Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]

Max Wilkinson Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 12th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

I will attempt not to give a rerun of the speech I made during the general debate on the creative industries the other day.

[Chris Bryant]

No Paddington?

[Max Wilkinson]

The Minister will be delighted to hear that there will be no Paddington references. Ministers have set out the core objectives of the Bill: growing the economy, improving public services and making people’s lives easier. No one is going to disagree with any of that. Those aims are laudable, and I support them, as do the Liberal Democrats.

However, there are concerns. I will focus on an area that others have already touched on, and speak in support of amendments that have come to us from the House of Lords relating to the creative industries and copyright. While the Bill seeks to improve lives, we worry that the consultation currently being undertaken by the Government leaves open a risk that incentives for human creativity will be removed entirely, and that we will end up in future with many tens of thousands of shades of pale grey.

At the heart of our creative sector is the ability of the human hand to paint or draw, or to write music that moves us, and of the human brain to compose verse that persuades people, makes the hair stand up on the back of our necks and changes the world for the better. Protecting that must be absolutely central to what we do as we embrace technology, but the risk of AI is that those protections are lost.

For the avoidance of doubt, and in the absence of clarity from the official Opposition, we back a system that would protect the IP of creatives; that is, an opt-in system. I would give way to the shadow Minister if he wanted to clarify the Conservative party’s position—he does not. The default must be that creative content is protected. Even AI models, if we ask them, admit the risk to human creativity if IP is not protected by an opt-in model. While the Conservative party has criticised us on that, at least we have an opinion.

[Ms Billington]

I want to emphasise and build on what my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley (Anneliese Midgley) pointed out in relation to music. We need to understand which creative sectors are most vulnerable to generative AI. It is those that have been easily replicable through other forms of technology in the past: music, writing and the visual arts, in particular photography. I say that because it is sometimes misunderstood that some creative sectors are more vulnerable than others, and if we do not understand that they have different regimes for how they are protected, there are risks of not being able to properly protect them.

[Max Wilkinson]

The hon. Lady’s contribution is as right as all the others she has made during this debate and the general debate a couple of weeks ago.

I will immediately move on to the point that data is an abstract term and is being used to cover all sorts of information in these debates. Yet all data is not equal and our legislation must properly reflect that. For example, there is a clear and obvious role for AI in processing health data in a way that helps doctors with diagnosis and benefits patients with faster treatment. The same might apply to the chats we have with our local councils about bins, planning or licensing. Yet even though no one will disagree that the UK firms innovating in science, medicine, climate change and other key industries must not be stymied, the training data for other AI systems—the data we are talking about—is literature, poetry, music and art. Those are things that are creative in essence. It is not just data; it is creative endeavour and an extremely human form.

One of the options in the current consultation would abolish the copyright protections that underpin the livelihoods of our creative sector and, as others have said, that would be ruinous for the creative industries. Furthermore, the unintended consequences could actually harm the long-term development of AI models that we will all come to rely on. High-quality data is essential for training good AI models, but publicly available human-created text data might become the minority online. We have all seen the mistakes that AI can produce and a model trained on bad data will only produce bad results. The Government are rightly ambitious for AI, and part of that ambition must include producing models with traceable data that the public can be assured meets a high standard. Ministers should be embracing our copyright laws precisely because that is a means to improve AI, as well as protecting our creatives.

A reliable licensing system will ensure that AI models are being created using high-quality, human-generated data. Oversight of what is used to train those models will only help to build trust in what is a very new technology that the public is sceptical about. To that end, the Liberal Democrats support the amendments that have come from the House of Lords, which seek to strengthen the rights of creatives. The Government must think carefully about which side of the argument they support, and I have been pleased to hear some of the Secretary of State and the Minister’s reassurances today. We will be watching closely.

We can take more positives from other parts of the Bill, and to reflect on that, I will move on to discuss some constituency matters. I am more optimistic about the Bill’s potential to improve the situation of bereaved parents, which the Minister and I have discussed fairly recently, and I hope Ministers will confirm that that opportunity will be taken.

