Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]

John Whittingdale Excerpts

Thursday 22nd May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Secretary of State has spoken for 33 minutes in a debate that is due to last for an hour, and we have yet to hear from the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman. There will not be time to have a proper debate on this matter, which is of great importance to a number of people. Will the Government please make available more time beyond the 60-minute time limit?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his point of order, which was not in fact a point of order. He will be aware that the programme motion has already been agreed to by the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

The Secretary of State can check back in Hansard. That is exactly what he said, and that is where the concern and anxiety comes in. The Government might get a technical victory today because of the invocation of financial issues, but the Bill will come back again from the House of Lords. They are not going to give up.

Everybody is united with the House of Lords when it comes to these issues; everybody wants a solution now. Nobody agrees with the Government’s position—except the AI firms that seek to benefit from the unauthorised use of our cultural work—and the anger is growing. The more the public see of this, the more our constituents get increasingly concerned about how our artists are being treated. We only need to look at Sir Elton John’s reaction on Sunday—not just the choice of language about the Government Front Benchers, but that he feels so dismissed he is even threatening legal action.

Surely the way forward is compromise and the Government going some way toward giving the creative sector what they want. Lords amendment 49D presents that approach. It respects the financial prerogatives of this Government, and it has taken on board everything that the Front Benchers have said. I urge the Government to reconsider their position and to engage seriously on the substance of the amendment, which would address copyright holders’ calls for transparency without imposing immediate enforcement costs. It would require AI developers to provide copyright owners with clear, relevant, accurate and accessible information on how their works have been used and how they were accessed. Nothing could be fairer than that.

The Government use words like “may” rather than “must”, thereby avoiding direct spending obligations. We must surely work together on the basis of what has been agreed between both Houses, and try to ensure that we get something that meets everybody’s concerns. That has to start with this Lords amendment. I urge the Government to accept it at this really late stage, and I encourage Labour Back Benchers, who have made fantastic contributions today and who have stood up to this Government, to vote against them. That will show exactly how strongly they feel about this issue. I encourage Labour colleagues to back the amendment.

[Sir John Whittingdale]

I have to say that I am slightly surprised that no Labour Back Bencher is willing to speak in support of the Government’s position, but it means that I have more time to speak than I had initially thought would be the case. I will not repeat the arguments that we have had in the lengthy debates on these measures that have already taken place, but I want to make one or two points.

In his contribution, the Secretary of State said that he had never mentioned the word “uncertainty” and implied that he thought that copyright law is clear. I have to say that that contrasts with an awful lot of the debates we have had previously, in which his colleague, the Minister for the Creative Industries, has talked about there being uncertainty.

[Chris Bryant]

The right hon. Member must have missed several of the debates in which I expressly said that I did not think there was any uncertainty about the law as it presently stands.

[Sir John Whittingdale]

Well, the ministerial foreword to the consultation paper suggests there was uncertainty, and that has consistently been one of the reasons why the Government have said they need to carry out all these consultations. Even if the law is clear, as the Secretary of State suggests—personally, I believe it is clear—the important thing is that it can only be enforced if those who have their copyright breached are aware that that has taken place. That is why transparency is of critical importance, as I know the Government have acknowledged.

The Secretary of State has said this afternoon that he is going to set up more working parties. Our concern is that, as the Secretary of State has just said, a large amount of copyrighted material is already being scraped by generative AI. His working parties and further consultations—we wait to hear when legislation might arrive—mean that it will be another few years before we actually have this measure on the statute book. There is an opportunity to have something on the statute book now, and he will be aware that the existing provisions—the robots.txt provisions—are simply being ignored. They are not working, and it is important that we act immediately to send a very clear signal that we expect transparency to be in place and for generative AI companies to properly remunerate licence holders.

I want to mention some of the other provisions. On the Order Paper, the Government have said that Lords amendment 49D “engages financial privilege”.

[Peter Kyle]

The Chair says that—not us.

[Sir John Whittingdale]

Well, the Clerks may have advised—[Interruption.] I merely suggest that it is very unclear. As many in the House of Lords have suggested, it is very unclear how the amendment can engage financial privilege. The amendment use the word “may”, so it does not contain any requirement on the Government to indulge in financial expenditure. It is a worrying precedent if the Government are going to avoid debate on policy by suggesting that—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Caroline Nokes)]

Order. I think it would be helpful if I clarified that that is a matter for the Chair and not for the Government.

[Sir John Whittingdale]

I accept your ruling, Madam Deputy Speaker; it just looks very strange to see that the amendment “engages financial privilege” when there is no financial requirement in the amendment.

I will finish on one further point. I understand the Secretary of State’s keenness to attract investment from tech companies. When we have previously debated legislation affecting tech companies, on each occasion we have heard that it may result in their being unwilling to come and invest in this country, but that has never been the case. I hope the Secretary of State will not listen to those who say that if we proceeded to enforce copyright law, it may somehow result in tech companies finding this country unattractive. I do not believe that is the case and I do not believe that it would jeopardise the jobs that the Government are keen to create. But unless we proceed down the route of accepting the Lords amendment, we will jeopardise the jobs of the 2.4 million people in this country who are employed in the creative industries.

Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 49D.