Copyright and Artificial Intelligence

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, the Government agree with many of the points made during the debate on the data Bill, and in other discussions in this House, that further transparency is needed from AI developers about their use of web crawlers and the materials that they use to train their models. However, we have a consultation out and it would be premature to commit to specific legislation until we have analysed the responses to that consultation and heard all the voices in this sector. Nevertheless, I assure the noble Viscount that we intend to resolve this issue. It is one that the previous Government failed to resolve and we need to resolve it now, so we will take action as soon as the consultation has been analysed and resolved.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, there has been widespread concern that the Secretary of State in the Minister’s department has been very happy to meet representatives of big tech and AI firms but less willing to meet representatives of our thriving but threatened creative industries. Of course, in due course his meetings will be published through the Government’s quarterly transparency returns but, given how germane this is to a contentious area of policy currently under discussion, will she give consideration to publishing that list of meetings sooner?

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord knows, that information will be published in the normal way. What I will say is that the Minister for AI and Digital Government and the Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism have been extremely active in engaging on this subject. They have held round tables with the creative industries and the AI sector during the consultation, which is a joint consultation involving DCMS and DSIT. This morning, the Secretary of State for DSIT explained that, and also said that he is of course open to meetings with the creative sector. All that is on the table and there is no problem about dialogue or engagement. That will go on in the next few months as well, while we seek to find a solution to this issue.