Many in the House will be familiar with the story of my constituent, Ellen Roome, who tragically lost her 14-year-old son Jools to suicide. In her search for answers about the circumstances leading up to Jools’s death, Ellen has come up against outdated laws and social media giants taking an intransigent approach to sharing data that should naturally be hers as a parent. We are talking about the things that, in the past, she would have been able to find out by looking through her child’s bedroom—things that might have been in wardrobes, stored under the bed or in school notes. These days, those bits of data will be on multiple social media accounts.

This is the subject of my private Member’s Bill, the Social Media (Access to Accounts) Bill, also known as the Jools’ law Bill. This Bill would give parents access rights to their deceased child’s data automatically, so other grieving parents will never face the challenges and the huge legal costs that Ellen has had to endure. I note the plans announced by Ministers include establishing an information commission with a duty to ensure children’s data is protected. This is a welcome step which I hope will strengthen the protections children badly need online, but we must ensure the commission is effectively resourced to take on the social media giants, who have made it clear that they only want profit.

[Matt Rodda (Reading Central) (Lab)]

First, I offer my deepest condolences to the family concerned. In my constituency I also had a challenging case where a young boy lost his life. It is entirely appropriate that the Government are taking this forward, and I commend Ministers for their work on it and also thank the hon. Gentleman for his work on this important matter.

[Max Wilkinson]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. The purpose of my points today is to make sure that, while the data Bill progresses, consensus is built in this House that we all acknowledge that parents should have the right to their children’s data in cases where a child has died of suicide. That is a simple principle, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman would agree with it, as I know Ministers do. That consensus must be borne out in the legislation that we pass.

I am hopeful these circumstances will be covered in the final Bill, and that the Jools’ law Bill will become law. So I ask Ministers today: will we have clarity on the Government’s plans in this area, and will they support parents like Ellen? Will the Government accept the principles my constituent Ellen is pursuing? It is a simple ask that parental access to social media accounts data is protected in the event of a child’s death, that social media companies are obliged to retain that data for a suitable period of time, and that data is made available to inquests so coroners can make judgments to prevent such tragedies from happening again.

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[Dr Spencer]

Our position is pretty much exactly as I have just set out in my speech. A Government consultation is under way that presents four options, including the Government’s preferred opt-out option. There are challenges with that opt-out approach, as well as with a whole range of different approaches. As I have previously said from the Opposition Dispatch Box, whatever we do we must think about how that co-ordinates with what can happen in other jurisdictions. It is a complicated issue, and we need to ensure we get the legislation absolutely right. As I said, we need a response to the consultation as soon as possible so that we can chew through this further to find the best solution. In his summing up, I hope the Minister will update the House on that.

[Max Wilkinson]

The creative industries have been very clear about their position. The shadow Minister says that he wishes to support the creative industries and that that is the position of his party, but would it be too much to suggest he might go a step further and say that he supports the opt-in position, which is the position supported by the creative industries? That would give them reassurance that there is support from all parts of the House for the position they are taking.

[Dr Spencer]

The shadow DSIT team, including our shadow Secretary of State, have met representatives of industry in general. I have met representatives of the creative industries, and I am fairly sure the shadow Secretary of State has too. That is what the consultation is there for. It would not be appropriate to make a unilateral declaration from the Dispatch Box when a live consultation is looking into that complicated area. That would be not be reasonable opposition or good for anybody.

There are no easy answers to some of the challenges, but we should not shy away from them given the clear gains for the public and the economy that many of the reforms set out in the Bill will deliver. His Majesty’s official Opposition and the shadow DSIT team stand ready to work with the Government, wherever possible, to find solutions on these pressing issues. Effective engagement between Government and Opposition will promote confidence among tech companies and would-be investors that the UK is open for business. The last Government’s vision was to harness the UK’s competitive advantage in tech industries to boost our economy and revolutionise the way we live for the benefit of our population. We remain committed to that goal in opposition.

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[Max Wilkinson]

To clarify, the Jools Law Bill would simply require access to the social media accounts and data of deceased children. There is no risk to those children in those circumstances because they would already be dead.

