Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Chris Bryant and Chi Onwurah

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 10th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall make a few comments, because it is important to respond to some of the questions that have been asked. Two of my hon. Friends referred to the report that the BFI published yesterday. I warmly commend it to all Members, not least because it makes points that others have made about AI, but also because it makes the point that if films and high-end television in the UK are to be successful in the future, we cannot have this critical shortfall in AI education, which is entirely piecemeal at the moment. We know about that in the Department, and it is one of the things that we want to change.

Several Members have asked who will be involved in the various different groups. I want to draw on all the expertise in both Houses to ensure that we can find the right answers. I do not want to undermine anything that the Select Committees might do, jointly or separately, and like my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North (Mr Frith), I am keen for all the parts of the creative industries to engage in this process. The difficulty is that we might end up with a very large roundtable, and people might have to bear with us when it comes to how we structure that.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Bryant]

Okay, although my hon. Friend was not here earlier.

[Chi Onwurah]

I apologise for not being here earlier. I commend the Government for engaging in a cross-party discussion about AI, which is what the country needs to do, but the key issue is ensuring from the beginning that the tech companies understand that transparency in copyright and AI is not a “nice to have” but an absolute requirement, and that if they will not deliver it, the Minister will.

[Chris Bryant]

We have said from the very beginning that transparency is absolutely key to our ability to deliver the package that we would like to put together, and I do not resile from that, but it is only one part of the jigsaw that we need to join up.

I point out to the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) that some of the items on the amendment paper are things that the two Select Committees asked us to do. She is normally more generous to me, and to others, than she has been today. She has clearly forgotten that the last Government introduced plans that would have produced a text and data mining exemption for commercial exploitation of copyrighted materials without any additional protections for the creative industries. That seems to have slipped her mind.

We have moved a great deal since the introduction of the Bill. The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology—who is sitting beside me—and I have moved. We have listened to their lordships, and, more importantly, we have listened to what the creative industries have had to say. The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) asked me whether I had ever known anything like this situation. Other bills have gone to five rounds of ping-pong, but in the past the row has always been about what is in the Bill, not what is not in the Bill. This is not an AI Bill, and it will not change the copyright regime in this country. I want that regime to be as robust as it ever has been, so that those in the creative industries can be remunerated and earn a living, as they deserve to. That is precisely what we intend to achieve, but we want to get the Bill on the statute book as soon as possible. That is why I need the House to vote with us this afternoon, and I hope that their lordships will agree with us tomorrow.

Question put.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Chris Bryant and Chi Onwurah

Consideration of Lords message
Wednesday 14th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

I will in a second. Then I probably ought to move on to the next subject, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Bryant]

Oh dear.

I take very seriously the point that this is not just about people with deep pockets; it is also about individual artists. We want to ensure that they are protected. I give way to the hon. Gentleman.

[Chris Bryant]

Of course, I would like to be able to move faster, but as the hon. Gentleman said to me last week in Committee and in various different places, this is not an easy knot to untie. It will require a great deal of goodwill from a large number of people to secure a settled outcome that works for everybody. I still believe that there could be a win-win situation, but that will happen only if we can gather everybody around the same table in order to deliver it. I am perfectly happy to provide leadership, and to be punched in the nose for providing that leadership if people think that I have got it wrong, but I do not think that is the problem at this particular moment.

Let me give the hon. Member for North Dorset (Simon Hoare) one reason why I think Lords amendment 49B does not really work. Yes, we all agree that we should introduce transparency measures—although it is difficult to work out precisely how they would be proportionate and effective and work equally for big and small companies—but there is no point in having transparency measures unless we have an enforcement measure. An element of the proposed new clause refers to enforcement, but it basically asks the Secretary of State to draw up that enforcement. One would not expect to be able to do that in any other area without a full Bill devoted solely to that purpose. I wish that I could move faster, but I do not want to move faster than is required to secure an outcome.

[Chi Onwurah]

rose—

[Mr Frith]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I will take only one more intervention, I am afraid, because I have taken so many. I probably ought to give way to the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank the Minister for his generosity in giving way, which has made this a real debate. I commend him for his determination to bring together the tech sector and creatives to develop a solution—I know that many creatives are technical, and many technical people are creative. May I urge the Minister to ensure that he works with a wide range of tech companies? As I have said to him, I do not believe that large tech platforms have the right incentives to develop an appropriate tech solution to this, and I urge him to be transparent about how he engages with them.

Finally, the tech platforms refused to appear at a joint sitting of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee and the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, but it is through transparency that we can ensure competition to identify the best technical solution.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

As the hon. Lady knows, I am sympathetic to the direction of travel that she is trying to take me in. Some people will think that I am splitting hairs, and that is not my intention, but I have been keen to avoid the term “opt-out”. As I said, we have brought forward a package of measures. They were reliant on our being able to deliver greater control, through technical measures, for the creative industries and others who had rights to protect. That is why we referred to “rights reservation”, rather than “opt-out”. I take her point, and I am sure that we will be debating it for some considerable time. She is a Select Committee Chair, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Chi Onwurah). I should have said earlier that when I was Chair of the Committee of Privileges, we produced a report, which has yet to be implemented or even discussed in the House, about how we could ensure that witnesses appeared before Parliament when Select Committee Chairs wanted them to.

