Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Lord Berkeley of Knighton Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Wednesday 11th June 2025 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton]

Leave out from “49F” to end and insert “, do disagree with the Commons in their Amendments 49P, 49Q, 49R, 49S and 49T and do propose Amendment 49U as an amendment in lieu of Commons Amendments 49P, 49Q, 49R, 49S and 49T—

49U: Before Clause 138, insert the following new Clause—
“Disclosure of use and accessing of copyright works in AI training
After section 21 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (infringement by making adaptation or act done in relation to adaptation) insert—
“21A Disclosure of use and accessing of copyright works in AI training
(1) A person who uses copyright works in the training of an artificial intelligence (AI) model for the purposes of a service with links to the United Kingdom within the meaning of subsection (2) shall make publicly available a statement identifying the copyright works used, and the means by which those works were accessed.
(2) The service has links with the United Kingdom if—
(a) it has a significant number of UK users, or
(b) United Kingdom users form one of the target markets for the service (or the only target market).
(3) The requirement in subsection (1) shall not apply where the rights holder has granted a licence to the person using the copyright works.
(4) In this section, “training” means the pre-training, training, fine-tuning and retrieval-augmented generation of an AI model, or any other point at which a data input is made to an AI model.”””

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Kidron has been inspiring during the passage of the Bill. She has inspired me to take up the cudgels on behalf of our creative industries: writers, painters, filmmakers, newspapers and composers. Indeed, almost every aspect of life today is underwritten by somebody’s good idea. I believe all sides of the House agree that they should benefit from, and own, that creativity. Noble Lords who have written a novel or an article, created a picture or produced a film will know what it is like to feel ownership of their ideas, and how they would feel if they were purloined. I declare my interest as a composer.

I do not want to divide the House, but if there is no meaningful response from the Government I will have no choice. Both the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and I told your Lordships’ House last week that we did not want to collapse—to use the Minister’s phrase—the data Bill. Indeed, we are not playing ping-pong with Amendment 49.

Rather, and in return, we are seeking a beneficial relationship with the Government. After all, many of the ideas going into AI were initially developed by the creative industries, which, like the Government, want to be at the forefront of what is to come in AI: things that are impossible to imagine and that will, I have no doubt, take our breath away.

Peter Kyle in the other place said that he did not want to deal with these issues piecemeal, but we know from experience that not putting in protection at an early stage can lead to the tail wagging the dog. Streaming would be a perfect example. In enacting new law, surely there is a duty to build in transparency in order that we can safeguard the copyright that the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has promised will remain in place.

However, for the creatives themselves to be able to enforce that copyright, they need to know who is using—and possibly stealing—their work. If you do not know that theft is occurring, you cannot do much about it. So, I am going to take a slightly different tack today. My amendment amends the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, making copyright law enforceable by requiring AI firms to make a public statement about their use of copyright works and the means by which they access those works. However, AI firms would not be required to disclose the use of copyright works if they have agreed a licence with the rights holder—which seems only fair. This removes burdens for ethical AI firms while also acting as a strong incentive to abide by copyright law.

The data used in AI training is now the key point of competitive advantage for AI firms—far more so than a model’s algorithms or architecture. Therefore, the requirement will give AI firms a strong incentive to license creative comment and avoid public disclosure. For those AI firms that persist in theft of copyright, holders will be able to identify their stolen content in the public disclosures and seek redress.

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act is enforceable via private action, as the Minister himself set out in the other place yesterday. So, this amendment is intended to respect the financial primacy of the Commons. In fact, yesterday, Minister Bryant—perhaps without realising—did away with the financial privilege argument by saying, correctly, that it was not the job of government to pursue breaches of copyright. That is why the creators need transparency, so that they can do the policing that is not—I agree with Chris Bryant—the Government’s job.

I say to the Government—now, after all, led by a musician, a flautist, and how welcome it was to find that we have a musician at the helm—that we feel that the traffic so far has all been one way. However, the essence of creativity, as the PM must know, whether on the stage or the concert hall, whether in research and development studios or the laboratory, is the ability to listen and to exchange ideas. That is how curiosity and intelligence come together to create a better world that respects the ideas of our creators, whether it be Elton John—just think how much he and his colleagues have brought in to the Treasury—or, as he said himself, the young, impoverished artist sitting in a garret and bursting with the great ideas that just may be the next thing to take the world by storm. I beg to move.

[Baroness Kidron (CB)]

My Lords, I will speak to the Government’s Motion A. The timing of this debate and the pretence that these are in any meaningful sense amendments in lieu are more process and nonsense. I will leave other noble Lords to reflect on the Government’s stunning rebuke of your Lordships’ House, but to the Minister I say that it is disrespectful to millions of people to bring back amendments as if they had not been resoundingly rejected already.

I explicitly left the protection of the property and livelihood of millions of British workers, the UK AI industry and the UK’s creative and IP-rich companies in the Government’s hands. Despite actively acknowledging that creative work is being stolen at scale, the Government chose once again to remove transparency provisions your Lordships provided, allowing the tech sector to continue to rob the creative industries blind. It is as cynical as it is bewildering.

--- Later in debate ---

In the meantime, I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, has listened to what I have said. I hope that he will agree not to press his amendment, and we look forward to the opportunity to continue working with him.

[Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for her comments. I will come back to that in a moment. First, I would like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, once again for so passionately embracing this issue on behalf of creative people. She has done a remarkable job. Noble Lords on both sides of the House will know that I have attacked both Governments over music for children in schools and over artists touring. There is lots of work to be done. I say to noble Lords on the Front Bench that many of the noble Baroness’s comments need to be taken seriously and there is a great deal of progress that could be made.

When I discovered that a flautist was going to be Prime Minister, I was very hopeful—and I still am—that we can make progress in these areas, because we really need to. It is not just for today’s musicians; it is for the musicians of tomorrow, as Elton John said. These will be the people who will be creating works of art in the future.

I said to the Minister in our meeting that the problem with the Government’s position is that, once AI and big tech companies start trawling, we cannot get it back. This is exactly what we saw with streaming. It is a slippery slope and that is why we are all so passionate.

The noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, was absolutely right in saying that this, with the greatest respect, is something the Government have brought on themselves, because they are possibly so far into the bed of AI and tech companies that they have no position to manoeuvre. That is very much the feeling I get.

If this Motion is at all ingenious, I owe a great debt of gratitude to the Public Bill Office for helping me work it out. I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Dobbs, who is a perfect example of somebody who has written a book—House of Cards—and seen it put on to television and become enormously successful both in this country and in America. I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, who always speaks very wisely on these subjects, especially on copyright, about which he probably knows more than most of us.

Many noble Lords have spoken; I do not want to go through a long list. But I did take my cue at the end from the beginning. We heard that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, is not inclined to vote tonight. We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that he would come through the Lobby with me, for which I am enormously grateful, but it is tricky.

There are lots of noble Lords on the government Benches who I know feel very torn by this. I do not really want to put them through that again. I want to show the other place that we can act with dignity in this Chamber and make our point, as noble Lords have done on so many occasions and by such huge majorities. That is a huge tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and what she has brought forward.

On that note, I have decided on this occasion that enough probably is enough. I think we have made our point. I do so hope the Government will listen. I trust them to listen and to improve matters as far as the creatives are concerned. We can only do so much here. I believe we have done it. It is up to the Government and the other place now to listen. I beg to withdraw the amendment.

Motion A1 withdrawn.