Pete Wishart MP: speeches

Speeches

• 2 Jul 2025 · Prevention and Suppression of Terrorism · Hansard source

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  As we have heard, the issues around the proscription of Palestine Action has thrown up a number of legitimate concerns. There is no doubt that it will have an impact on our right to protest and on the civil liberties that we have enjoyed for decades. Although it is absolutely right to condemn and prosecute criminal activity, especially those that threaten our national security, surely this must be done within the framework of existing legislation, as it always has been. This order looks nothing other than a direct response to Palestine Action being able to infiltrate an RAF base and cause damage to a defence aircraft. The decision to proscribe an organisation is ultimately a matter for the Government, and it is up to the Home Secretary to decide who goes on that list. It is based on intelligence that the Government hold. I do not think that the Minister has convinced many of us today that this has met the threshold for proscription, and we need to hear more about their concerns about this particular group. Before reaching for that power, the Government must take into account whether it is proportionate, justified and in the national interest to proscribe such an organisation. Terrorism legislation, as we know, hands extremely broad powers to the state and, as such, it must always be treated with the highest degree of caution and restraint. We live in a society where groups and organisations have the democratic right to campaign and express their views on particular issues in a democratic, respectful and lawful manner. It is important that the right to lawful protest is not affected by the Home Secretary’s decision today, and it is extremely concerning that this decision could lead to these powers being extended to other campaigning organisations. Palestine Action has inexplicably been linked to groups such as the Maniacs Murder Cult and the Russian Imperial Movement—groups unknown to the House until this measure was on the Order Paper today, but they are groups that, from a cursory glance at their activities, should of course be proscribed. For Palestine Action to be included alongside those groups is, at best, a cynical and calculated move by the Government to ensure that this order gets through today. People all over the UK, including many of my constituents, rightly feel very strongly about the appalling crimes that are being committed against innocent civilians in Gaza on a daily basis. Many of those people have been taking part in weekly protests to make their voices heard, and to show solidarity with the Palestinian people. These people are now concerned that they might be caught up in this proscription. I am also concerned that many young people who are sharing social media posts from Palestine Action could now be considered to have glorified what will soon be a proscribed group. We need clarity on what actions would result in people being charged under this terrorism legislation. For example, could a person wearing a Palestine Action badge handed out at a demonstration or a rally be charged with terrorism? Organisations such as Amnesty International and even the United Nations have expressed their concern about the UK’s broad definition of terrorism in this regard. This week, an Israeli strike on a Gaza seafront café killed at least 20 Palestinians. This is what we should be discussing today and every day until a permanent ceasefire is reached and all the hostages are released. The Government must act in the national interest and keep us safe from all the challenges presented to them, but we need clear reassurance about the wider impact of what is proposed.

• 3 Jun 2025 · Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords] · Hansard source

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  I was not going to say anything in this round of ping pong, but a couple of things in the debate have tempted me to my feet. The first thing I want to say is about the House of Lords. I have to say that I congratulate their lordships on their tenacity on this issue; I think we both expected and presumed that they would have backed down a long time ago, but they have decided not to, and I think that is because of what I have heard today. They are backing the sector. It has been left to the Lords to ensure that the voices of our artists and those in our creative industries and sectors are adequately articulated and presented to Ministers, so I congratulate them on that. I say that as somebody who is no great respecter of the House of Lords—I have this cute little notion that someone serving in a legislature should be elected to that legislature. The Lords have done an exemplary job in all this, and they are entirely entitled to bring forward this matter again and again until the ministerial team find some sort of compromise, which, between the two of them, they will surely be able to do. This is the territory we are in now; this is the fourth round of ping pong. It is no good us just sending it back to the Lords again and again. The Government can insist and get their way, of course: they are the Government, and this is the primary House in our Parliament, so they can do that if they want. But why would they not sit down and work out a way forward that takes on board everything the Lords want to achieve and secure and that meets the noble ambitions and lofty rhetoric we have heard from those on the Government Front Bench today and the last few times this has been debated? I cannot see anything wrong with the amendment. It sounds like the Minister is inventing reasons as to why it could not be agreed to. The example from the Digital Economy Act is spot on: we were adaptable and did things as the situation required in order to meet the challenge of the time—a huge challenge, when digitisation was coming into our creative arts. This is a bigger challenge and test. This is more existential than the Digital Economy Act of 20 years ago, and that is why we must act now. People cannot wait. Our cultural heritage is being scraped and hoovered up by large tech companies, and soon there will be nothing left of it. Millions of creative artists are waiting for the Government to engage—to sort it out, compromise and do something with those with an interest in all this. The Government are convincing no one thus far; the creative industries do not believe that they have their best interests at heart or that we will have enough time to secure what is left of our cultural heritage. The Government should do something—do not just send the Bill away again, although they probably will, and have it come back to us. Sit down, compromise and get something sorted out and, for the sake of our creative industries, find a solution that works for everybody. Question put, That this House disagrees with Lords amendment 49F.

