Chris Bryant

Chris Bryant

Labour — Rhondda and Ogmore

Speaking in the House of Commons on 3 June 2025

Debate

Data (Use and Access) Bill [Lords]

Contribution

I am trying to be tidy in the way I respond to people, so first, I note that I did not respond to the Napster point. Quite a lot of people have made the point to me that we got from Napster to Spotify. There are many problems with Spotify that many musicians, record labels and so on have raised with me, but at least it is better than people taking stuff for nothing. There is an argument—a strong argument, I would say—that in this debate, we want to move from Napster to Spotify, or to something even better than Spotify. I am not sure precisely how we get there, but I am absolutely certain that we need to legislate in the round for all of these issues. The hon. Member for Perth and Kinross-shire (Pete Wishart) asked me about the principles of the noble Baroness Kidron’s amendment. Of course we believe in transparency—we are fully subscribed to wanting to provide that. That has always been part of the package that we have wanted to present. There is still the question of what enforcement would look like, and many other issues that any Bill that comes forward would need to address. I am hesitant about introducing a draft Bill, because a draft Bill would take longer to go through. We want to be able to legislate in this area as soon as we possibly can, but we also want to have listened to and borne in mind the full panoply of the responses. People may presume that they know what the 11,500 responses will say, but actually, they are much more diverse. I am not saying that everybody is clamouring for what the Government have laid out; I am just saying that those responses address a diversity of issues, all of which we need to address.

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