Ben Spencer MP: speeches

Speeches

• 19 May 2025 · Mental Health Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I appreciate the hon. Member giving way. There is a logical inconsistency, which is that people with autism and learning disability are looked after under mental health services for autism and learning disability. If the argument is, “Well, those conditions should not be within the scope of Mental Health Act”, one could make an argument that they should not be within scope of mental health services full stop.

• 14 May 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to rise to speak on Lords amendments to the Data (Use and Access) Bill. Over the course of debating the Bill, it has become customary to thank those in the other place for the work they have done, particularly Baroness Owen for her work on deepfakes and others who have campaigned boldly in that area. I will begin by speaking to Lords amendment 49B. We have been clear that supporting the creative and AI sectors is not a zero-sum game; we need to support both sectors. Through their ham-fisted consultation on copyright and AI, the Government have raised great concern throughout the creative sector, and the resulting attempts to amend this Bill have been in response to the mess they have created. In Committee and on Report, we set out a series of amendments that focused on the outcome—not the process—for a solution in this area. Those amendments focused on ensuring that the position in law of copyright in this area was clear, on the need for proportionate and effective transparency, on removing barriers to start-ups, and on facilitating technological solutions via digital watermarking. In one of the many interventions on the Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for North East Cambridgeshire (Steve Barclay) mentioned the importance of implementing digital watermarking. He referred to it as a response to deepfakes, but it also has relevance to technical solutions, and it strikes me as quite odd that the Minister went on to cover broadly the same topics in his opening remarks, despite pointing out to my right hon. Friend that those topics were not relevant to the ongoing debate. That indicates how confused the treatment of this area in the Bill has become, and the need for clarity. I pay tribute to Viscount Camrose, Lord Parkinson, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale), Baroness Kidron, and others in this House and in the other place, for their work on amendments to reach a resolution in this area. We had sympathy with earlier versions of those amendments, but also concerns about their workability and prescriptiveness. We have worked with Baroness Kidron to get to a position that we can now support; we believe that solutions need to incorporate the principles of transparency and proportionality. The amendment is not a perfect solution, but it is more reasonable than doing nothing. I find it astounding that the main criticism that the Minister has made of Lords amendment 49B is that it has a run-in period prior to implementation and that people are calling for things to happen now. That is an odd way of approaching legislating. As the Opposition, we are working with other parties, among others, to try to find a solution to get the Minister out of a hole. I hope that Members across the House support the amendment. Moving on to digital verification services, I welcome the Lords’ disagreement with amendments 32 and 52, and support their amendments 32B, 32C, 52B and 52C on sex data accuracy, which received the support of Members in the other place. As my noble Friend Viscount Camrose said in his speech, it was necessary to re-table amended versions of the clauses on data accuracy previously secured in the other place because our new clause 21 was not in scope for debate in the Lords. The Lords amendments are technical and complex, so if you will forgive me, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will speak briefly to new clause 21 to explain for the benefit of Members how things have evolved over time. Our new clause 21 would have compelled public authorities to correct the datasets they hold in relation to sex and to collect data on the protected characteristic of sex in accordance with the legal definition set out in the Supreme Court’s judgment: biological sex. It would also have allowed public authorities to collect data on acquired sex as recorded on a gender recognition certificate where that is relevant and lawful. It would have imposed no new obligations on the correction of data held by public authorities—the obligation already exists under article 5(1)(d) of the UK General Data Protection Regulation—but would simply have put in place a timescale for correcting data on sex. We know from the findings of the Sullivan review that that correction is much needed and long overdue. To address a misconception, new clause 21 was silent on how sex is recorded in physical and digital forms of identity for those holding a gender recognition certificate. That is a sensitive issue for the 8,500 holders of GRCs in the UK, and we hope that much-needed clarity in this area will be given by the Equality and Human Rights Commission in its guidance due to be laid before Parliament next month. It will be up to the Secretary of State to make rules as to how that guidance is implemented in digital verification services. However, that issue, while important, does not affect the clear obligation that already exists in law to record data on sex accurately. Lords amendments 32C and 32B, and disagreement with amendment 32, would compel the Secretary of State to examine whether the public authorities that will act as data sources for the digital verification services system ascertain sex data reliably in accordance with biological sex and, where lawful and relevant, with sex as recorded on a gender recognition certificate. That would prevent inaccurate sex data from being entrenched and proliferated in the digital verification services system. Lords amendments 52B and 52C, and disagreement with amendment 52, would give the Secretary of State the power to define in a data dictionary sex data as biological sex and, where relevant, sex as recorded on a gender recognition certificate. That could then be applied across the digital verification services system, the register of births and deaths, and other circumstances where public authorities record personal data. The amendments are critical for correcting our compromised datasets on sex and would ensure that poor-quality and inaccurate data does not undermine digital verification services. To be clear, if our amendments do not make it into the Bill, self-ID will be brought forward through the back door, risking the protections that single-sex spaces offer to everyone. Self-ID is not and never has been the position in UK law. I do not understand why the Government are resisting these measures. Digital verification systems need to be trustworthy to deliver the benefits intended by the Bill. If they are not trustworthy, the system will fail. I therefore commend these vital and much-needed amendments to the House.

