Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]

Pete Wishart Excerpts

Consideration of Lords message
Tuesday 10th June 2025 Commons Chamber

[Chris Bryant]

The right hon. Gentleman knows that I am not going to do that. He also knows that the enforcement of copyright law is not a matter for Government because it is not the Government who enforce it. I have the enforcement regulations in my hand. Chapter VI of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 makes it very clear that infringement is actionable by copyright owners. In common with many bits of the law and with statute law in the UK, enforcement is not normally by Government. It is by either the prosecuting authorities or by people taking a civil action. Those are the measures that exist in copyright law today and we are not changing them in a single regard. Having said all that, I acknowledge the strong feelings expressed in both Houses about the need to protect the intellectual property rights of 2.4 million people who work in the creative industries in this country, including the significant proportion of the creative industries represented by the tech industries, which this week are celebrating London Tech Week.

It must be said that their lordships have been persistent, so much so that they remind me of a poem by Robert Browning, “A Toccata of Galuppi’s”, about the 18th century Venetian composer Baldassare Galuppi. It uses several musical terms, such as the dominant, and includes the line:

“Hark, the dominant’s persistence till it must be answered to!”

The Lords have been persistent, which is why we have not just listened to them; we have heard them, and we are answering them. Although the Bill, which was drafted largely by the previous Government, did not originally refer to the matter of copyright at all, that is why at a previous stage we tabled specific requirements on the Government to produce an economic impact assessment of the options available to us and to report on key issues, including transparency, technical solutions, access to data and copyright licensing within 12 months.

In response to their lordships, we are going several steps further. First, we are adding two further reporting requirements on approaches to models trained overseas and on how transparency and other requirements should be enforced. Secondly, in response to the call for us to work faster—meeting the point just made by the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Sir Julian Smith)—we will deliver the economic impact assessment and reports within nine months, rather than 12 months. Thirdly, we are introducing a new requirement that the Secretary of State make a progress statement to Parliament about the documents within six months of Royal Assent.

[Pete Wishart (Perth and Kinross-shire) (SNP)]

The Minister is being generous, as always, in giving way. I welcome the amendments—I think they are helpful and useful—but they miss out and exclude transparency, which is what this is all about. The Lords, the creative sector and artists around this country want a commitment that this Government will deal with issues of transparency. Why will the Minister not sit down and compromise with the House of Lords and ensure that we get a solution that works for everybody?

[Chris Bryant]

In the end, the single most important compromise will be between the AI sector and the creative industries sector. That is the bit that we need to negotiate over the next few months. I disagree with the hon. Gentleman about the idea of simply putting one part of the jigsaw into this Bill. The truth is that if we are going to get to a proper compromise solution, it will require all the bits of the jigsaw to be put together into a comprehensive picture. That means that we need to go through a proper process.

The last time we discussed these things, the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) referred to the noble Lord Peter Mandelson and amendments that he thought were tabled to deal with Napster in the Digital Economy Act 2010. Because I had some spare time over the weekend, I read all the debates on that Act in 2010, and we went through a process to get to that Act: we produced a White Paper and then legislation, which went through both Houses. It was introduced in the House of Lords by Lord Mandelson and in the House of Commons by Ben Bradshaw. In fact, most of that Act was so controversial that in the end, it was never implemented by the Government who took over in 2010, and large chunks of the Act were taken out when it collided with the 2010 general election.

I am not sure that things were quite as the hon. Gentleman thought at the time, but the key point is that we need to go through a proper process of bringing forward conciliation in this area. That means introducing legislation once we have considered the responses to the consultation, bringing forward our economic impact assessments, considering all the different aspects that really matter to the creative industries and the tech companies, and then considering legislation. I want to do that as fast as we possibly can, because I want to get to a solution for all of this problem.

The Government have tabled amendments to put these commitments in the Bill. The amendments were initially tabled in the other place, but they were not voted on by peers, who instead insisted on the amendment that we disagreed to last Tuesday—in fact, as I understand it, the amendments were not moved. They show our commitment to ensuring considered and effective solutions, as I have outlined, and demonstrate that we have unequivocally heard the concerns about timing and accountability.

We need to do one other piece of work. The House already knows that we will bring together working groups to consider transparency and technical solutions. They will have AI and creative industry representatives on them and will be extra-parliamentary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Spencer]

What the last Government did not do is release a consultation that had a ministerial foreword to say that the position of copyright was uncertain. What they did not do was say their preferred option was opt-out, which spooked the creative industry and caused all these problems in the first place. It is this Government’s ham-fisted approach that caused so many of the problems that they are now trying and failing to fix. The Government have played a large part in creating this problem.