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

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  The Minister keeps saying that we have existing copyright laws that are there to protect the creative industries and our artists, but practically our whole creative heritage is being scraped. There are probably songs in the top 40 that have been totally designed by AI, and there will be books in the top 30 or 40 bestsellers that will be based on AI—probably fully AI. This is happening right now. Surely artists and creators should know when their works are being used. That is why Lords amendment 49B is so important for transparency.

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  Absolutely. I was going to come to that, but it is good to look at that now. There are reasons for that, although I am not entirely clear about them; the Committee did not get to the heart of that in its analysis. We live in a United Kingdom and have a massive mega-city, London, so there is always the allure for young Scots to come down to London. I did it myself, and I am pretty certain that the Secretary of State spent a good part of his young life in London. Most Scots at some point find themselves living in London. But it is worse than that for Scotland, because we have a centuries-old historical culture and tradition of emigration. Immigration has not really been that big an issue for us. We obviously benefit from it, but the key feature in the history of Scotland and this debate is emigration. As everybody knows, there are Scots communities all around the world, from Canada and New Zealand to the United States, and they have always acted as a draw for our young people. Not so much now, but previously, young Scots settled abroad, so we got into this cultural trend of people leaving Scotland. We have to address that. One other thing that the Scottish Affairs Committee looked at but did not come to any great conclusion about was deindustrialisation and its impact on encouraging people to emigrate. We obviously have deindustrialisation in Scotland, and we need only look at some of our major cities, and at the difficulties and features of life in those cities, to see why people would leave. We are wrestling with problems that successive UK Governments have bequeathed Scotland, whether through Brexit policy or the two-child benefit cap, mixed with the historical attitude to emigration and deindustrialisation. Those are the things that my hon. Friend the Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry and his modest Bill invite us to address. My hon. Friend has not got the solution in the Bill; he said that, and that it is an open Bill. I am quite surprised that the Secretary of State does not understand how Committee works for private Members’ Bills. My hon. Friend is giving an invitation to the House. I am laying out the difficulties and issues that we have identified—I will get on to demography in Scotland in a minute; hon. Members should wait till they hear about that—and my hon. Friend is saying, “Help us.” Let us work together. We have a real problem in Scotland. There are some fantastic contributions to be made, with real in-depth analysis by people who understand how to look at critical questions and come up with solutions. Help us deal with this, so that we can address the range of issues that we have. Believe me, if we do not start to address them, we will be in really serious trouble.

• 25 Apr 2025 · Devolution (Immigration) (Scotland) Bill · Hansard source

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  I have no doubt that the hon. Member is utterly sincere. I have listened to several remarks from his Labour colleagues, and some of them greatly impressed me. It encouraged me to think that there is a little bit of a fight-back. I sat on the Committee considering the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill, and I did not enjoy that for one minute. What I saw was a range of initiatives and policies that could basically have come from the Conservatives. It was very much the same sort of theme and trend: immigration was bad, it had to be curbed, it had to be taken on and dealt with. It was never seen as a positive. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to speak up, do more of this, and encourage his colleagues to speak out clearly on these issues. That is what we need. We are in a political crisis—at a juncture in our political culture and history—and we need brave gentlemen like him to stand up there and take it on, rather than listening to his Front Benchers. The Home Secretary in particular has a track record on this. He needs to challenge her and the Home Office.

