Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)

My Lords, I have yet to vote with the Government on this issue. We all owe a great debt of gratitude to the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, for the way in which she has championed the interests of the creative sector against the daylight robbery of its rights by big tech to train its models. She has given another powerful speech today. But I have decided that today, I will support the Government, to the disappointment of her and my friends alongside me, for three reasons. First, I accept we are not there yet, but we are perilously close to losing an important Bill that is needed to secure data adequacy with the European Union, to give coroners access to social media companies’ data, and to secure the offences relating to deepfake porn championed by the noble Baroness, Lady Owen. Secondly, constitutionally, it is now time to listen to the elected House on a Bill that has been through the Commons three times and this House twice, more or less, and was a manifesto commitment. Thirdly, we now have some modest movement from the Government in their amendment, reflecting more urgency and a commitment to comprehensively dealing with the issues of AI and copyright together. This issue has been appallingly dealt with by the Government. I am not referring to my noble friend the Minister, because some things are out of her hands; but I hope that, as a result of ping-pong, the Government now understand this House better, that they understand the passion and power of the creative sector better, and that they deliver on their promises to legislate comprehensively on the issues of AI and copyright as quickly as possible, and based on the need for transparency. On that, I will work with anybody else to hold their feet to the fire.