought I should adopt as my motto. I think one was “Respect”. I am not sure whether she meant Aretha Franklin’s “R-E-S-P-E-C-T”, or Erasure’s “A Little Respect”, which I prefer:
I try to discover
A little something to make me sweeter.
I am not sure which of those two she prefers, but I think I will rely on Depeche Mode in the end. When it comes to the creative industries,
I just can’t get enough.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the creative industries.
Future of the Listed Places of Worship Grant Scheme
Chris Bryant Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism (Chris Bryant)
The Government are extending the listed places of worship grant scheme until 31 March 2026, the end of this spending review period. This will continue to enable religious organisations to claim grants covering eligible VAT costs paid towards repairs and renovations.
Nearly £350 million has been awarded under the scheme since 2010, supporting listed churches, synagogues, mosques and temples across the UK. The scheme receives around 7,000 applications a year, of which more than 70% are for £5,000 or less.
Against a tough financial background and bearing in mind a wide range of competing priorities for expenditure within DCMS, we have made the difficult decision to implement an annual limit of £25,000 on the amount individual places of worship can claim in the coming year, and to limit the fund to £23 million. We believe that this will continue the widest distribution of the scheme’s benefits within the available means. Based on previous scheme data we expect 94% of claims to be unaffected by this change.
Places of worship are a key part of our built heritage, central to local communities’ wellbeing, pride in place and identity. In addition to the benefits to their congregations, listed places of worship often also provide facilities for the wider community including foodbanks, community halls and music venues and rehearsal spaces. I am pleased that despite the challenging fiscal context we are able to continue the scheme for a further year.
[HCWS382]
Listed Places of Worship Scheme
Chris Bryant Excerpts(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Saqib Bhatti (Meriden and Solihull East) (Con)
I start by praising my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas) for securing this vital debate. As we can see, it is incredibly important to many hon. Members, and I want to acknowledge contributions from a number of them, but given the time, I cannot acknowledge everybody. I thought my hon. Friends the Members for South Northamptonshire (Sarah Bool), for Huntingdon (Ben Obese-Jecty), for Mid Buckinghamshire (Greg Smith) and for Spelthorne (Lincoln Jopp), my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), the hon. Members for Newport West and Islwyn (Ruth Jones) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell), and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and Tavistock (Sir Geoffrey Cox) all made wonderful contributions, as did the other Members I have not been able to mention. They have all made their faith communities incredibly proud. I take your steer, Mr Western, and will try and give the Minister as much time as possible to satisfy the Members in this House, because this is an important debate.
Britian is defined by its history: up and down the country, people are fiercely proud of their heritage. As His Majesty’s loyal Opposition, it is therefore right that we hold the Government to account as we try and stand up for our history and protect our heritage. In Opposition, we have campaigned on this issue very vehemently and I know there is a written ministerial statement on the way. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough said this might be the shortest campaign ever.
Saqib Bhatti
It might the shortest WMS, which I hope tells us how the Minister is extending the scheme. I want to thank all the people from across the country who have written to us on this issue—their voice matters. I thank all the volunteers who protect our most beautiful heritage sites.
The Conservatives are very clear that Britian’s rich history, deep sense of tradition and incredible national story is something we should always protect, and there is no doubt that our churches, and other places of worship that have been announced, are fundamental to that. These cherished buildings play key roles in their local communities, serving both as a window into our past and as active centres of support and sanctuary for people of all faiths and none.
The people who look after them, as custodians of our future generations, are volunteers who give their time and energy generously with very little external help, but many of them are reliant on the vital lifeline that is the listed places of worship grant scheme. Introduced in 2001, the scheme provides essential grants covering the VAT charge and repairs to listed buildings used as places of worship. I am proud that the Conservative Government had a very strong record of supporting that important scheme. Under the previous Government, the listed places of worship grant scheme was extended, providing funding to cover VAT on essential repairs, which meant thousands of churches were protected for generations to come.
However—this may change—Labour is yet to announce whether it will fund the scheme past its expiry in March this year. The Budget came and went without an answer. This uncertainty is making the task of those who look after these precious buildings more precarious and stressful. Many are understandably delaying their plans until the Government make up their mind, meaning more leaky roofs, more draughty windows and more cold churches during the vital Christmas period. With the WMS on the way, I am hopeful that the Minister will announce something meaningful that goes beyond one year. I share the ambition of my hon. Friend the Member for Bromsgrove for the permanency of this grant, so I hope the Minister will address that point.