• 11 Mar 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  The Minister can interpret that how he wishes. We must ensure that our creative industry is supported to thrive while harnessing the technological and economic benefits of growing our domestic AI capability. The amendments in this area from the other place touch broadly on a number of important principles, which we support. They include the application of copyright law to data mining and AI-generative activity, which is covered in clause 135; the need for high transparency in how AI models are trained and the materials used for that purpose; and the importance of identifying sound technical solutions so that copyrighted content can be identified by web crawlers and AI models excluded from training and generative activity. However, these matters and their solutions are complex from technological, legal and societal perspectives. We totally recognise the challenges of legislating in this area. Our international counterparts face the same challenges in trying to strike an effective balance between supporting our AI industries and supporting our creative sector. It is not a zero-sum game. There is clear scope for collaboration and mutual benefit if we get this approach right. As the shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, my hon. Friend the Member for Havant (Alan Mak), stated in the Chamber, creative industries are telling us that the Government’s solution—set out in their consultation as their preferred option—is “not fit for purpose”. We need to engage carefully with the feedback received from industry stakeholders to come up with the right solutions in this area. As the Minister mentioned, new clauses 17 to 20 recognise that putting together a specific plan in great detail on how to solve this problem needs to be done by chewing through the information from the ongoing consultation and through extensive engagement with the people who are actually going to do this stuff and the people who will be affected by it. In effect, the proposals are end-point clauses, about the world we want to see in the future, where our AI and creative sector can work together and we get all the benefits from both. It is where we want to get to. It is a bit less about putting together the journey plan of how we get there, with the exception of the fact that the Government need to crack on and sort this out— [ Interruption. ] Well, he’s the Minister. It comes with the job. New clause 17 is intended to require the Government to confirm the application of existing copyright law to creative content mined by AI web crawlers and models in the same way that it would apply to other offline content. The Opposition feel that there is no ambiguity about the application of copyright law in this context. However, the Government have consistently suggested, in their consultation on copyright and artificial intelligence and elsewhere, that the legal position is unclear. In effect, that has created ambiguity and given rise to significant concern and objection from the creative sector. It deters smaller AI enterprises and start-ups from developing their products. Running counter to that is the near existence of a possible future opt-out. I have heard evidence that AI companies are now thinking, “Let’s hang on before we buy licensed content, because we might get it for free anyway if this applies going forward.” If the aim was to give confidence to the AI sector, as was dealt with by the consultation, that has not happened either. Clarity is needed for both the creative and AI industries, but not in the form of a wholesale exemption from copyright law for development and generative activity undertaken by AI models. The Government should make a clarificatory statement about the existing application of copyright law in this area. That certainty is the foundation block of sound policy aimed at supporting the creative industries to harness the economic value of their work, so I commend new clause 17 to the Committee. New clause 18 requires the Government within three months of Royal Assent to lay before Parliament a plan to put forward proportionate and effective measures to ensure transparency in the use of copyright materials in training, development and generative activities of AI models, with emphasis on the proportionate and effective nature of the measures. At a high level, ensuring transparency in this area will help to ensure that information is available for rights holders to discern where and how their work has been used, and seek payment for the use of their work where appropriate. New clause 18 seeks to address the widespread concerns of creative rights holders that they do not know when their material is being used, which acts as a block to any form of enforcement of their rights or licensing going forward. However, the approach to transparency must be proportionate. In particular, transparency obligations should not be so onerous that they stifle the market for AI start-ups and smaller enterprises in their infancy, when these entities should form the lifeblood of our future technological economy. One could envisage a situation where, if we get the legislation on this wrong, the recording and storing of information that has created a model, in its extreme triviality, could in effect become a bigger dataset than the set used in the first place— hence the focus on the importance of proportionate and effective measures. The timing of the action to be taken by the Secretary of State under the new clause—within three months of Royal Assent—is intended to give the Secretary of State a proper opportunity to consider the feedback of the creative and AI industries and other stakeholders received under the recently concluded consultation on copyright and AI. I am ambitious for the Minister and the Government. I know he slightly deprecated his ability to get on and try to put something together, but I have faith in him to drive this forward. The feedback should help to formulate a plan that is both effective and workable, so I commend new clause 18 to the Committee. New clause 19 requires the Secretary of State within three months of Royal Assent to lay before Parliament a plan to reduce barriers to market entry for start-ups and smaller AI enterprises, specifically in relation to access to data to train their models. The Government’s now concluded consultation on copyright and artificial intelligence specifies that one of its key aims is to support wide access to high-quality material to drive the development of leading AI models in the UK. The AI opportunities action plan commissioned by the Government made a series of recommendations relating to the need to unlock public and private datasets to enable innovation by UK start-ups and researchers in order to attract international talent and capital. Although the imbalance in access to resources between established companies and start-ups and small and medium-sized enterprises is in the nature of markets, failing to address that in this context risks reinforcing a situation where AI development activity remains the preserve of a relatively small number of established operators. I am thinking particularly of those that have been able to set up now, using datasets that have not had to comply with whatever provisions will eventually be put in place to regulate this area. The Prime Minister indicated in his response to the action plan that DSIT would look at how to take this policy area forward. New clause 19 calls on the Government to put their money where their mouth is, and come up with a proper plan to turbocharge not only growth in our AI sector, but diversity and competition among operators of all sizes, by coming up with a plan to reduce the barriers to market entry that the accessibility of data presents. Given the increasing adoption and use of AI by digital Government and the mechanisms of the state, it is critical for our national security and our national resilience to have a functioning domestic AI market that we can draw on for our use. The timescale for the Secretary of State to publish his report provides an opportunity for industry and stakeholder feedback to be taken into account when developing effective plans. For those reasons, I commend new clause 19 to the Committee. Finally, new clause 20 requires the publication of a technological standard. I hope that the previous three new clauses are relatively uncontroversial, and I particularly hope that this new clause is the most uncontroversial of all. It is based on an amendment that was moved by my noble Friend Viscount Camrose in the other place, but which was withdrawn on receipt of reassurances from the Minister. The new clause requires the Government to publish a technological standard for machine-readable watermarks for the purpose of identifying the licensed content when it is encountered by web crawlers and AI models. The development of such a standard would greatly enhance the ability of rights holders to protect their work, and to support enforcement of creative rights by creating a record of where and how content has been used. The development of a technological standard will be incredibly useful, even if the Government decide to take forward the flawed opt-out proposals and even if they are not ultimately adopted. This technological standard would be used in whatever situation we find ourselves in over the next few years in this industry. This proposal would provide web crawlers and AI models with clear signposting that the content is not available for training or generative activity. Where that is properly deployed and observed by AI models, it will reduce the need for rights holders to take action to seek compensation for infringement of their copyright. The new clause does not ask the Government to commit to a specific solution, and nor should it, but it requires them to commit to identifying such a solution within a reasonable period. Let the industry sort it out. One of the challenges that has been going through my mind when exploring this area is why, from a point of principle, the market has not fixed this in the first place, and why we are where we are now in trying to resolve these issues. The new clause will promote transparency and certainty for the creative and AI industries, and I commend it to the Committee.