• 23 Apr 2025 · Intellectual Property: Artificial Intelligence · Hansard source

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  It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship this afternoon, Ms McVey. I congratulate the hon. Member for Bury North (Mr Frith) not only on this debate, but on his birthday—I hope he goes on to enjoy himself much more than sitting in Westminster Hall for the rest of the day. Of all the issues that the Government thought they would be confronting nine months after being elected, I do not think they thought they would be in some sort of spat with the creative industries, finding that they, almost as one voice, have real difficulties and issues with the Government initiative. First, we have to pay tribute to the wonderful campaign that has been mounted over the past few weeks and months from all our artists and creatives. When everybody from Thom Yorke to Rupert Murdoch, from Paul McCartney to the director general of the BBC is upset, there really are difficulties. The Government asked the creative industries what they thought of their proposals, particularly of their preferred opt-out plan, and like a finely tuned chorus, the creative sector came back as one and told them it does not like it one bit. Our constituents have been magnificent in the way that they have responded. For the 20-odd years I have been in Parliament I have tried to evangelise about the role of IP and the value of copyright, but one thing that has come out of this consultation is that, inadvertently, this Government’s clumsy attempt to martial this debate has made our constituents realise the value of copyright. They have got behind it and started to understand it and see that it is the basis of all the wonderful works they enjoy throughout their lives. They know it is our gold-standard copyright regime that gives our artists protection and renumeration and ensures that they are rewarded for producing all these wonderful works. One good thing that has come out of this is that the value of copyright has now started to be seen by all our constituents. The Government are sincere in trying to bridge the gap between artificial intelligence and the creative industries, and they want to satisfy all sectors, but we have to see what we are up against—just have a look at some of the big tech companies’ submissions to the consultation. Have a look at OpenAI’s submission—even the opt-out proposal is too far for it; it wants unfettered access to our cultural treasure trove, without any inhibitions or difficulty. The first thing that the Minister has to say to the big AI companies is that our creative heritage—everything we have built in the past few decades—is not there to be plundered and taken for nothing. We must make progress, and I really hope that the Government now decide that they will not pursue the opt-out proposal—it cannot work; there is no way that it could be a technical solution. We have seen that within the EU. The Government have to drop it. Look at this licensing system—the Minister has talked about it consistently in the past few weeks and months. Let us make sure that we unravel the idea of copyright from that of transparency; we have to make sure that those are separated. Let us use the Data (Use and Access) Bill—it is there in front of us, so why cannot we use it to make real progress on this issue?

• 4 Mar 2025 · Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Bill (Third sitting) · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the Minister for that. I would hate to think of our combined number of years in this House, but certainly we have almost spanned half a century. The first 12 clauses are totally dedicated to putting the Border Security Commander into statute, and the first three list his functions, and outline and define some of his responsibilities. The Bill states that the Border Security Commander must be appointed by the Home Secretary and will be obliged to prepare annual reports. A board will be appointed “to assist the Commander in the exercise of the Commander’s functions.” I do not know about other hon. Members, but the last time I looked there already was a Border Security Commander, who is doing the job as outlined in the Bill effectively, pretty much as the Home Secretary has been directing him, without needing to have been put into statute. If my mind does not deceive me, I remember Martin Hewitt being appointed as the commander and doing all these things, but here he is, 12 clauses of a Bill better off, and secure in the knowledge that he is now in statute. All that makes me think of the BBC Scotland series “The Chief”, which as Scottish members of the Committee will know is the fantastic new spin-off of “Scot Squad”. It features the mythical and fantastic character Chief Commissioner Miekelson. He is a complex character. A bit self-aggrandising, he is always getting himself on the wrong side of various issues around the culture wars, which he is pretty uncomfortable with; he always manages to upset or offend somebody. I am sure that he is the exact opposite of Commander Hewitt, who I believe is modest, nice and easy to get on with—I have not had the pleasure of meeting him so far. However, they have a couple of things in common, which I want to explore as we look at the functions of the commander. It strikes me that Commander Miekelson would love to be in statute; 12 clauses of a Bill—he would look at this as some great calling card. They face similar threats: for Commander Miekelson, it is the bams who make his life a misery and whom he needs a whole load of new powers to deter; for Commander Hewitt, it is the illegals. As we go through the Bill, let us wish Commander Hewitt and Chief Commissioner Miekelson all the best as they tackle these threats.

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

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  I have probably not explained exactly what my fears and concerns are, and that is probably typical of me. What we currently have in the Bill is a guarantee that we will respect copyright and ensure that there is transparency. Until I am presented with something that covers all the issues that are covered in clauses 135 to 139, with all the security that they would give our creative industries, I will back those clauses to the hilt, and will do everything possible to ensure that they remain within the Bill. If the Minister, as he seems to be suggesting, is going to come back to us with a different Bill, let us see it. Let us see if it does all the things that we all want when it comes to backing our creative sector. If it contains all the provisions that will ensure that our copyright framework is respected, and if transparency is on the face of it, I will back it in a flash; but until I see it, this is all that I have got, and all that the House has got, and we should make sure that we defend and protect it. There is an idea that somehow our copyright laws are broken. They are not broken at all; our copyright laws work perfectly well. The only people who have an issue with our copyright laws are those running the AI tech giants, who find that such laws get in the way of what they want to do and achieve. Their intention and ambition is to ingest our creative heritage, and to scrape the world for the last bit of human imagination and creative content. That is what has created difficulties and confusion about our copyright regime. There is nothing wrong with our laws. They are really good and the envy of so many, and they have served us well. I will support the Bill as it goes through the House. As I have said to the Minister, it is a good Bill that generally does all the right things when it comes to data use, which should be supported. It is a better Bill because of the amendments, and I will continue to support it. But if the Minister has a Bill that he wants to present to this House, could he please get on with it? There is a consultation going on just now, which ends, I think, in two weeks on Wednesday. At that point, we will have the information that we require, and I suspect that we will find an overwhelming desire to see our copyright regime protected and defended. If the Minister has a Bill, bring it on. In the meantime, we must support the provisions and clauses in this Bill.