According to Historic England, 969 places of worship are under threat, including churches in the Prime Minister’s constituency. When questioned about the scheme at the Dispatch Box last week, the Minister quoted a hymn, but the custodians of our historic churches need more than a hymn and a prayer. They deserve clarity and support from the Government, which I hope the Minister can give us today. That is important because Historic England’s informative heritage at risk register paints a harrowing picture for England’s historic sites. For places of worship in particular, the possibility of roofs collapsing or a lack of maintenance on stonework would be catastrophic.
Numerous constituents in my constituency of Meriden and Solihull East have written to me about their concerns for some of our most beloved local churches. They told me that discontinuing the scheme would
“be a disaster for listed places of worship”,
and that the ability to reclaim VAT
“makes an enormous difference, particularly at a time when the cost of building work has increased substantially.”
There is great frustration about the Government’s failure to confirm the extension of this vital scheme. It is not just felt by constituents; it has an impact on all our communities and on the rest of society.
The chair of the National Churches Trust, Sir Philip Rutnam, has called on the Government to renew the listed places of worship fund. Sir Philip states that the crisis affecting church heritage could get worse in the coming months if this vital “financial lifeline” is scrapped. The Bishop of Dudley, Bishop Martin Gorrick, also paints a bleak picture, saying,
“It is not just heritage that is at risk if the Scheme lapses. Churches and other places of worship are home to so much social enterprise and action: Church of England churches support over 35,000 social action projects such as foodbanks, community larders and debt, drug, alcohol advice and rehabilitation groups.”
The director of the Friends of Friendless Churches, Rachel Morley, wrote to the Secretary of State saying,
“The impact of this cut at a parish level would be devastating”
and that,
“We place the burden of caring for thousands of the nation’s most important buildings—undoubtedly the nation’s greatest free heritage resources—on a tiny proportion of the public who are, for the most part, volunteers.”
That view was eloquently shared by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Torridge and Tavistock (Sir Geoffrey Cox).
I hope the Government will confirm the continuation of the scheme as soon as possible or, better still, an expanded scheme that helps the custodians of listed places of worship to carry out vital repair works in the first place. One challenge I would put to the Minister is that the funding has been a rebate for many years. Let us make it into a grant and let us make it permanent. Will he also consider the private Member’s Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), which raises quite a vital point? I hope he addresses that.
I cannot speak about this issue without addressing the broader economic picture. If the Government were to neglect these cherished buildings, it would be an act of vandalism, but it would come as no surprise to many of our constituents if the Labour Government did turn a blind eye to this threat to our heritage, given where we are economically. We have seen the calamitous impact of the Chancellor’s callous Budget on our great houses already, including on our historic houses, and I have already written and made comments about the impact. Independent analysis has shown that the dramatic increase in inheritance tax could spell an end for many of our historic heritage sites and estates across the country. This would cost jobs and mean that some of the UK’s most popular stately homes would be closed.
I have very little confidence in the long-term faith that the Government would put in our heritage. Of course, the dire economic circumstances make a big difference. I have already raised the matter on the Floor of the House, because it is becoming ever clearer that the Chancellor will have to cut budgets. Although many of our voters, including many of my constituents, do not believe that they can afford a Labour Government, what they certainly cannot afford is the Minister abandoning our most vital sector, so I encourage him to stand up to the Chancellor and try to protect those vital budgets. As the cost of debt goes up and the economic situation becomes more dire, the Chancellor will have even less headroom to spend on schemes such as the listed places of worship grant.
Mr Western, in deference to your timing request, I will conclude. I share the concerns of many beyond this House that the Government are yet to protect our heritage. As we have heard from hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber, hundreds of churches have been left with a deep sense of uncertainty for months. The Government’s failure to commit to that funding risks imperilling centuries of British history and heritage, all while leaving gaping holes in our local communities and depriving our constituents of spaces to accommodate celebration, grief, art, music, sculpture, political hustings—of course—wellbeing groups, childcare, addiction support sessions and so much more. The listed places of worship grant scheme is essential, and I urge the Minister to make the strongest possible case for its renewal to the Treasury; otherwise, many of our constituents will ask, “Is nothing sacred any more?”
