Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]

Debate between Max Wilkinson and Chris Bryant

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.

--- Later in debate ---

[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—

Creative Industries

Debate between Max Wilkinson and Chris Bryant

Monday 27th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Max Wilkinson]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. I agree that the concepts of opt-out and opt-in need to be pursued at greater length.

Thirdly, the expert told me that the preservation of value offered stronger protection:

“By requiring explicit permission, an opt-in model helps maintain the value of original creative works.”

The expert did point out two drawbacks. First, an opt-in approach has potential drawbacks in the form of an extra administrative burden on creators. Interestingly, this expert’s second listed drawback was that an opt-in model would place limits on AI’s ability to gather data for training and development, which does not seem to me like much of a drawback for creators.

I asked that very same expert what would happen if creators lost their intellectual property rights to AI. The expert told me there was a risk of

“a loss of income and motivation, a devaluation of creative work, ethical concerns, legal uncertainty”

and, intriguingly, “domination by AI operators.” I use the word “intriguingly” because this expert seems aware of its own power—the expert was Google Gemini.

At this stage, those considerations are unknowns, and there is much uncertainty. Google Gemini is pulling information produced mostly thanks to human endeavour and discussion sourced from across the internet, but the fact that this view is being presented by AI itself surely suggests there is cause for some concern. Our role as parliamentarians must be to protect the interests of humans, not big tech companies; to scrutinise the proposals of big tech companies; to avoid the luddite tendency, crucially; and to build in suitable safeguards.

[Chris Bryant]

As the Minister, I do not want to intervene too much. I sympathise with a great deal of what the hon. Gentleman has said. One of my concerns, however, is that if this country legislates in a particular direction, in order to reinforce copyright in the way that several hon. Members have suggested, the danger is that companies would simply train overseas, using the UK’s creative talent and intellectual property without any form of remuneration whatsoever. That is why I think it is really important that we get to a place where we have both sides working together.

[Max Wilkinson]

Of course. The Minister will not be surprised to hear that I will be moving on to that in a moment.

If, against the will of the creative industry, the Government are to proceed with an opt-out approach—I hope they do not—it seems logical that such an approach must come with strong safeguards, which may come in the form of automatic attribution, in order to identify the creative inspiration for any work that has been crawled and reproduced. However, more importantly, we need suitable levels of compensation to be automatically awarded. In short, if the big tech companies want default access to our creators’ work, they must expect the default to be that they pay for it. Tech firms will argue that an opt-in approach, or one that places the burden on them, would place us out of step with other nations, and I accept that that might be the case. However, let us look at it from another perspective. Is the suggestion that we might give our creative industry more respect really such a terrible idea? I do not think so. Given the widespread threat to the UK’s creative industries from this and other economic circumstances, I would suggest not.

Having touched on AI, I will now address a few other subjects more briefly. First, I turn to the unfashionable topic of Brexit. The previous Conservative Government’s disastrous Brexit deal excluded artistic provisions, and the effect of that is reflected in a shocking statistic: between 2017 and 2023, we suffered a 23% drop in the number of British artists touring the EU. The Liberal Democrats backed free and simple short-term travel arrangements for UK artists to perform in the European Union.

Secondly, I turn to education. It is well known that changes to policy in the past decade or so have diminished arts education in state schools, with more than 40% of schools now no longer entering students for GCSE music or drama, and almost 90% not offering GCSE dance. Universities are also scaling back their arts offerings. The Liberal Democrats would restore arts subjects to the core of the curriculum, ensuring that every child has the opportunity to study music, dance, drama and the visual arts.

Finally, I turn to local government. Local councils are historically the single biggest funders of culture in their areas, but their spending powers have been much reduced. There is a risk that as part of the devolution process, and as local government reorganisation happens, additional pressure will be placed on social care and children’s services. Although those things need attention, we must not allow the arts to be forced further to the fringes of public spending debates.

