Chris Bryant MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  I will in a moment, but I am still answering the intervention. I had two points to make, and I will now probably forget the second one. As I was saying, it was always going to be a package of measures, and we always said that we would not introduce that package unless we were secure in the belief that we could deliver for the creative industries a technical solution that made it simpler for them to enforce their rights and seek remuneration and that would lead to more licensing. That is a whole package. When we last debated this, I said two things: first, that we are open-minded about where we are in relation to the consultation, and secondly—perhaps just as importantly—that our amendment 16 would require us to undertake an economic impact assessment of all the different options included in the consultation. I hope that answers my hon. Friend’s question. Somebody else wanted to ask another question.

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

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  As the hon. Lady knows, I am sympathetic to the direction of travel that she is trying to take me in. Some people will think that I am splitting hairs, and that is not my intention, but I have been keen to avoid the term “opt-out”. As I said, we have brought forward a package of measures. They were reliant on our being able to deliver greater control, through technical measures, for the creative industries and others who had rights to protect. That is why we referred to “rights reservation”, rather than “opt-out”. I take her point, and I am sure that we will be debating it for some considerable time. She is a Select Committee Chair, as is my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Chi Onwurah). I should have said earlier that when I was Chair of the Committee of Privileges, we produced a report, which has yet to be implemented or even discussed in the House, about how we could ensure that witnesses appeared before Parliament when Select Committee Chairs wanted them to. If it is all right with the rest of the House, I will move on to further subjects. The issues around scientific research—I can never work out where the emphasis lies when I say the word “research”—are embodied in Lords amendment 43B. Some people have suggested that the Bill will somehow create a wild west for research, but that is simply not true. The Bill does not change the threshold for what constitutes scientific research; we are sticking with what has been and is a fair, clear and proportionate measure, using the “reasonableness test” that is common in other legislation and well known by the courts. As Lord Vallance said in the House of Lords earlier this week, this amendment would go against the good work done by the previous Government on avoiding unnecessary red tape for researchers. We have a world-class research sector in the UK. We want to empower it, not tie it up in red tape. We believe that documents such as the Frascati manual, which are useful and interesting in other settings, are not designed to contain legally binding requirements, so the amendment is misplaced. If the amendment were carried forward, researchers would need to be able to demonstrate their work’s creativity to a legal standard. If someone’s work is aimed at testing or reproducing another researcher’s results, is it truly creative? That is a legitimate question, but it takes on a whole new meaning, and brings a whole new layer of bureaucracy, when enforced to a new legal standard, as the Bill insists, backed up by the potential for huge regulatory fines. Similar issues arise in relation to requirements for research to be “systematic” and “ethical”. Those words are not necessarily well known in the courts when it comes to this legislation. As Lord Winston argued powerfully on Monday, if the amendment had been law 50 years ago, we may never have had in vitro fertilisation and the benefits spinning off from that, including valuable cancer research. Those are the issues caused by putting such a test in a legally binding setting that it was never designed for.

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

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  indicated assent.

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

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  The first thing to say to the right hon. Lady is that I completely stand by everything I said to the Select Committee yesterday. I do believe that the best form of AI will be intelligent artificial intelligence. And just like any pipe, what comes out of it depends on what goes into it. If we have high-quality data going into AI, then it will produce high-quality data at the other end. I have spoken to quite a lot of publishing houses in the UK, including Taylor & Francis in particular—

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

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  Well, the right hon. Lady was at my 60th birthday—I know it is difficult to believe.

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

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  “A long time ago!” says the rather ungenerous Member sitting at the back. Honestly, I have not been asked to go long. I am simply, because I do believe in parliamentary scrutiny, trying to answer all the questions and engage in a proper debate. I know that colleagues want to press me on a series of issues. There are some issues coming up that they might want to press me on that are completely different from this, and I am happy to be pressed, including by the right hon. Lady, as many times as she wants. But I do not think there was a question in her point. She thought she was trying to help me go long, but I am trying to go slightly shorter.

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

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  Lord Winston’s point is that by introducing a requirement that research be systematic, ethical and creative, we are creating a whole new idea of what constitutes research. When he wanted to start his IVF work, it was generally thought that it would be unethical to explore that territory. Today, we would consider that view to be misplaced. We believe that the task of deciding what counts as scientific research is best approached by drawing on guidance and the opinion of experts. That is what the reasonableness test allows. It is a concept that is well understood by the courts. While I sympathise with the intention, expressed in the other place, of guarding against misuse, and while I understand the issues that my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West and I have discussed on several occasions, the Government believe that the amendment is unnecessary as the Bill already contains sufficient and, I would argue, considerable safeguards. A controller who wishes to change the purpose of data processing to scientific research must first ensure that they comply with clause 71’s rules on purpose limitation. Scientific research is not listed as grounds for exemption where data was collected on the basis of consent. Secondly, the controller would have to ensure that they passed a “reasonableness” test; thirdly, they would have to ensure that they had lawful basis; fourthly, they would have to ensure that they met the requirements of the safeguards in clause 86; and fifthly, they would have to ensure that the new processing was fair and complied with the wider data protection principles in UK GDPR. That is a very substantial set of safeguards. The Government cannot see how the Lords amendment would add value, on top of all those requirements against misuse, but it would have an effect on genuine researchers, as I have set out, burdening them with red tape and uncertainty and potentially excluding important research.