If it is all right with the rest of the House, I will move on to further subjects. The issues around scientific research—I can never work out where the emphasis lies when I say the word “research”—are embodied in Lords amendment 43B. Some people have suggested that the Bill will somehow create a wild west for research, but that is simply not true. The Bill does not change the threshold for what constitutes scientific research; we are sticking with what has been and is a fair, clear and proportionate measure, using the “reasonableness test” that is common in other legislation and well known by the courts.

As Lord Vallance said in the House of Lords earlier this week, this amendment would go against the good work done by the previous Government on avoiding unnecessary red tape for researchers. We have a world-class research sector in the UK. We want to empower it, not tie it up in red tape. We believe that documents such as the Frascati manual, which are useful and interesting in other settings, are not designed to contain legally binding requirements, so the amendment is misplaced.

If the amendment were carried forward, researchers would need to be able to demonstrate their work’s creativity to a legal standard. If someone’s work is aimed at testing or reproducing another researcher’s results, is it truly creative? That is a legitimate question, but it takes on a whole new meaning, and brings a whole new layer of bureaucracy, when enforced to a new legal standard, as the Bill insists, backed up by the potential for huge regulatory fines.

Similar issues arise in relation to requirements for research to be “systematic” and “ethical”. Those words are not necessarily well known in the courts when it comes to this legislation. As Lord Winston argued powerfully on Monday, if the amendment had been law 50 years ago, we may never have had in vitro fertilisation and the benefits spinning off from that, including valuable cancer research. Those are the issues caused by putting such a test in a legally binding setting that it was never designed for.

[Chi Onwurah]

On the point that Lord Winston made in the other place, will the Minister explain how setting a test for scientific research, so that data could be reused, would have prevented in vitro fertilisation?

[Chris Bryant]

Lord Winston’s point is that by introducing a requirement that research be systematic, ethical and creative, we are creating a whole new idea of what constitutes research. When he wanted to start his IVF work, it was generally thought that it would be unethical to explore that territory. Today, we would consider that view to be misplaced. We believe that the task of deciding what counts as scientific research is best approached by drawing on guidance and the opinion of experts. That is what the reasonableness test allows. It is a concept that is well understood by the courts. While I sympathise with the intention, expressed in the other place, of guarding against misuse, and while I understand the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West and I have discussed on several occasions, the Government believe that the amendment is unnecessary as the Bill already contains sufficient and, I would argue, considerable safeguards.

A controller who wishes to change the purpose of data processing to scientific research must first ensure that they comply with clause 71’s rules on purpose limitation. Scientific research is not listed as grounds for exemption where data was collected on the basis of consent. Secondly, the controller would have to ensure that they passed a “reasonableness” test; thirdly, they would have to ensure that they had lawful basis; fourthly, they would have to ensure that they met the requirements of the safeguards in clause 86; and fifthly, they would have to ensure that the new processing was fair and complied with the wider data protection principles in UK GDPR. That is a very substantial set of safeguards. The Government cannot see how the Lords amendment would add value, on top of all those requirements against misuse, but it would have an effect on genuine researchers, as I have set out, burdening them with red tape and uncertainty and potentially excluding important research.

[Chi Onwurah]

Will the Minister give way?

[Chris Bryant]

If my hon. Friend does not mind, I will not give way again. I will sum up at the end of the debate, so if she wants to raise issues again, I will take interventions then. [Interruption.] I think you would like me to get a move on, Madam Deputy Speaker.

I turn finally to the issue of sex and gender, particularly in the context of the measures on digital verification services. I have tabled amendments to remove the measure that was voted for in the House of Lords on Monday, for reasons that Lord Vallance and I have noted in previous debates. For clarity, the data accuracy principle requires personal data to be accurate and not misleading for the purpose for which it is being used. That safeguard should ensure that personal data shared by public authorities with digital verification services for the purposes of verifying a particular attribute appropriately confirms the specific attribute in question. Public authorities and digital verification service providers are legally required to comply with that principle at different stages of the digital verification process. As I said last week, although it is very unlikely that digital verification services will be used in the kind of cases raised by Opposition Members, the provisions mean that if an organisation requests verification of a person’s sex at birth, the public authority must not share data that records gender more widely for the purpose of that check. Likewise, digital verification service providers must not rely on data that records gender more widely as part of the verification process in that scenario.