The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism (Chris Bryant)
I feel as if I have been beaten up for the last hour and a quarter in the most genteel way, with a maniple rather than a boxing glove. [Interruption.] I see that most people do not know what a maniple is; perhaps I am the only former priest in the room.
The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Meriden and Solihull East (Saqib Bhatti), excoriates me for citing a hymn. It was:
“nearer and nearer draws the time, the time that shall surely be,
when the earth shall be filled with the glory of God,”
and the Department will announce its decisions. The hon. Gentleman says that the Church cannot rely on a hymn and a prayer. Actually, if I might gently correct his theology, that is literally what the Church does rely on. He needs to go back to the 39 articles; I am quite happy to provide tutorials.
We have had Bede—not in Latin, I note. We have had Jethro Tull; I think that that was Jethro Tull the band, rather than the 18th-century agronomist. We have had Matthew Arnold, to whom I will return a little later, and of course Betjeman. We have also had Proverbs; I think 11:14 was quoted, very sensibly, but if we go up to 11:13, in the King James version, which is always my preferred one—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I thought that that might carry at least half the House. It reads:
“A talebearer revealeth secrets: but he that is of a faithful spirit concealeth the matter”,
or in a more modern translation,
“A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy person keeps a secret.”
That is what we have been doing in the Department for a while now.
I warmly commend the hon. Member for Bromsgrove (Bradley Thomas), who put his case extremely well. I think that I agreed with nearly everything he said, as I will come to in a moment. The right hon. and learned Member for Torridge and Tavistock (Sir Geoffrey Cox)—one of my favourite Conservative Members—quoted Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach”, and he knew that I would know it:
“The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full…
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar”.
The right hon. and learned Gentleman is quite right. Part of the problem is dwindling congregations, which are sometimes fewer than a dozen. I know that the Bible says
“where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I”,
but when we are down to two or three, it is difficult to raise the funds for a beautiful, ancient building that is very expensive to maintain or even keep warm. Those are significant challenges, on which I want to work with all hon. Members.
We have focused mostly on Anglican churches—there are obviously not many medieval Catholic churches around—but of course this issue relates to all listed places of worship in the country and to many different congregations, denominations and religions. There is a specific issue for many of our very historic churches, which are beautiful and need our help as a nation.
The hon. Member for Bromsgrove is right that churches are community hubs as much as anything else. They host youth groups, such as the one I used to run at All Saints, High Wycombe; I think I was a bit of a trendy vicar back then—that is all gone now. He referred to food banks, which are also run in many churches. In fact, the old Conservative Association in one of my valleys closed and became a food bank, which is run by a new church that has been set up there. That has managed to save an old historic building, which is great.
Choirs and orchestras often perform in churches, and churches are often warm spaces for people in winter. Although my memory of most churches is that they are rarely warm, the fund has been able to help to make segments of churches into warm places. Churches are also refuges for lots of people. The bit that we have not mentioned very much is that they are a place of worship, which is an important part of the spiritual life of this nation. Births, deaths, baptisms, funerals and weddings are a very important part of community life and a commitment to God.
Churches are also of phenomenal artistic and architectural importance. Some of the most beautiful buildings in this country are historic churches. The right hon. Member for Salisbury (John Glen) mentioned Salisbury cathedral. There is the famous painting, of course; it is a very beautiful cathedral. I cannot now think of it without remembering the horrific, horrible Russians who claimed that they had come to Salisbury to visit the tourist site there when we know that they came with murderous intent.
Many of those places are a vital part of our country’s tourism. They are also often a living archive. Whether it is the memorials on the wall or on the floor, the brass rubbings that people look at, or the churchyards themselves, genealogy is still a very big business around the world, including for thousands of Americans. I think Walt Disney at one point came to Northamptonshire or somewhere where there is a d’Isney who may or may not be related. Many Americans come to British churches to see where their forebears came from.
Sir Roger Gale
Will the Minister accept that the volume of tourists that he has just referred to is essential to many listed buildings, particularly places such as Canterbury cathedral? That volume of tourism also, of course, adds to the cost of maintenance.
Chris Bryant
Yes, it does. For many cathedrals, deciding whether to charge is a difficult balancing act. It is a complicated decision, but the passage of millions of people through a building does wear it down. Toilets have to be renewed, places have to be kept warm, and the electrics have to be repaired and kept safe; we have heard a couple of references to fires in churches over the years.
