Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]

Chris Kane Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 12th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Kane (Stirling and Strathallan) (Lab)]

It fair to say that if we do not work with data, we do not really think about it too much, but, when we do, we realise how much of it surrounds us in multiple forms. Every day in this place I walk past shelves groaning under the weight of volumes of Hansard: an institutional memory of all that has happened here. New technologies offer us an opportunity to take all that knowledge of what has come before and use it to help shape what we do next. Data is a powerful but often underappreciated and undervalued commodity.

The Bill is to be welcomed. I have no doubt that it will help grow the economy, improve public services and make people’s lives easier. However, when it comes to the creative industries, we must recognise that creativity is more than just the sum of its data parts. A novel is not just words, a song is not just notes and lyrics, and a painting is not just pixels or brush strokes. The poems of Robert Burns are not merely letters on a page; they come alive in our minds in a way that no dataset can fully capture. When we treat creative works as nothing more than data points, we risk undervaluing the talent, the skill and the human expression that make them meaningful.

I started my working life as a broadcaster. At 15 years old, I secured a work placement at Central FM, which is still proudly broadcasting independently across the Forth valley. I went for a week and I stayed for 10 years. I presented the breakfast show, dragging myself out of bed at 4.30 in the morning. My parents were more impressed that their teenage son could get up that early than they were about my career choice.

Back then, only 17 radio stations were available in Stirling. Today, my teenage son can stream thousands of stations, podcasts and songs from a device in his pocket. The march of technology is relentless; it can sweep people up or it can sweep people aside. In radio, I saw that march at first hand—first came digitisation, then networking and then automation—and, with each step, jobs disappeared. My last full-time broadcasting job was in 2008. I left because I saw too many friends chasing too few jobs that paid too little money. Now, we are at another turning point.

AI is a powerful tool with huge potential, but it needs vast amounts of data, and that data has enormous value. At a recent Public Accounts Committee evidence session, we heard from academic experts who told us that once we hand over our data, whatever promises are made and whatever covenants are placed on it, we have lost control. If unchecked and unregulated—or regulated improperly—technology and the data it uses does not care whether it makes people’s lives better or worse. We are dealing today with the good and the bad consequences of decisions taken by tech companies and regulators in relation to social media and smartphones. Let us learn from our mistakes, not repeat them.

The amendments proposed in the other place, particularly on copyright and transparency, resonate greatly with me and much of the creative community. I urge colleagues to give them due consideration in the next stage of the Bill’s passage through the House. I was heartened to hear the Secretary of State’s positive comments to that end in today’s debate, and I welcome the Government’s separate consultation on the issue.

There will be other opportunities to consider these points, but the concerns of the creative industries must be heard and acted upon. Copyright protections are not a barrier to AI innovation and competition, but a safeguard for the work of an industry worth £125 billion per year and employing more than 2 million people. We can enable a world where much of this value is transferred to a handful of big tech firms, or we can enable a win-win situation for the creative industries and AI developers, where they work together based on licensed relationships with remuneration and transparency at their heart.

Technology does not care what or who it replaces, but we should. The world needs data scientists, and it also needs poets. Creative workers are right to be nervous about AI further eroding their ability to monetise their work. If we do not act carefully, we risk a future where technology exploits creativity rather than supports it. Data and technology drive progress, but progress must not come at the expense of those who create, innovate and inspire.

AI has immense potential, but without proper safeguards on it and its data, it risks sweeping creative workers aside, or worse, replacing them all together. As we embrace the opportunities that AI and data-driven technologies present, we must ensure that progress does not come at the cost of our creative industries. Human expression cannot be reduced to mere data points. The livelihoods of those who enrich our economy and culture must be protected. It is our responsibility to force innovation while safeguarding the rights of creators. We can build a future where AI enhances human creativity rather than undermining it, and where both well-paid data scientists and well-paid poets thrive in a digital age.