This Government recognise that there are instances where sex and gender data appear in the same field in public authority data sets. Existing legislation requires personal data to be accurate for the purpose for which it is being used, which means that personal data processed as part of digital verification checks must reflect the specific requirements of that check. I assure the House that if the Government were to identify an instance in which a public authority was sharing with digital verification services gender data that was mislabelled as biological sex data, we would respond appropriately.

To reiterate, this Government consider the issue of data accuracy to be of importance, and accept the Supreme Court ruling. That judgment and its effects must be worked through holistically, with sensitivity and in line with the law. The Government are already undertaking extensive work on data standards and data accuracy that will consider upcoming updated guidance from the equalities regulator. I do not think it would be appropriate to legislate in the way proposed without having taken those steps, particularly given the sensitive nature of this matter and the potential impact on people’s privacy and human rights.

I finish by noting your opinion, Madam Deputy Speaker, that Lords amendments 49B, 52B and 52C engage the financial privilege of this House, which the Government do not believe it is appropriate for this House to waive. I am sure that the other place will reflect on that carefully during its further consideration of the Bill. I am grateful to all those Members who intervened, and I hope that I have not managed to cut off anybody before their prime.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chi Onwurah]

I rise to speak to Lords amendment 43B, which deals with the safeguarding of scientific research and ensuring that the exemptions in the Bill are used for the purposes of such research alone.

On Second Reading, the Minister was unable to address the points that I raised; he ran out of time because of the length of the debate on AI and copyright, and I rather feel that the same has happened today. In the meantime, however, he wrote to me extensively to address my concerns. Although I do not think all of them were fully addressed, I was convinced that the Minister and, indeed, the Government did not intend this measure to widen the circumstances in which data could be reused for scientific research without consent. I am thinking of circumstances in which data would be reused for the training of AI models which were in themselves not contributing to new, creative scientific research. I believe—let me emphasise this—that all scientific research is creative, and that even if it is simply reproducing existing findings, it is creating confidence in the stock of scientific knowledge. I understand that the Minister does not intend to create a wild west, and I hope that he can confirm specifically that it is not the policy, intention or effect of the provisions to enable the reuse of personal data for AI.

[Chris Bryant]

indicated assent.

[Chi Onwurah]

The Minister makes a hand signal, but I am of the view that hand signals are not reflected in Hansard. The Minister has far greater knowledge of proceedings in this House than I do, so I suspect he knows that too. If he would like to intervene on me, I would be very happy for him to do so.

[Chris Bryant]

I am being very badly behaved. I did not want to take up more time, but I will respond at the end. I think my hon. Friend will be happy.

Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Chris Bryant and Chi Onwurah

2nd reading
Wednesday 12th February 2025 Commons Chamber

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Chi Onwurah]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Bryant]

On births and deaths? Of course.

[Chi Onwurah]

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

[Chris Bryant]

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Bryant]

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

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

[Chi Onwurah]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Chris Bryant]

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

[Chi Onwurah]

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

[Chris Bryant]

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

AstraZeneca

Debate between Chris Bryant and Chi Onwurah

Monday 3rd February 2025 Commons Chamber

[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.

Copyright and Artificial Intelligence

Debate between Chris Bryant and Chi Onwurah

Wednesday 18th December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

I call the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West) (Lab)]

The UK is in a unique position—second in the world in the creative industries, and in the top three for AI innovation—so getting the right solution to protect and support our intellectual property, while supporting and incentivising AI innovation, is uniquely important to our cultural and economic life.

I am a former regulator and chartered engineer, so I welcome the Minister’s decision to go with regulatory technology as the solution, and to challenge the tech sector to come up with technology to ensure we can have both the reservation of rights and the transparency of inputs to large language models, both of which are critical.

The tech sector too often spends less time protecting people and property than maximising profit, but the language of the consultation is a bit vague. The Minister talked about arriving at a plan rather than a solution, so will he make it absolutely clear that any text and data mining exemption is contingent on the technology being deliverable, implementable and workable, and that if the technology fails, the exemption fails?

[Chris Bryant]

I welcome the Chair of the Select Committee to her place. She is 100% right that we cannot have the text and data mining exemption for commercial purposes unless there is a proper rights reservation system in place. I do not know whether she has looked at rights reservation, but it is terribly complicated. People can use the robots exclusion protocol, but it is rather out of date and is avoided by many players in the market. It is very complicated and applies only to a person’s own website, whereas their creative input might not be on their personal website—it might be on somebody else’s.

I tried to create a Bridget Riley using an AI bot over the weekend. The bot had obviously trained itself on some Bridget Riley works, but it was a shockingly bad Bridget Riley—it was nowhere near. I wanted to ask whether it had used Bridget Riley’s work to learn how to make a Bridget Riley-like picture and, if so, whether Bridget Riley received any compensation. Bridget Riley could use another website, haveibeentrained.com, if she wanted, but it is phenomenally complicated. That is precisely what must change. The AI companies must come up with a technical solution, whether they produce music, text or whatever. Without that, we will not be able to progress.