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

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  It is an absolute pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stirling and Strathallan (Chris Kane). He was spot on in reminding us that data has always existed in various forms throughout the centuries, whether in volumes or in little things that we can plug into a computer. The only difference now is that all that data is scraped and ingested into huge machines, which regurgitate it into some form that only they will decide. The hon. Gentleman was also spot on in reminding us about his work at Central FM, a very fine radio station. This hon. Member is always available for interviews at any time that Central FM comes a-calling. This is an alright Bill. It is good. It is quite fine. It is reasonable in its approach and intent. It is a good shot at trying to redefine our data regulation laws. It will do a good job of ensuring that our public services are more aligned and mainstream, and that access is available to all our constituents. However, it is a much better Bill because of some of the amendments made in the House of Lords. The amendments that were added at the later stages went further on child protection in online data and looked into deepfakes, which was particularly helpful, and I congratulate our colleagues down the corridor on bringing them forward. It is a much better Bill because of the amendments that were delivered by Baroness Kidron on copyright and transparency. They significantly improved the Bill to make it something worth defending and protecting. I hope that that will be the main mission as it continues to go through this House. You will know, Madam Deputy Speaker, that it is unusual for me to congratulate our be-ermined unelected friends down the corridor, but this oiky Nat will doff his cap to their lords, their ladies, their barons and their earls, because they have done a good job at shaping the Bill. It is certainly a much better Bill than it was on Second Reading down the corridor. I have a few issues with the Bill. There are concerns about the security of some of this data. I am particularly worried about some of the relationships within the EU-UK partnership, and I just hope that whatever is proposed in the Bill does not drag us further away from the mainstream when it comes to the European Union. The right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) and I agree about most things when it comes to the creative sector, but we do not agree about the European Union and the benefits of this country leaving it. I am a passionate remainer, and I hope that at some point I will be able to take our country back into the European Union, as a proud member of the Scottish National party; my intention and ambition is that we go back into that fantastic union of nations that has done so much to enrich our culture and our lives.