• 11 Mar 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  Ah, the temptation. The point about automated decision making is that decisions can be made about people without their involvement, which can have substantial consequences, particularly when decisions are made in the public sector. Of course, automated decision making takes place all the time, day in and day out. We saw it on a huge scale during the covid pandemic when people had to sign up to universal credit, as there were checks on people’s basic characteristics and assets to assess their eligibility. Those decisions had quite a substantial impact on people, but the data points were actually quite simple and straightforward. As I understand it, no particular concern was raised about automated decision making in that context, apart from a few examples where people’s circumstances were remarkably unique. The purpose of the Bill is to scale up, particularly when it comes to AI and more sophisticated decision making. We think the new clauses seek to place onerous and unnecessary obligations on Government bodies and public authorities. New clause 1, among other things, would require public bodies to give notice on a public register for each and every function they perform where automated decision making is used. New clause 4 would oblige the Secretary of State to put in place and maintain a public register of all semi-automated or fully automated decision-making tools used by public authorities in relation to individuals, with public bodies being precluded from using such tools in advance of their registration. New clause 7 would provide service users with a range of powers to request information from data controllers in relation to the workings of wholly or partly automated decisions, and to purportedly high-risk decisions. I am amazed by the provisions suggested in new clauses 7 and 26 by the hon. Members for Harpenden and Berkhamsted and for North Norfolk. They seem to give quite extensive discretionary powers to the Secretary of State to define high-risk decisions and regulate them accordingly. I was surprised to see the extent of the powers handed over to the Secretary of State by these new clauses. The new clauses are especially burdensome and unnecessary, given the widespread use of automated decision making for initial assessments in the Department for Work and Pensions, as I alluded to earlier. Automated decision making is a subject of significant debate, and clause 80 includes more safeguarding measures in proposed new article 22C of the UK GDPR. Those safeguards include requirements on data controllers to provide information to data subjects about significant decisions being taken through solely automated processing, the right to contest those decisions and the right to seek human intervention at the request of the data subject. Our view is that clause 80, as drafted, provides a proportionate approach to the protection of individual rights, and that these tools will help with potential speed and, importantly, efficiency gains, which I mentioned earlier with regard to the use of automated decision making for universal credit in the response to covid. The basic functions of Government and public authorities rely on widespread automated decision making.