I fully accept that volume of tourists is a massive challenge for us. We have a different settlement in this country compared with other countries. In the Church of England, when I was in the diocese of Oxford, we had what we used to refer to as “dead men’s money”, which is the Church’s historic endowment, but it is often stretched very thin.
Hon. Members have talked about funding. The churches themselves do a lot of fundraising, and I put on record my tribute to the widow’s mite and to those who have contributed significant sums over the years to keep churches open. I think Andrew Lloyd Webber has played a significant role in that, as have many others who have given tens of thousands of pounds or have left money to their local church. When I was a curate in High Wycombe we had to raise thousands of pounds for the spire. I think I sat for 24 hours outside the church reading poems, including Matthew Arnold’s “Dover Beach”, to help to raise money, and then they threw me out of an aeroplane as well—with a parachute.
The single biggest chunk of money that goes to churches, as the hon. Member for Bromsgrove knows, comes from the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Between 2017 and 2023, the amount of money given to smaller churches came to £165,188,049. That far eclipses the amount of money that comes through the scheme that we are talking about today. Even Bromsgrove has received £1.2 million from that fund since 1994, including for St Laurence, Alvechurch, which got £189,000 for repairs to its tower last year.
In addition, there is the Churches Conservation Trust, which is governed by the Redundant Churches and Other Religious Buildings Act 1969. We will be laying a statutory instrument fairly soon to enable that to continue with something in the region of £3 million, and it is responsible for a specific number of churches. The Church of England has also set aside £11 million for its Buildings for Mission fund. All that funding is excellent.
I have to say that, as a Minister of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, the financial situation in our Department is very tough. Many hon. Members who have spoken could equally have come along and asked about the museums or libraries in their constituency, which have struggled because of local authority funding cuts over the last 14 years; or they might have said to me, “What about the local theatre or the local arts venue, which are struggling for finances? Or the music venues that have been closing, two a week, for the last few years?”; or they might point to other forms of heritage at risk. I note that the shadow Minister made several spending commitments for the next general election campaign, including significant extra funding for a whole series of different heritage bodies. There are a significant number of churches on the heritage at risk register. It is good that 23 places of worship have been removed from that since 2023, but obviously we want to go further if we can.
I tried to come to the House as soon as I could after we came to a decision. Going through the process in the Department has been difficult because the funding is so tight and we have a lot of competing demands. In addition, we have a series of arm’s length bodies, such as the national galleries and museums that are Government-owned and under Government responsibility, which we cannot leave out of the equation. I note the Father of the House’s comments earlier—I am sure he is not accusing me of using some kind of hidden tactic—but I wanted to come as soon as I could to respond to the debate, which we knew was going to be today. I have officials and everybody lined up so that I can make the proper announcements to the House as fast as we possibly can, because I think Parliament should hear them first.
Members will be aware from the Order Paper that an announcement on the future of the listed places of worship grant scheme is due today. The written ministerial statement will not say much more than I am about to say now, so hon. Members should not get too excited. I am pleased to be able to give certainty and announce that the scheme will continue in 2025-26 with a budget of £23 million. We have made this difficult decision against a tough financial background and bearing in mind a wide range of compelling priorities for expenditure within the Department.
In order to meet the budget, we have introduced a cap on the total amount that a listed place of worship can claim per year. We have set that at £25,000, which can still be spread across multiple claims from the same church. In all the years so far, 94% of applications have been under the £25,000 cap, and the vast majority of claims—over 70%—have been for less than £5,000. A written ministerial statement will be made shortly in both Houses to confirm and provide further details of this announcement, but, to be honest, there is not much more detail there.
Chris Bryant
I will, but I need to give enough time for the hon. Member for Bromsgrove.
Gideon Amos
I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way. He said £25 million. Is it correct that there was £42 million of funding in the past? Is this a cut of £20-odd million?
Chris Bryant
No, that is not correct. The maximum amount that was spent last year was £29 million—I will be straight with the hon. Member that it is a smaller amount of money this year. An allocation had been made for £42 million but that amount was never spent because there were not sufficient applications.
By tradition, a cathedral is not symmetrical because only God is perfect. I am sure this funding is not perfection in terms of what everybody would want, but I hope it is at least acceptable.