Baroness Kidron (CB)

My Lords, I want to return to the moment just before the Front-Bench speeches of the Opposition and the Government, when there was absolute agreement around the House. There were fantastic speeches from all sides, which understood AI not as competition but as a fellow traveller of the creative industries. I want to make that really clear, as all colleagues did around the House. I thank all noble Lords on both Benches who are being whipped not to vote for this for saying that they will support it. As I said at the outset, there are many hundreds of people watching this, and they want to know what the House is going to do to protect their future. I will not address my remarks to the noble Viscount, Lord Camrose; he knows what I think. For a Conservative Party not to act on the property rights of UK citizens is a crying shame. To the Government and the Minister —to whom I keep finding myself saying, “who I like very much”—I have to say that this is not good enough. The Minister used the word “premature” twice. There may be a dispute about 09 or 10, but we seem to be in agreement on the 17 over on our Benches. It is not premature to use the copyright law to protect the property rights of British citizens. I also noticed the slight slide around the preferred option. I am sorry, but to say it is a preferred option and then suggest that it is an open consultation is simply not correct. I also want to talk about this business of the impact assessment—and I am going to revisit this. I was in a meeting with officials, and I asked for the impact assessment. They said, “Well, there was one, but I don’t think it will suffice for you, Lady Kidron”. The reason it did not suffice for the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, is because this impact assessment of AI on companies was just eight bullet points. If just one of the bullet points concerns this point about job losses and loss of income, I do not call that an impact assessment. To have a preferred option that is so catastrophic for our country’s second most effective industry—£126 billion down the drain for this magical £4.7 billion—means that I, like other noble Lords, do not understand what we are doing here. I can see that the Chamber is filling up. Finally, on this point about international law, we have heard it all before: we heard about data law, we heard about the OSA, we heard about competition law. I wonder whether, when they do an impact assessment, the Government might consider how many creative copyright owners might like to come to the UK to ply their trade when we have our copyright laws in full order. I remember one of the first reasons Canal+ gave for making its IPO in London was our copyright laws—and it has “Paddington”. I thank all noble Lords for speaking. They made tremendous speeches, which were educated, thoughtful and non-hysterical. These are very modest amendments, and this House has a duty to those people outside to vote on them. I will add that, at a personal level, in the 12 years I have been in your Lordships’ House I have done so many deals with the Government of the day, whichever Government that was. I have always tried to avoid voting, and I have never called a vote that I did not know I was going to win. Because of the whipping arrangements, I believe I will lose today, but we will vote. I invite those people who want the creative industries to know that we have their back to follow me through the Lobby. I would like to test the opinion of the House.