---

Data (Use and Access) Bill [HL]

In moving Amendment 44A, I shall also speak to Amendments 61 to 65 in my name and the names of the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Clement-Jones, and my noble friend Lord Freyberg. I registered my interests in Committee, but I begin by restating that I am a copyright holder. I am married to a copyright holder, and I have deep connections with many in the creative communities who are impacted by this issue. I am also an adviser to the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford, and I have the pleasure and privilege of working alongside dozens of people whose businesses and academic interests relate solely to AI.

Until last night, I had a very technical argument about the amendments—about what they would do and how they would work. But I sat in the Gallery of the other place for several hours last night to listen to the debate on the creative industries, and I listened virtually to what I did not see from the Gallery, and it really made me reconsider my approach today. It was striking that, whether on the Green, DUP, Liberal Democrat or Conservative Benches, or the Government’s own Back Benches, the single biggest concern in a debate that ran for hours, with many speakers, was the question of copyright and AI. Indeed, it figured in all but two or three speeches. Moreover, as I sat in the Gallery and people started to read from the Times, the Mail, Politico and the tech blogs, an increasing flow of MPs, many on the Government’s own Benches and some actually in the Government, texted me to say that their leadership was wrong and they hoped this fight would be won for the UK’s creative industries.

It is a very great privilege to be on these Benches and never have to vote against the Whip. But I say to my friends and colleagues on all sides that, as we debate today, hundreds of organisations and many individual rights holders are watching. They are watching to see what this House will do in the face of a government proposal that will transfer their hard-earned property from them to another sector without compensation, and with it their possibility of a creative life, or a creative life for the next generation.

The Government are doing this not because the current law does not protect intellectual property rights, nor because they do not understand the devastation it

will cause, but because they are hooked on the delusion that the UK’s best interests and economic future align with those of Silicon Valley. The Minister will say to the House that a consultation is ongoing and we should wait for the results. This was the same line the Minister in the other place, Chris Bryant, took last night; he said that his door and his mind were open. If that is the case, I would like to know why the honourable Dame Caroline Dinenage, the chair of the Commons Select Committee, said she felt “gaslit” by Ministers and the Secretary of State.

I would also like to know why the Minister in charge of the Bill in the other place has refused a meeting with me twice and why the creative industries say that they get blandishments from a junior Minister while the AI companies get the undivided attention of the Secretary of State. Most importantly, the assertion that the consultation is open and fair is critically undermined because it was launched with a preferred option. For the record, the Government’s preferred option is to give away the property rights of those who earned them on the promise of growth, growth, growth to the nation. Unfortunately, the Government cannot say to whom that growth will accrue or how much it will be. But the one thing they are absolutely sure of—Government, Opposition, AI companies and those whose property rights the Government are giving away—is that it will not accrue to the creative industries.

We have before us the most extraordinary sight of a Labour Government transferring wealth directly from 2.4 million individual creatives, SMEs and UK brands on the promise of vague riches in the future. Before I turn to the Opposition—which I will—I make it clear that there is a role in our economy for AI, there is a role in our economy for companies headquartered elsewhere, there is a role in our economy for new AI models and there is an opportunity of growth in the combination of AI and creative industries. But this forced marriage, on slave terms, is not it.

We have the Government, putting growth front and centre, stunting one of their most lucrative industries, and the equally extraordinary sight of the Conservative Opposition for the most part sitting on their hands, against the wishes of many in their tribe, putting party ahead of country because they prefer to have proof of the Government’s economic incompetence rather than protect the property rights of their citizens and creative industries.

Let me kill a few sacred cows. Judges, lawyers and academics all agree that the law on copyright is clear, and the ICO determination that copyright stands in spite of the advances of AI is also clear. Ministers choosing to mirror the tech lobbyist language of uncertainty rather than defending the property rights of citizens and wealth creators is bewildering. They are not quoting the law or the experts; they point at the number of court cases as proof of lack of clarity. But I am at a loss, since a person who has had their goods stolen relying on their legal rights seems to be a sign that the law is clear.

However, given the scale of the theft and the audacity of the robber barons, they should be able to turn to the Government for protection—rather than suggesting that we redefine the notion of theft. The Minister, the honourable Chris Bryant, said last night that change is

needed and that we cannot do nothing, and the unified voices of the creative industries—from the biggest brands such as Sony and Disney to newspapers such as the Telegraph, the FT and the Guardian, and those who represent publishers, musicians or visual artists and the artists themselves—all agree. Nobody is saying that we should leave it as it is. They are saying, “Make the copyright regime fit for the age of AI”—which is exactly what the amendments do.

The amendments surface the names and owners of the crawlers that currently operate anonymously, record when, where and how IP is taken and, crucially, allow creators to understand what has been taken so that they can seek redress. This is not new, burdensome regulation—and it is certainly less regulation than the incredibly complex, costly and ultimately unworkable opt-outs or rights reservation mechanism of the preferred option of the consultation. All that creators are asking for is the enforcement of an existing property right. And when I say “creators”, I am not talking about 19th-century aristocrats occupying the time between lunch and dinner. In spite of the immense pleasure and extraordinary soft power that the creative industries bring, it is a hard-nosed, incredibly competitive and successful sector. It takes training, skill and talent to pursue what is often an insecure career, in which the copyright of career highs pays for the costs of a freelance life and the ongoing costs of making new work.