[Chris Bryant]

That was the original point that I was trying to make, and I obviously did not make it as well as the hon. Member did, so I congratulate him on that.

The hon. Member for Dewsbury and Batley (Iqbal Mohamed) was a bit critical of article 70, but I think that he is being a bit unfair. The requirements in subsections 8 and 9, and then later in 11 and 12 of the article are very clear about the circumstances—and they are the only circumstances—in which the Secretary of State can bring forward changes of the kind to which he referred. I hope that we will be able to please him, if not appease him, if that matter appears in Committee or on Report.

I just want to finish with some comments on AI and IP, not least because there has been so much focus on this area. All of us on the Front Bench wanted to have a data Bill, because we think that it is really important for our economy and for so many different aspects of the way that we deliver Government services. We also want a debate about AI and copyright, which is why we launched the consultation, but it feels odd to be doing a bit of that in this Bill.

Let me turn now to what the shadow Secretary of State said earlier. I asked ChatGPT what the view of the shadow Secretary of State was on AI and copyright. It replied, “Regarding his views on copyright, there is no publicly available information indicating that he has expressed specific opinions on this matter.” Well, yes, we heard that this afternoon, didn’t we? I hope the Opposition manage to find some ideas at some point.

This is a very serious matter and it is one of the trickiest issues that any country has to face at this point. I think that it is trickier for our country than most others, because we are the third largest AI economy in the world, and we are probably the second or, at worst, the third greatest IP country in the world. We have creators in every single sphere. Some countries specialise in one particular form of the creative industries, but we manage to do all of them. That is why I was listening very attentively to the contributions from my hon. Friends the Members for Bury North (Mr Frith) and for Stirling and Strathallan (Chris Kane), and the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire and many others as well.

I just want to focus on the things on which there is some agreement. I think there is agreement across the House on the idea that transparency is an important part of what we need to ensure in this legislation, and on the aim of control over intellectual property rights, and on possibly ending a stronger version of rights reservation for the creative industries. I can announce that we have set up two working groups in the past week, both of which have people from the creative industries and from the AI companies in them. One is specifically looking at transparency and what that looks like to be effective and proportionate, and it will start work on that next week.

Secondly, on the question of rights reservation, I fully understand that people are sceptical about whether there is a simple technical means of everybody being about to assert their rights—

Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]

Max Wilkinson Excerpts

3rd reading
Wednesday 7th May 2025 Commons Chamber

[Dr Spencer]

There are a few issues with new clause 1. One is the scope in terms of the definition of networking services and ensuring platforms such as WhatsApp are not captured within it. Looking at new clause 19, there are challenges to implementing in this area. There is no point in clicking our fingers and saying, “Let’s change the age of digital consent,” without understanding the barriers to implementation, and without understanding whether age verification can work in this context. We do not want to create a system and have people just get around it quite simply. We need the Government to do the work in terms of setting it up so that we can move towards a position of raising the age from 13 to 16.

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

The press have obviously been briefed by Conservatives that the Conservatives are pushing for a ban on social media for under-16s, but it seems that what is actually being suggested is a review of the digital age of consent with a view to perhaps increasing it to 16. The two positions are very different, and I wonder whether the tough talk in the press matches what is actually being proposed by the Opposition today.

[Dr Spencer]

I have been very clear on this, and it is important in such a complex area to look at the detail and nuance of the challenges around—(Interruption.) Well, it is very easy to create a new clause where we click our fingers and say, “Let’s make this more illegal; let’s bring in x, y or z restriction.” As a responsible Opposition, we are looking at the detail and complexities around implementing something like this. [Interruption.] I have been asked a few questions and the hon. Member for Cheltenham (Max Wilkinson) might want to listen to the rationale of our approach.

One question is how to define social media. Direct messaging services such as WhatsApp and platforms such as YouTube fall in the scope of social media. There are obviously social media platforms that I think all of us are particularly concerned about, including Snapchat and TikTok, but by changing the age of digital consent we do not want to end up capturing lower-risk social media platforms that we recognise are clearly necessary or beneficial, such as education technology or health technology platforms. And that is before we start looking at whether age verification can work, particularly in the 13-to-16 age group.