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

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  It is not the Government who invoke financial privilege. It is the House that does it, via the Speaker’s Chair. I am afraid that that is a debate we will have to have at another point. Much as I love debating motions from 1671 and 1678, I think we might move forward. The only point I will make to the hon. Gentleman about his contribution on the creative industries—he knows that on many of these issues we completely and utterly agree—is that if there were a simple way of being able to enforce those rights today, I would seize it. If he wants to write to me with a suggestion on what that actually looks like and what we would do today to be able to enforce the rights under the existing law today, then of course I would be happy to look at it. I also said that I would respond to the point from the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central and West (Chi Onwurah). The Bill creates no new permission to reuse data for scientific research. It is not the effect of the provisions to provide blanket approval of the reuse of personal data for AI training under the banner of scientific research. I hope that that meets some of her understandable concerns. Madam Deputy Speaker, I know that it is completely not in order, but I am going to say it anyway and end on this point. We have discussed some very serious points, but I do just wish that Remember Monday will win the Eurovision song contest on Saturday evening, with their song, “What the Hell Just Happened?” I wish Lauren, Holly-Anne and Charlotte all the best of British. Question put.

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

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  I wish I could give my hon. Friend a timeline. The main thing I want to say about the timeline, as somebody who I think all hon. Members know cares passionately not just about the anxiety that has been created in this sphere because of the consultation but about the anxiety for many creative people about their future careers, is that I get that anxiety—100%. That is the bigger point. Frankly, I would like to stop doing the Data Bill and start going out and engaging with the Minister for AI and Digital Government, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North (Feryal Clark), to have as many sessions with creative industries and different parts of the sector and with the AI companies—in particular UK-based AI companies—to work out how we can get to proper solutions to all of this. However, until I get the Data Bill out of the way, I will struggle to do that. On another point, I think of my hon. Friend the Member for Knowsley as a musician, because she is still a member of the Musicians’ Union. There is a really important part here for the different sectors within the creative industries. Word, image, music and sound will all probably need different technical solutions. That is the kind of nitty-gritty that we need to get into, which we can only really do when we consider the whole issue in the round, rather than just one specific aspect of it. Now, I think Margate calls.

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

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  I will take only one more intervention, I am afraid, because I have taken so many. I probably ought to give way to the Chair of the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee.

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

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  Oh my Lord—I am almost as keen to get on to the next bit of my speech as I am to get the data Bill through to Royal Assent, but I probably ought to give way to the right hon. Lady and then I will come back to my hon. Friend.

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

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  I am afraid the hon. Gentleman is in a queue. It is quite a long queue, and it seems to be getting longer.

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

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  I will give way, but I have the hon. Member for Tunbridge Wells (Mike Martin) waiting.

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

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  If I was unable to suggest what interim measures would look like, I am not sure I will be able to please the hon. Gentleman by suggesting what will be in the next King’s Speech. I do not even know when the next King’s Speech will be. As the Minister for the creative industries and for data, I want, along with my colleagues in Government, to be able to get on with the business of trying to get together the working parties I have referred to. I want to get people from the AI companies and the creative industries sitting around the same table to work out what a proportionate and effective system of transparency would look like and what the technical solutions might be. Other countries have struggled with drawing this up; the EU is struggling with it at the moment. That is the next stage. At the same time, we are considering what our response to the consultation should be. We have heard what many people in this House and in the House of Lords have said on this issue, and of course we will bear all that in mind. We are keeping an open mind in relation to that. I cannot give the hon. Gentleman a date for when we will publish that consultation, but we are working on it as fast as we possibly can.

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

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  Notwithstanding the views of the Chinese Government, it is a delight to see you in your place, Madam Deputy Speaker. I am only saddened that I have not been sanctioned, which feels a shame—nor by Russia, for that matter. There is still time. I am delighted to be here today to discuss the Bill, which we last discussed in depth a week ago today. First, I would like to express how pleased I am that the other place has agreed to the Government’s amendments relating the national underground asset register and intimate image abuse. I pay tribute to all those Members of the House of Lords who took part in getting that part of the legislation to the place where it is now. I am glad we have been able to work with them. I will start by encouraging the House to agree to those amendments, before I move on to discuss the amendments relating to AI and intellectual property, scientific research, and sex and gender—in that order. Lords amendments 55D, 55E and 56B, which were introduced to the Bill in the other place by the noble Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge, place a duty on the face of the Bill that requires the Government to: review the operation of the “reasonable excuse” defence in the offences of creating and requesting intimate image deepfakes without consent, or reasonable belief in consent; publish the outcome of the review in a report; and lay that report before Parliament. The Government were pleased to support the amendments in the other place, as we share the desire to ensure that the criminal law, and these offences in particular, work as the Government intend.