In the other place last night, the Minister talked about transparency without reference to the fact that the tech lobby is already on manoeuvres, saying that transparency must not be too detailed because it will impact on their IP. Creatives’ IP is being given away for literally nothing, but AI companies wish to hide behind the IP of products that are simply impossible to make without the raw material of that data. So will the Minister explain why the Government pay for software licences, why our NHS pays for drugs and why members of the Cabinet pay for branded clothes, yet the Government think that the creative industries should invent something for nothing?

The Government say that doing nothing is not an option. I agree—they could call a halt to the theft, instruct the ICO and the IPO now or even do an impact assessment of their preferred policy. This is the most extraordinary thing. They have a preferred way forward but, when I asked, they had to admit that they had not done an economic impact assessment, including of job displacement, even while acknowledging that job losses were inevitable. The Prime Minister cited an IMF report that claimed that, if fully realised, the gains from AI could be worth up to an average of £47 billion to the UK each year over a decade. He did not say that the very same report suggested that unemployment would increase by 5.5% over the same period. This is a big number—a lot of jobs and a very significant cost to the taxpayer. Nor does that £47 billion account for the transfer of funds from one sector to another. The creative industries contribute £126 billion per year to the economy. I do not understand the excitement about £47 billion when you are giving up £126 billion.

The Government have a preferred option, but they have no enforcement mechanism. They have a preferred option, but no protocols to make it work. They have a preferred option but, by their own admission, no idea

how an individual artist could hope to chase down dozens, hundreds or maybe thousands of AI companies to opt out or trace their work and rights. They have a preferred option, which is to give away other people’s livings and their vast contribution to the Treasury, and with that the jobs, joy and soft power of our creative industries that the country relies on globally.

There are plenty of great ideas about how creativity could add GDP to the country, but that is not the demand that the Government have made of the sector. I will not quote most of those to whom I have spoken in the last week, because the language is unparliamentary. However, I will pass on the deep regret of Lord Lloyd- Webber that he is no longer in his place to stand by me today. I will also pass on the words of a Labour donor, who said that this was economically illiterate.

5 pm

These amendments set out how a copyright regime could work. Amendment 61 would ensure that all operators of web crawlers must comply with UK law if they are marketed in the UK. Amendments 62 and 63 would require operators to be transparent about their identity and purpose, and allow creatives to understand if their content had been stolen. Amendment 64 would give enforcement powers to the ICO and allow for a private right of action by copyright holders. Amendment 44A would require the ICO to report on its enforcement record. Finally, Amendment 65 would require the Secretary of State to review technical solutions that might support a strong copyright regime. These are practical, sensible amendments that could support a valuable industry while looking forward to new technical efficiencies as they emerge.

To all the Members of the other place who talked warmly last night about the creativity of their own communities, of individual artists and small companies, or of centres excellence, I ask the question: how will they survive if their livelihood is dependent on chasing after AI bots that have scraped their opt-out work? Can they survive if the only way to own their own work is to opt out of the primary arena of distribution, sales and archiving? What do they think about galleries and museums: should they also opt out to protect their artists? If so, what does that do to tourism, of which the Minister last night was so proud to announce that the arts were the primary driver?

Before I sit down, I will quickly mention DeepSeek, a Chinese bot that is perhaps as good as any from the US—we will see—but which will certainly be a potential beneficiary of the proposed AI scraping exemption. Who cares that it does not recognise Taiwan or know what happened in Tiananmen Square? It was built for $5 million and wiped $1 trillion off the value of the US AI sector. The uncertainty that the Government claim is not an uncertainty about how copyright works; it is uncertainty about who will be the winners and losers in the race for AI. In rejecting the amendments, which could, in a matter of weeks, protect the income of the UK’s second most valuable industrial sector, the Government are pushing us into an uncertain and unsustainable future in which anyone with $5 million is to be entitled to the spoils of the UK creative industry.

I must finish, but I have to thank Paul McCartney, Elton and David, Lord Lloyd-Webber, Jeanette Winterson, Kate Mosse, Sir Simon Rattle, Richard Osman, Kate Bush and all the other 40,000 artists, musicians, writers and supporters who have added their names to this fight. I thank the News Media Association and the overwhelming number of creative arts organisations that have voiced their support. On their behalf, I ask the Government what their plans are to support all of us when we no longer have a living. What is the root of the Government’s soft power when they have to confront the diminishing returns of synthetic material that will be in direct competition to UK creative industries but could not be built without our IP? What is the Government’s answer to the young people who say they cannot have a creative life because there is no prospect of an income stream?

These amendments were urgent today, but the Government’s consultation has given permission to continue large-scale theft of property rights. The spectre of AI does nothing for growth if it gives away what we own so that we can rent from it what it makes. I beg to move.