• 27 Jan 2025 · Creative Industries · Hansard source

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  I see the Minister nodding along. We find out about all the dynamic enterprises and cultural activity in Members’ constituencies but, more than that, we find out about our colleagues’ hidden talents. I was as surprised as anybody to hear that we have a veteran of the punk days at the Roxy, as well as singers and film writers. We have an abundance of talent in the House, so I feel a bit more confident now: I lost my colleagues in MP4 when they stood down at the last election, so I am actively recruiting, and my door is open to any aspiring musician who wants to perform in MP4. As usual in these debates, there has been a chorus of approval, support and satisfaction—as there should be—when it comes to the quality of the UK creative industries. We just do these things so well, and that quality has been ingrained in our cultural output. There is something that we do across the whole of these isles that just produces this conveyor belt of talent, imagination and creativity. We have successful creative industries because of the imagination of the people of this country. Is it not great that we can turn around and say that we could power our economy based on the creativity, invention and imagination of the people who inhabit these isles? But we need more than that to be successful. These things are mostly down to the creativity of the people who work in our creative industries, but we also need the right conditions: we need to provide the context and the environment for these creative industries to survive, develop and thrive. For the last 60 years, we have been quite good at doing that. We have intervened when necessary. We have had conversations and debates about investment, what sort of support should go into the creative industries and whether we get the balance right. Of course, there have been political debates about Budgets and national insurance contributions, but we have basically had the right conditions for art and creativity, and the industry that comes with them, to develop and thrive. We have those things because we have an IP system embedded in UK law that is the envy of the world. It is the bedrock of our creative industries and the foundation of our success. Part of that is our wonderful copyright regime, which, again, is the envy of the world. It makes sure that artists are properly compensated for the wonderful works they produce, and ensures that they get recognised for the works they deliver. We tamper with all of that at our peril. We have been here before. Back in the 2010s, when copyright exceptions were quite the fashion, the threat to so many of our creative industries was not from AI companies; it was from the internet service providers, the pirates and digitisation. Isn’t it funny that it is always the creative industries that are on the frontline when there are technical innovations? It is always the creative industries that seem to have to suffer because of what we are trying to achieve through technological innovation. Looking around the Chamber, I think that only the Minister and the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) are veterans of the Digital Economy Act 2017. That was probably the high point of the interest in copyright exceptions. Then, of course, the general philosophical debate was all around an unfettered internet that was to be free at the point of use for everybody. There was this absurd business model that we could somehow have all this high-quality content, and we would not have to pay for any of it. Of course, that was quickly knocked on its head, but we have its legacy with the arrival of the huge tech platforms, with tech brothers getting together and developing their own companies. We have massive tech companies that provide nothing other than platforms and that create very little of the content, and they are growing rich and fat off the creativity and invention of the people who actually provide that content—the artists and musicians themselves. The value gap between the musician, or the artist, and these big platforms and companies is something that we will have to address. However, I do not think that we have ever had such a threat as generative AI; that is what we are looking at now. It says in my notes that I should have a go at the Minister now for having already made up his mind, but I am actually a bit reassured by what he said, and I think all of us should be encouraged. I really did think that the Government had made up their mind; I thought that they were going to go down the opt-out route without qualification. All the things they have said up to this point certainly seemed to confirm that, and the Minister’s grumpy tone during the statement on these issues did not help matters much, particularly when he had a go at the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee. It is good to have that reassurance, but what we now have to do—I am looking at colleagues who have contributed to the debate and expressed their concerns—is encourage the Minister gently, through persuasion. He knows the view of the industry and the sector, and I think he knows that it is overwhelmingly negative. He will not be able to find anybody in any creative sector who is telling him that what he proposes with the opt-out will work or is good for the creative industries or even for AI. We have heard from several colleagues about this idea of a model breakdown, where AI starts to feed on itself. That is what we can expect, and I think the analogy with “Blade Runner” was fantastic. That is exactly where we will be going if we allow unfettered AI development to continue along the same lines. We have reached a really interesting point tonight. I think the Government are probably going to reconsider their position. They are going to take on board what Members have said—

• 27 Jan 2025 · Creative Industries · Hansard source

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  I see the Minister shaking his head, but perhaps he will clarify all this when he gets to his feet. I know that the Government think they have a solution that somehow supports both the AI sector and the creative industries sector, but nobody actually believes that. I am sorry, Minister, but no one could go along with the idea that somehow, opening up the nation’s creative works to be scraped and mined would ever get us to a situation that could possibly be useful for the creative industries. I do not think it would be useful for the AI sector, either. That is a really important point when it comes to all of this, and we need to look at it properly. Lastly, we have heard a few myths, including the idea that there is somehow unclarity about the laws that embed our copyright regime. That is just nonsense—nobody actually believes that. I do not think that even AI companies would say that there is any question about the legality of the copyright regime; it is just something that Ministers trawl out to try to create uncertainty in the sector, and it does not work. The one thing that is absolutely certain is that if we do allow AI companies to engage in unfettered text and data mining, there will be real difficulties. Some of the scenarios that have been painted by other Members who have spoken will be realised, and that will be very damaging for this Government. We know that the Government are invested in AI. They are in an economic mess, and they are looking to grab at anything that will give them some sort of comfort. AI is obviously one of the areas they have identified that might bring this promised growth, giving them some sort of confidence and reassurance that what they are trying to do with the economy might get it to where they are seeking to take it, but we cannot be obsessively fixated on AI at the cost of so much of our heritage and culture. Where it is right that this Government proceed with AI, they have to take a balanced approach, one that looks after the interests of our nation’s creators, inventors and artists. So far, they have not been able to do so, but there are encouraging signs, so I am looking forward to the Minister’s response this evening. I hope that what he says will encourage us further.

• 10 Sept 2024 · Dynamic Ticket Pricing · Hansard source

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  I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing the debate. I was hoping to secure a debate on the subject myself but she beat me to it. There seems to be an issue about who is to blame for all of this—no one is taking responsibility for the issue of dynamic pricing. Ticketmaster is blaming the management and artists, and they are blaming those who were promoting the events. As she is now the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, will she look into this on behalf of the House and find out exactly why this has happened, with a view to having it stopped and outlawed entirely?