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[Dr Spencer]

I think that was wishful thinking by the Minister in this debate.

Our new clause says that we need to look at the desirability of raising the digital age of consent for data processing from 13 to 16 in terms of its impact particularly on issues such as the social and educational development of children, but also the viability of doing so in terms of the fallout and the shaking out of the Online Safety Act and with regard to age verification services. Should there then be no evidence to demonstrate that it is unnecessary, we would then raise the digital age of consent to 13 to 16. It might be the case that, over the next six months, the shaking out of the Online Safety Act demonstrates that this intervention is not necessary. Perhaps concerns around particular high-risk social media platforms will change as technology evolves. We are saying that the Government should do the work with a view to raising the age in 18 months unless there is evidence to prove the contrary. [Interruption.] I have made this crystal clear, and if the Minister would choose to look at the new clause, rather than chuckling away in the corner, he might see the strategy we are proposing.

[Max Wilkinson]

I thank the shadow Minister for giving way. As ever, he is extremely polite in his presentation and in his dealing with interventions, but I am not sure that he dealt with my intervention, which was basically asking whether the Conservative party position is as it has briefed to the press—that it wishes to ban social media for under-16s—or that it wishes to have a review on raising the age of data consent. It cannot be both.

[Dr Spencer]

I say again that the position is that, following a careful look at the evidence regarding the desirability and validity of doing so—taking into account findings regarding the impact and implementation of the Online Safety Act and age verification and how one defines social media, particularly high-risk platforms—unless there is direct evidence to show that raising the age from 13 to 16 is unnecessary, which there may be, then we should raise it from 13 to 16. If that has not provided clarity, the hon. Gentleman is very welcome to intervene on me again and I will try and explain it a third time, but I think Members have got a grasp now.

This new clause will also tackle some of the concerns at the heart of the campaign for Jools’ law, and I pay tribute to Ellen Roome for her work in this area. I am very sympathetic to the tragic circumstances leading to this campaign and welcome the additional powers granted to coroners in the Bill, but I know that they do not fully address Ellen Roome’s concerns. The Government need to explain how they can be sure that data will be retained in the context of these tragedies, so that a coroner will be able to make sure, even if there are delays, that it can be accessed. If the Minister could provide an answer to that in his winding-up speech, and detail any further work in the area, that would be welcome.

On parental access to children’s data more broadly, there are difficult challenges in terms of article 8 rights on privacy and transparency, especially for children aged 16 to 17 as they approach adulthood. Our new clause addresses some of these concerns and would also put in place the groundwork to, de facto, raise the digital age of consent for inappropriate social media to 16 within 18 months, rendering the request for parental access to young teenage accounts obsolete.

I urge colleagues across the House to support all our amendments today as a balanced, proportionate and effective response to a generational challenge. The Bill and the votes today are an opportunity for our Parliament, often referred to as the conscience of our country, to make clear our position on some of the most pressing social and technological issues of our time.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Judith Cummins)]

Order. From the next speaker, there will be a five-minute time limit.

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

As many Members will be aware, my constituent Ellen Roome knows only too well the tragedies that can take place as a result of social media. I am pleased that Ellen joins us in the Gallery to hear this debate in her pursuit of Jools’ law.

In 2022, Ellen came home to find her son Jools not breathing. He had tragically lost his life, aged just 14. In the following months, Ellen battled the social media giants—and she is still battling them—to try to access his social media data, as she sought answers about what had happened leading up to his death. I am grateful to the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Dr Spencer), for raising this in his speech. In her search for answers, Ellen found herself blocked by social media giants that placed process ahead of compassion. The police had no reason to suspect a crime, so they did not see any reason to undertake a full investigation into Jools’ social media. The inquest did not require a thorough analysis of Jools’ online accounts. None of the social media companies would grant Ellen access to Jools’ browsing data, and a court order was needed to access the digital data, which required eye-watering legal fees.

