AI and Creative Technologies (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Lord McNally Excerpts

Friday 13th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, I hope we will see the noble Lord, Lord Hamilton, here for the wind-up, because there is a wicked old habit in the House of Commons of intervening very early in a debate to which you have not put your name, so you are in Hansard but you can then be on the train home.

My thanks go to the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, not only for her introduction today but for her chairmanship of this committee, of which I have been proud to be a member. It is the third such report that the committee has brought about under her stewardship, and it is a good example of how Select Committees can carry out programmes of work that are essential in working through legislation.

I am pleased to see the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, in her place, and I look forward to her speech. This last week, which is coming to an end, has been a bit bruising. I have never been a fan of ping-pong; I do not think it is the best way of getting a resolution. We thought some 20 or 30 years ago—but you must not rush things in the Lords—that we should adopt the approach of the American Congress: when they get stuck on a piece of legislation, they appoint a joint committee with the task of bringing forward a solution.

I also share the wish of good luck given by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, to the noble Lords, Lord Evans and Lord Massey. My only caveat is that I see that the noble Lord, Lord Evans, has chosen a Yorkshire designation for his title, when he was born in Lancashire. Such apostasy is noted.

The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, has given us a good start by looking forward and not brooding over the past. I am afraid that I have now reached the stage in my career where I do brood over the past. It is about 60 years since I first came to be interviewed for a job in the Fabian Society by the late Arthur Skeffington. I have worked in and around this place ever since. What struck me in preparing for this debate was that I was much inspired in my late teens and early 20s by two speeches. The first was John F Kennedy’s inaugural speech. He announced that

“we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty”.

The second was Harold Wilson’s on 1 October 1963, when he called for a new Britain “forged in the white heat” of a technology revolution. I call attention to them today to draw a comparison between the upbeat optimism of a period when a US President could call on the best instincts of an outward-looking and generous-spirited country and the narrow self-interest of today’s incumbent. In the 1960s, we were still living in a post-war settlement made by that “never again” generation, but the very title of the report we are debating today, Less Talk, More Action, suggests a judgment on the Government’s strategy very far from the vision and sense of urgency contained in Wilson’s white heat of technology speech. The whole thrust of the report, and the dissection of it today by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, is to urge on the Government clear objectives and urgent decisions.

The challenge is clear. The changes now in train brought about by AI are as great and fundamental as those brought about by the first industrial revolution 400 years ago. Yet there is a worrying one-sidedness about the Government’s AI strategy, as they navigate a path between the tech firms’ freedom to exploit their technology regardless of any harm inflicted on the creative sector and creatives who fear for their livelihoods if the fruit of their hard labour is freely available for commercial exploitation.

Those fears are well founded, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, reminded us. In the case of the creative industries, AI presents a real dilemma which needs a considered and rational response from the Government to a difficult question: how do we protect the intellectual property rights of creators while encouraging responsible innovation and investment in the development of AI? In this House during the passage of the Data (Use and Access) Bill, we tried very hard to offer constructive and workable solutions, but the Government have repeatedly demurred, and ping-pong, as I have said, is not the most efficient way of making progress on complex legislation. It does not help that the Government have during these debates increasingly given the impression that their main objective with that Bill is to convince not the House of Commons or the House of Lords but another house altogether—the White House.

In fact, the Government’s approach during ping-pong brought to mind the great Tommy Cooper in pulling various rabbits out of the legislative hat—none of which remotely resembled a rabbit that could reassure the creative sector. Nevertheless, one of these rabbits may yet have some life in it if, and only if, the Government demonstrate a genuine determination to arrive at a solution that is in in the interests of the creative industries as well as of the tech companies. I refer to the proposed parliamentary working group. One of the most constructive periods in a long parliamentary career was my time on the Puttnam committee leading up to the Communications Act 2003 and the creation of Ofcom. That too was also under a Labour Government with a large majority, but that Government showed their willingness to listen to a knowledgeable, cross-party committee making constructive recommendations, with an independent chair trusted by all sides. The committee must not be a fig leaf which the Government exploit to force through their own proposals in the face of opposition from the creative industries.

As I suspect we will hear later, this is not just about the creative industries. My full title is Lord McNally of Blackpool, and this morning I received a very persuasive brief from the mayor’s office in Blackpool on Blackpool and the Fylde coast’s bid for an AI growth zone. As well as the specifics of AI in terms of culture and creative industries, there is a real possibility of AI being used as an engine for growth. As the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, warned us, it is an opportunity that if we do not take we will pay for it at our peril.

We need an imaginative regulatory intervention which satisfies both rights holders and big tech companies. I believe the Select Committee has played important part in informing this debate and this report sits well with its predecessors. It has been right in reminding us that AI is not a sector but a technology and that it must find its place in a coherent, cross-government vision that can drive innovation across all eight of the Government’s key growth sectors.