[Pete Wishart]

I am not going to let the hon. Gentleman get away with that. The last Government did not do anything on this issue, basically because they did not understand what was going on, and the little they did understand about some of the threats from AI, they did not care. As he asked the Labour Benches to do yesterday, the hon. Gentleman should apologise for the last Government’s inaction over the past few years because a lot of this is down to them.

[Dame Caroline Dinenage]

Will the hon. Member give way?

--- Later in debate ---

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Ms Nusrat Ghani)]

Order. We have a hard stop at 2.56 pm, and I know that the Minister will wish, with the leave of the House, to respond to some of the questions that have been asked. Mr Wishart, you have several minutes, but please do not go all the way to 2.56 pm.

[Pete Wishart]

I am extremely grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I will not detain the House, as I have just a few comments to make. Let me begin by saying that it is an absolute pleasure to follow the Chair of the Select Committee, the hon. Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage). I had my criticisms of the previous Government, but they did not extend to her. She was someone who understood the issues, and someone who was prepared to try to find a solution. Whereas the previous Government were appalling in the way they dealt with these matters, she at least made every effort, through the work of her Committee, to get to the heart of the debate.

This has been an extraordinary episode, and I cannot believe that we are back here for the fifth time. The issues are usually resolved and dealt with in circumstances such as this, and a meaningful compromise is reached between the Lords and the Commons, but that has failed to materialise during what has been a remarkable session of ping-pong. The whole episode has been as interesting and dynamic as it has been entertaining. The Minister and I were elected at the same time—I think we celebrated our 24th year of continuous membership of the House over the weekend. I am sure he will agree that he has never seen anything quite like the way in which we have reached this stage, but if he can give an example to the contrary, I shall be keen to hear it—I know that, given his almost photographic memory, he would be able to provide the details.

What disturbs me is the Government’s failure to attempt to secure some sort of meaningful compromise. Their inability to do that is quite baffling. I am trying to think of a few ways in which we might get round this. It might be an idea to get the Secretary of State and Elton John in the same room and lock the door: perhaps when the two of them emerged, we might be able to come up with some sort of solution. We are in the realms of trying to find a way forward, and that might be one way in which we could do so.

By refusing to listen to the strong view of the Lords and respect the convention that ping-pong is a process at the end of which a workable compromise generally appears, the Government risk undermining their own legislative process. Having looked at the Lords amendment again, and having listened carefully to the debate the other day, I cannot see anything wrong with an amendment that simply asks for a draft Bill containing provisions

“to provide transparency to copyright owners regarding the use of their copyright works as data inputs for AI models”.

I thought that was what we were all trying to achieve, and I am surprised at the Government’s intransigent resistance to a fairly modest attempt to find solutions.

I have looked at the Government amendments as well, and I welcome them. As I have said to the Minister, the one that excites me most involves this House, parliamentary resources and the ability to play a meaningful part in these matters. I hope that he will be able to extend that to all parties across the House.

[Chris Bryant]

Even to you.

[Pete Wishart]

I am thrilled and excited by the prospect of being part of that work, and I look forward to joining the Minister, but I think that it must be as open as possible so that every single aspect of this can be harnessed and used as part of the Government’s work. What the Government amendments do not do, however—and this is a key issue—is pay attention to the transparency issues.

The peers have rejected amendments that the Government have tabled previously. As the Chair of the Select Committee said, the Government are bringing these amendments back to try to distract us and give us the impression that they listened to the House of Lords and were near to reaching a compromise, but nothing of the sort is the case, because the key issue is the transparency that the House of Lords, the creative sector and artists across the UK want to see. The existing law should be enforced to protect the wages of 2.4 million creative workers, and the Government must produce a “meaningful compromise” amendment.

It is also entirely possible for the Government to take powers to introduce transparency via regulations, recognising the urgent need to prevent mass theft by AI firms at the earliest opportunity, and I do not know why they have not explored that option. The wages of those 2.4 million UK creators are at stake, as is the principle of the rule of law. The creative industries have made it clear that inaction on the Government’s part is giving “big tech” the freedom to break our laws and destroy jobs. Copyright is not an abstract concept; it is what secures our creative success.

The Government will win in this House today, and they will probably win the whole debate—they will get their way. However, they have lost the battle. One good thing that has come out of this is the fact that people now understand that our copyright laws—our gold-standard copyright regime—underpins the success of the UK’s creative industries across the board. Some of the greatest artists in the world are from these islands, and they have achieved their success because of intellectual property rights and our copyright laws. To muck about with those as we have over the past few months undermines all that, and undermines the ability of those artists to continue to lead in their sectors. I hope that, even at this late stage, some sort of compromise can be found with transparency at the heart of it, and I appeal to the Minister to consider that seriously.