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

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  I am not sure that it is popularity, Madam Deputy Speaker. The important point is that we need to look at this in the round, rather than piecemeal. I do not think that what is on the amendment paper today would deliver anything now. Indeed, it does not purport to; it instead purports to give something in six, nine or 12 months’ time, or sometime in the future.

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

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  I beg to move, That this House insists on Commons Amendment 32 to which the Lords have disagreed and disagrees with the Lords in their Amendments 32B and 32C proposed to the words restored to the Bill by the Lords disagreement.

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

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  Notwithstanding the hilarity, this is obviously a very important matter to a large number of people. For many people in the creative industry, it feels like a kind of apocalyptic moment—they think that their careers are disappearing in front of their faces. I fully recognise that. The moment that the Bill is out of the way, I and the two Departments I sit in—the Departments for Culture, Media and Sport and for Science, Innovation and Technology—would like to get people back in to work on two working parties. One would work on transparency and precisely what it looks like in granular detail—very high-level stuff does not really meet the moment. The second would work on technical standards and solutions that might deliver greater access to data for the AI companies, and on the ability for the creative industries to protect their works. I do have some sympathy with Lords amendment 49B. There is one element that I would like to explore, which has been raised by the hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart). It is one thing for Getty Images, for example, to go to court and protect its rights under the existing law, because it has deep pockets and can engage lawyers. It is quite a different matter for individual artists, who may want to promote their work by putting it on the internet and do not want it to disappear from the internet, but also do not want it to be scraped and turned into another version of their work created by AI.

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

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  I am afraid that I will repeat what I just said. First, in the consultation we introduced a package of measures and it hinged on the issue of whether we can deliver not only for AI companies but for the creative industries, to protect their rights more effectively than they presently can. Secondly, as I think I have now said twice at the Dispatch Box, we are open-minded about the responses to the consultation. We have had 11,500 responses to the consultation and we are making our way through all that. A lot of different issues have been addressed. The issue of the economic impact assessment is a serious one. It is one thing to say that the AI sector in the UK, which is the third largest in the world, is worth x billion pounds to the UK economy, and that the creative industries are worth £124 billion—that is a number that a lot of people have used—to the economy. It is quite a different matter to draw up a proper economic impact assessment on the basis of the various different options.

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

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  I know it is out of order to say that an hon. Member is not telling the truth, but, Madam Deputy Speaker, you were there! [ Laughter. ] And I accept your apology.

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

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  Of course I will give way to the hon. Gentleman. I am sorry he has been waiting so long.

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

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  That is precisely why we need to do this in the round, rather than just piecemeal. I understand the attraction of what is on the amendment paper today, but I do not think it would deliver the answer that the people need now to the issues that the creative industries are facing now. In another debate we referred to the issue—

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

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  First, I completely get the urgency of this. In many ways, I wish we had been addressing this two or three years ago, because we are some way behind other countries in relation to this. Secondly, we will prioritise the issue of transparency in all the work we do as we go forward. I have said that from the very beginning. Transparency is essential to the issue of licensing; licensing is essential to the question of remuneration; and remuneration is essential to the process of AI being high- quality, effective and able to be deployed in the UK. All these things have to be addressed in the round and together, but my hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that without transparency, it is worth nothing. The AI Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield North—is chuntering in my left ear, which is helpful because she makes the point that this was the very first thing we discussed when came into office. With both of us in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, we discussed how we could get to a resolute piece of legislation that enabled greater licensing, greater deployment of artificial intelligence in the UK, in particular UK companies, and greater transparency. So I completely agree on that—

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

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  As I am sure my hon. Friend is aware, the US system of fair use is different from the UK’s—ours goes back to 1709, with the first of our copyright Acts, and it has been very solid. When we introduced this Bill, I said that this country should be proud of the fact that a succession of different generations have ensured that rights holders can protect their copyright. Interestingly, one of Charles Dickens’ big battles was being able to protect his copyright not only in the UK but in the United States of America, where he felt he had fewer protections. It is for us to develop our own copyright law in our own country, and I say to my hon. Friend that the law as it is will not change one jot as a result of what we are intending to do in the Bill.

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

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  I probably ought to give way first to the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, and then to the hon. Gentleman.