Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Consideration of Commons amendments and / or reasons
Monday 2nd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freyberg (CB)]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and I declare my interest as an artist member of DACS. In the United States, a revealing battle is under way, not only about competing with China but about whose interests AI regulation should serve. Thirty-one US states have passed AI laws. They understand that transparency does not stifle innovation; it enables it by providing certainty and accountability. So fierce is federal resistance that House Republicans now seek to roll back state AI laws entirely, imposing a decade-long moratorium. AI experts call this an abdication of responsibility, yet the states persist, introducing 550 new Bills this year alone.

We face the same choice. For years, we condemned China’s intellectual property theft, the foundation of its economic rise. Now, we permit Silicon Valley the same privilege. The Government’s wait-and-see prevarication is inexplicable. This amendment demands transparency alone: no new law, no regulatory burden, simply the right to know when your work is taken. This amendment grants the Government complete discretion over enforcement and preserves their consultation. It demands only visibility. This is a test of whether we uphold the rule of law in the age of AI by giving creators the simple right to see who is taking their work. I therefore urge the House to support this amendment.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, as a member of the Labour Benches, may I say that I actually support the Government’s position on this occasion? The reason is this. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, has, with great force of personality, made a very considerable case for action needed to protect intellectual property, and I think she has won that battle. It would be impossible in future, in the coming year or so, for a Government to act in a way that did not take account of her very real concerns.

I am a massive supporter of the creative industries, which make an enormous and growing contribution to the country—and not just an economic one. They are part of the knowledge and service economy which we now are. As my noble friend Lord Bragg has often said, they offer people of all social classes the opportunity to fulfil themselves in ways that otherwise might not have been possible. So, while I am very sympathetic, I do not think that this simple amendment is the right vehicle to put in place a whole new copyright law.

[Noble Lords]

It is not a new law.

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

Well, I do not quite see how passing this amendment is going to solve the problem; let us put it like that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, the noble Lord is very selectively quoting from what the Secretary of State had to say. The Secretary of State did change his position and acknowledged that existing copyright law is very certain. However, he went on to say that the law was not fit for purpose. That is an absolute giveaway in the circumstances. Whose agenda is he pursuing, in that case? Big tech’s?

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

It seems obvious that we have a technological revolution under way, and we have to consider how best we can protect the creative industries in that situation. It is a completely different world that we are now moving into. Peter Kyle is saying that AI copyright needs properly considered and enforceable legislation, drafted with the inclusion, involvement and experience of both creatives and technologists. That is what he intends to do in the coming months.

Therefore, I think the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, has won on this point and we should now gracefully withdraw from further ping-pong.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, very briefly, there were two Members of your Lordships’ House who were sitting in the House of Commons a couple of weeks ago listening to the debate: the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and myself. During that brief debate—as usual, it was time-limited—there were no fewer than 13 interventions on the Secretary of State from around the House. Of the 13, nine came from Labour’s own Back Benches. Every single one of those 13 interventions expressed concern to varying degrees; not a single person said, “You have got it right, we accept all these apologies and we are going in the right direction”.

If you read some of the comments by the somewhat hirsute Vice-President of the United States at the February AI summit in Paris, it is very clear what the White House and the Trump Administration are intending to do. It is America first, America second, America third, up to the power 10. That is their very clear intent.

If you look at the comments of OpenAI and Google when they talk about their input into the consultation that is taking place with our own Government, you see that their position and intent are crystal clear; they are against transparency and are basically saying that it is too late to act on all the information they have already taken as they have the ability to use it, and in fact they want and need even more.

However, the backdrop to that—as the noble Lord, Lord Freyberg, said—is that there is an intense debate going on in the United States about this. Two weeks ago, the US Office of Copyright—if you like, the guardian of copyright in US law—issued a report which directly challenges many of the premises that these large AI companies are putting forth about their right to rob, rape and pillage intellectual property wherever they wish in the world. They are trying to subjugate the 50 states of the union to make sure the White House can override them, and they intend to do exactly the same with any foreign jurisdiction which chooses to stand up to what the White House views as its own best interest. That is the reality.