• 11 Mar 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  Equally I thank the Minister for the spirit in which he has conducted this debate. It is an important one, which has captured the focus of a great many people, not only those in the creative and AI sectors whose livelihoods absolutely depend on us getting this right, but all of us who love and benefit from the products of the UK creative industries. I will discuss clauses 135 to 139, which the Government are seeking to remove, before I speak to the new clauses that stand in my name and those of other Opposition Members. While there are problems with clauses 135 to 139, they do reflect the creative industries’ well founded and much publicised concerns about the manner in which AI developers conduct data mining activities to train their models and for generative activities. I should declare an interest; I recently attended the Brit awards with my wife with support from the British Phonographic Industry, so I received hospitality in the last couple of weeks.

• 11 Mar 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  The matter turns on how we define public interest. I appreciate the concerns about the clause. Being a scientific purist, I could argue that even blue-sky research could be justified as in the public interest, provided that we all benefit from the fruits of that knowledge when it is shared. Notwithstanding that point, I will go back to the Minister’s comment. I understand that the point of the clause is to expand the definition of scientific research from the currently narrow criteria under GDPR, so there will be research that is currently not scientific research that will be permitted as a consequence of the clause.

• 11 Mar 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [ Lords ] (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I listened carefully to the Minister’s remarks on the Government’s position on the public interest test, which was extensively debated in the other place. I have a great deal of sympathy with what their lordships were trying to achieve in parts of that amendment. We are talking about the secondary use of data for scientific research and, as I understand it, the public interest test is used in other types of scientific research tests—for example, with public health data. Therefore this is not something which is completely alien to the concept of defining scientific research. However, I do concede there is an issue with how one can define scientific research. I think what people are nervous about—particularly in some of the conversations I have around this new definition of scientific research for use for secondary data processing—is this being hijacked by artificial intelligence data companies as a way of getting around some of the challenges with using big datasets for which they do not necessarily have licensing arrangements. I know we are going to come on to that later in the Bill. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain his thoughts and considerations about removing this public interest test. How would that interact with some of the concerns about AI and data use? From a personal perspective, my concept of scientific research has an altruistic component to it. At least with the scientific research with which I was involved, the whole point was that it was information that is shared freely. Clearly there are challenges and considerations on which one needs to focus when it comes to research being done for commercial benefit. I know part of the debate in the other place was about commercial versus non-commercial research. It is important that scientific research can be commercial. In fact, it must be. However, I appreciate that there is a sentiment that their lordships were putting forward as part of the test. I would be grateful if the Minister could address, first, some of the concerns around AI companies and secondly how we can capture the essence of scientific research so that when people are do secondary data analysis it is done properly. When it comes to the audit component, a lot of this data analysis is people marking their own homework. Some of the data is not going through human rights committees and being scrutinised in that sense. What assurances can the Minister give that the process will operate properly and that research that is scientific will be legitimately so once these clauses are passed?

• 12 Feb 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  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.

• 13 Jan 2025 · Hospice and Palliative Care · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member will have to explain further what is required from those who commit to fundraising in the Sussex jungle. He is right to pay tribute to those doing great work in support of our hospice sector. Its funding model is part public and part private, which gives hospices a great benefit. As they sit outside the NHS, they have greater flexibility in how they approach care provision. Woking & Sam Beare hospice is 31% funded by public sector money. It has 2,000 staff and, as I said, delivers fantastic care and support. Much of this debate has been about the future of funding for our hospice sector. Although I am grateful to the Government for the money and support that they have put forward for hospices, sadly they have given with one hand and taken away with the other. The rise in employers’ national insurance contributions is very damaging, and hospices also need to manage increases to staffing budgets as a result of the Agenda for Change. Marie Curie has said that the national insurance component will cost it roughly £2.9 million per year. Could the Minister say what impact assessment has been done on the national insurance contribution rises for hospices, and on the Agenda for Change? How many hospices in the UK are running a deficit, and how does he expect that to change over the next year and going forward, as a consequence of the decisions made in the Budget? If there is an opportunity to reverse those decisions, does he supporting doing so?