The legal system is unequipped to tackle the complexities of social media. In the past, when a loved one died, their family would be able to find such things in their possession—perhaps in children’s diaries, in school books or in cupboards. However, now that so much of our lives are spent online, personal data is kept by the social media giants. New clause 11 in my name would change that, although I understand that there are technical and legal difficulties.

The Minister and the Secretary of State met Ellen and me this morning, along with the hon. Member for Darlington (Lola McEvoy), and we are grateful for the time they gave us. My new clause will not go to a vote today, but we will keep pushing because Ellen and other parents like her should not have to go through this to search for answers when a child has died. I understand that there are provisions in the Bill that will be steps forward, but we will keep pushing and we will hold the Government’s and all future Governments’ feet to the fire until we get a result.

[Chris Bryant]

It was great to meet this morning, although I am sorry it was so late and so close to Report stage; I wish it had been earlier. We were serious in the meeting this morning: we will do everything we possibly can to make sure that coroners understand both their powers and their duties in this regard, and how they should be operating with families and the prosecuting authorities as well if necessary. We will also do everything we can to ensure that the technical companies embrace the point that they need to look after the families of those who have lost loved ones when they are young.

[Max Wilkinson]

I thank the Minister for his intervention. He is absolutely right. There are clear issues of process here. There are differential approaches across the country—different coroners taking different approaches and different police forces taking different approaches. The words of Ministers have weight and I hope that coroners and police forces are taking note of what needs to happen in the future so that there are proper investigations into the deaths of children who may have suffered misadventure as a result of social media.

On related matters, new clause 1 would gain the support of parents like Ellen up and down this country. We need to move further and faster on this issue of social media and online safety—as this Government promised on various other things—and I am pleased that my party has a very clear position on it.

I will now turn to the issue of copyright protections. I held a roundtable with creatives in Cheltenham, which is home to many tech businesses and AI companies. The creative industries in my town are also extremely strong, and I hear a lot of concern about the need to protect copyright for our creators. The industry, is worth £124 billion or more every year, remains concerned about the Government’s approach. The effects of these issues on our culture should not be understated.

We would be far poorer both culturally and financially if our creatives were unable to make a living from their artistic talents. I believe there is still a risk of the creative industry being undermined if the Government remove protections to the benefit of AI developers. I trust that Ministers are listening, and I know that they have been listening over the many debates we have had on this issue. If they were to remove those protections, they would tip the scales in favour of AI companies at the cost of the creative industry. When we ask AI companies and people in tech where the jobs are going to come from, the answers are just not there.

The amendments tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Harpenden and Berkhamsted (Victoria Collins) would reinstate copyright protections at all levels of AI development and reinforce the law as it currently stands. It is only fair that when creative work is used for AI development, the creator is properly compensated. The Government have made positive noises on this issue in multiple debates over the last few months. That is a positive sign, and I think that in all parts of this House we have developed a consensus on where things need to move—but creatives remain uneasy about the implications for their work and are awaiting firm action.

Ministers may wish to tackle this issue with future action, and I understand that it might not be dealt with today, but our amendments would enable that to happen. They also have an opportunity today: nothing would send a stronger signal than Government support and support from Members from across the House for my hon. Friend’s amendments, and I implore all Members to back them.

[Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I rise to speak to new clauses 4, 16 and 17, but first let me say that this is a very ambitious and weighty piece of legislation. Most of us can agree on sections or huge chunks of it, but there is anxiety in the creative industries and in the media—particularly the local media, which have had a very torrid time over the last few years through Brexit and the pandemic. I thank UK Music, the News Media Association and Directors UK for engaging with me on this issue and the Minister for his generosity in affording time to Back Benchers to discuss it.

AI offers massive opportunities to make public services and businesses more effective and efficient, and this will improve people’s lives. However, there is a fundamental difference between using AI to manage stock in retail or distribution, or for making scientific breakthroughs that will improve people’s health, and the generative AI that is used to produce literature, images or music. The latter affects the creative industries, which have consistently seen faster and more substantial growth than the overall economy. The creative industries’ gross value added grew by over 50% in real terms compared with the overall UK economy, which grew by around a fifth between 2010 and 2022. That is why the Government are right to have identified the creative industries as a central plank of their industrial strategy, and it is right to deliver an economic assessment within 12 months, as outlined in Government new clauses 16 and 17. I welcome all that.