Edinburgh Festivals: Cultural and Economic Contribution

Debate between Max Wilkinson and Chris Bryant

Tuesday 8th October 2024 Westminster Hall

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Efford, to serve under your chairmanship and I congratulate the hon. Member for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh (Chris Murray) on securing this important debate.

We have heard many inspiring stories today about Edinburgh. I regret that my most recent cultural experience in Edinburgh was bellowing out Proclaimers songs in Fingers piano bar at my stag party. That was a great day out, but it does not match up to some of the other stories that we have heard—

[The Minister for Creative Industries, Arts and Tourism (Chris Bryant)]

It does not sound like it would. [Laughter.]

[Max Wilkinson]

It was a lovely evening out as well, Minister.

Our challenge is that we must build a creative environment that showcases the best of British talent—bringing together British culture and creativity, and showcasing it for the world—and that we use that to foster a thriving and informed democracy. The impact of cultural festivals in achieving those aims is substantial.

In the case of the Edinburgh festival, we have already heard that it benefits Edinburgh itself by more than £400 million; the wider impacts on the rest of Scotland and the UK are much, much bigger. The festival opens the door to tourism for the rest of our nation, which is a really important aspect that we must not miss out when speaking about cultural events.

That is why it is very worrying to hear the concerns of festival organisers, which have been highlighted in recent news coverage. Regardless of funding pressures, it is our opinion that it is extremely important that the Scottish Government do what they can to meet their past funding pledges. For appropriate balance, I will add that such responsibility extends to other public funders of cultural activities across the rest of the UK, whether those are devolved nations or local government.

Festivals, such as the festivals in Edinburgh that we are debating today or the Cheltenham festivals in my own constituency, play a key role in our cultural life. It is vital that they receive the support necessary to continue to flourish. This week, my constituency is celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Cheltenham Literature Festival, which continues to flourish. However, despite large ticket sales, reductions in funding and in-kind support mean that the organisers of the Cheltenham Literature Festival have had to make some really tough choices in the past few years. Nevertheless, they still engage youngsters in reading to the tune of around 23,000 children every year. Of course, reading for pleasure is one of the single biggest indicators of a child’s future success.

At the launch event for the Cheltenham Literature Festival last Friday evening, supporters—including me—were reminded that the UK spends just 0.46% of its GDP on culture; that is based on the latest figures, which are from 2022. According to the University of Warwick’s “The State of the Arts” report, the UK is not alone in Europe in cutting its cultural budgets in recent years, but that does not make it right and we remain towards the bottom of the European league table, lagging behind our neighbours. If we are to remain a cultural superpower, that situation needs to be addressed.

Cultural funding extends to local festivals, theatres, cinemas, museums, art galleries, music and dance venues, libraries and public spaces. These are all vital to communities the length and breadth of our country. They are spaces devoted to creative endeavour. They not only fuel local economies; they also stimulate community participation across a whole range of creative activities.



In addition, we must not ignore the positive impact of the cultural sector on another great challenge facing our nation: deteriorating mental health. As we seek to reduce pressure on the NHS, we should look to the arts and culture as part of the non-medical therapy available. While few in the Chamber would dispute the difficult economic inheritance of this Government, we cannot look past the positive economic and social impact of investment in culture. It generates incomes and helps communities to thrive in non-monetary measures, too, as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) pointed out.

What can we do to help our cultural sector boost the economy and increase happiness and wellbeing? Central Government can make a difference in many ways, although at heart it often comes down to money. However, Westminster and devolved Governments can make other important contributions. The promise made by the new Government for the restoration of multi-year funding settlements for local government will provide an important route to that. The hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies) mentioned creative subjects, and we agree on that.

Planning reform offers another opportunity. Engaging the cultural sector in that will be important. We can beef up powers for local areas to protect cherished cultural venues. The cultural sector, too, would benefit from the abolition of business rates and the introduction of a commercial landowner levy.

A more sensitive subject is freedom of expression in the cultural sector. We all need to remember that sometimes we will see and hear things that we do not agree with. If art is not there to stimulate debate, it is nothing.

Finally, Chair—