Viscount Camrose (Con)

My Lords, I thank the Minister for setting out the Government’s case so clearly. I will speak to my Amendment 46A, which seeks to improve the report that the Government brought forward in the other place. This issue is causing real concern for copyright owners and so many others in the creative industries. Let us remind ourselves that the creative industries contributed £124 billion in gross value added to the UK economy in 2023 and outperformed the UK economy between 2010 and 2023 in terms of growth. The Government are, wisely and rightly, prioritising growth over other concerns, and the creative industries will have to be an essential part of this—but only to the extent that they have a trusted and efficient marketplace for intellectual property. Our amendment would improve the Government’s proposed report by adding consideration of extra territorial use of creators’ copyright works by operators of web crawlers and AI systems, as well as consideration of establishing a digital watermark for the purposes of identifying licensed content. I very much take on board the Minister’s point that this must be international to work, but few countries, if any, would have better or greater convening power to initiate the process of creating such digital standards. I urge the Government to pursue that avenue. I pay tribute to all noble Lords who have raised the issue of copyright during the passage of this Bill. I am sure that I will be joining many others in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who has led such a powerful and successful campaign on this issue. Throughout the passage of the Bill, we have recognised the serious concerns raised by the creative sector and, on Report, we tabled an amendment seeking to create a digital watermark to identify this content and to protect copyright owners. I am very pleased that the Government have taken the first step by amending the Bill in the other place to put a report in it. That being said, the report needs to go further. If the Government are unwilling to accept our changes, I will test the opinion of the House when my amendment is called. I turn briefly to Motion 49A, I the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. I once again pay tribute to the work that she has done to make progress on this. While we had concerns about the drafting of her amendment on Report, I am very pleased that she has tabled her Amendment 49B today. With the additional parts of it targeted at supporting small businesses and micro-entities, we are delighted to support it. It is increasingly clear that the Government must do the right thing for our creative industries, and we are delighted to offer our support to Motoin 49A. I intend to test the opinion of the House on Amendment 46A when it is called.