AI Regulation Bill

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Thursday 4th June 2026 Grand Committee

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as deputy chairman of the Telegraph Media Group and chairman of the News Media Association. The vast, unaccountable technology companies would have us believe that any attempt at regulation in this area would stifle their growth and damage the economy. That is nonsense, of course. The truth is that legislation, even of the most modest sort, is long overdue to protect public safety, ensure transparency, tame untrammelled market power and protect content and intellectual property.

I have two points. First, there is already legislation on the statute book that, as a starting point, simply needs to be enforced. Rather than trying to rip the guts out of the CMA, the Government should actively direct it to encourage greater competition in digital markets. Google’s announcement yesterday that it will give publishers greater control over use of their work globally, after the CMA introduces binding conduct requirements on search, not only demonstrates that big tech will not flee if we introduce proportionate regulation but shows that the UK has an opportunity to lead the way.

Secondly, the Government should act now to ensure that existing copyright law is meaningfully enforced. For news publishers, indeed all content publishers, whose content is routinely scraped—or stolen—without consent or remuneration, simple transparency over the identity and purpose of the “crawlers” accessing that content would provide the basic information required to assert their rights and be rewarded for them. It is not a radical demand and falls well short of proper regulation, but it would be a start as a practical measure to make existing law effective. Yet even this has been kicked into the long grass, despite consistent demands from this House for action.

We should not accept political paralysis on this vital issue. AI can be a great force for good but, to serve all of society, laws must be enforced and fresh regulation put in place at speed. Unless we act now, history will taunt us with its most feared words: “too late”.