I know it is not the Government’s intention to deal with copyright and licensing as part of the Bill, but because of the anxiety in the sector the issues have become conflated. Scraping is already happening, without transparency, permission or remuneration, in the absence of a current adequate framework. The pace of change in the sector, and the risk of tariffs from across the pond, mean it is imperative that we deal with the threat posed to the creative industries as soon as possible. We are now facing 100% tariffs on UK films going to the USA, which increases that imperative.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to engage with the creative industries and to implement a programme to protect them, following consultation. I would welcome an overview from the Minister in his summing up about progress in that regard. The more we delay, the worse the impact could be on our creative sector. I am also concerned that in the Government’s correct mission to deliver economic growth, they may inadvertently compromise the UK’s robust copyright laws. Instead, we should seek to introduce changes, so that creatives’ work cannot be scraped by big AI firms without providing transparency or remunerating the creatives behind it. Failure to protect copyright is not just bad for the sector as a whole, or the livelihoods of authors, photographers, musicians and others; it is bad for our self-expression, for how robust the sector can be, and for how it can bring communities together and invite us to ask the big questions about the human condition. Allowing creators to be uncredited and undercut, with their work stripped of attribution and their livelihoods diluted in a wave of synthetic imitation, will disrupt the creative market enormously. We are not talking about that enough.

It is tempting to lure the big US AI firms into the UK, giving the economy a sugar rush and attracting billions of pounds-worth of data centres, yet in the same breath we risk significantly draining economic value from our creative industries, which are one of the UK’s most storied pillars of our soft power. None of this is easy. The EU has grappled with creating a framework to deal with this issue for years without finding an equitable solution. I do not envy what the Government must navigate. However, I ask the Minister about the reports that emerged over the weekend, and whether the Government are moving away from an opt-out system for licensing, which creatives say will not work. Will that now be the Government’s position?

Harnessing the benefits of AI—economic, social and innovative—is not diametrically opposed to ensuring that the rights of creatives are protected. We must ensure transparency in AI, as covered in new clause 4, so that tech companies, some of which are in cahoots with some of the more troubling aspects of the US Administration, do not end up with the power to curate an understanding of the world that reflects their own peculiar priorities. Big AI says transparency will effectively reveal its trade secrets, but that need not necessarily be the case, as my hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Samantha Niblett) said. A simple mechanism to alert creators when their content is used is well within the abilities of these sophisticated companies. They just need the Government to prod them to do it.

The Government are working hard. I know that they care passionately about the sector, and the economic and social value it brings. I look forward to hearing how they will now move at pace to address the concerns I have outlined, even if they cannot do so through the Bill.

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[Dr Spencer]

That is good to hear.

[Max Wilkinson]

I will try a third time, because we tried earlier. The Conservatives have clearly briefed the press that they are angling for a ban on social media for under-16s—it has been reported in multiple places. Can the shadow Minister confirm whether that is the Conservatives’ position or not?

[Dr Spencer]

For the fourth time, and as I have said, new clause 19 would effectively create a de facto position whereby there are restrictions on the use of inappropriate social media services by children. It seeks to tackle the challenges of implementation, age verification and the scope of social media. It says that there needs to be work to make sure that we can actually do so and that, when we can, we should move in that direction, unless there is overwhelming evidence that it is not needed, such as with the shaking out of the Online Safety Act.

Finally, I return to new clause 21. Sadly, it has been widely misrepresented. The laws in this area are clear: the Equality Act puts in place obligations in relation to protected characteristics. The Supreme Court says that “sex” means biological sex, and that public authorities must collect data on protected characteristics to meet their duties under the Equality Act. The new clause would put that clear legal obligation into effect, and build in data minimisation principles to preserve privacy. There would be no outing of trans people through the new clause, but where public authorities collect and use sex data, it would need to be biological sex data.