Chris Bryant MP: speeches

Speeches

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

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  “As soon as possible”, I am afraid. I know that there are lots of parliamentary terms for these matters, such as “imminently” and “soon” and so on. The difficulty is that there are plenty of other priorities for legislation at the same time. I am not the Leader of the House, so I fear that I cannot give a guarantee about a timeline, but we have given some guarantees about when the Secretary of State will report back to the House—within six months of Royal Assent, and I hope that that is within six months of “soon”—and we have given guarantees about our other reports back, which will be within nine months, shortened from 12 months.

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

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  I am not making an criticism of any individual Member of the House of Lords. I listened to the debate, and it was clear that people felt passionately and were arguing entirely in good faith. I fully understand that. As I have said, however, this a Bill that was not intended to include elements relating to AI and copyright. In the last Parliament it was supported by the Conservative party and by us on the Opposition Benches, and was referred to by both sides during our general election campaigns. Neither of us said that we were going to include anything about copyright in the Bill, but that is what is now holding up Royal Assent. There are economic benefits that would flow from the Bill, but they will of course be delayed if we further delay Royal Assent. Let me end by saying that, as I think I have said several times, I fully understand the concerns expressed by people in the creative industries about artificial intelligence. Many use it already, but they are understandably concerned about where it will go, and they fear for their jobs. It is true that, for many, the strikes in the US had an even more cataclysmic effect on their careers, but I would just add one corrective to those fears. There is a moment at the end of “The Winter’s Tale” when Paulina takes Leontes to see a statue of his wife, who he thinks died of grief when he falsely accused of her adultery many years earlier. We all know when we watch it in the theatre that the statue is actually the actress playing Hermione; it is not a statue at all. Yet the moment when Leontes touches the statue and says, “O, she’s warm!”, still shocks us and brings tears to our eyes. Why? Because it is human to human. Yes, of course it is artifice laid upon artifice, but it is humanity face to face that really moves us. The Government have heard the concerns expressed by this House and the other place, and we have set out our plans to address them. I believe the Bill must be allowed to run its course.

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

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  Well, nobody is pulling my strings. I do not know what that final reference was to. I pay tribute to the hon. Lady and the Select Committee, who have done important work in this field. Some of what we have committed to in previous rounds of ping-pong in this House has sprung directly from what her Select Committee asked us to do. We will continue to listen to that. As she knows, we have always said, right from the beginning, that a key aspect of any package we bring forward would be something around transparency. I will come on to the precise matters in the new clause before us, and I hope that might explain why we are urging the House to reject the amendment today. It is a delight to hear from the hon. Lady, and she need not doubt me.

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

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  I will just finish this point, if the hon. Lady will allow me. In addition, we are still working through a huge number of consultation responses. To prescribe a draft Bill in detail at this point would completely undermine that process and the policy work that is taking place. I would argue that not only is that bad policymaking, but it would completely disregard the input that so many respondents to the consultation have exhausted so much effort in providing.

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

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  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.

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

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  We will make sure that they engage. In a strange way, I think that the campaign that has been led by the hon. Lady and others, in the House of Lords and elsewhere, will help to make people engage in what will not necessarily be an easy process, but one that I think could deliver a win-win for us in the UK and could potentially enable us to lead for other countries in the world. Every indication that we have had thus far suggests that everyone wants to sit in the room together, and, of course, we will have to provide significant leadership in those meetings to be able to drive them forward. As I said on the last occasion when I was talking about these matters at the Dispatch Box, I should like to be able to get on with that as soon as possible, but we have a duty to get the Bill out of the way first. Let me now say a few words about ping-pong. As Members will know, this is in large measure the same Bill that was presented, twice, by the previous Government. The second Bill fell at the general election, but both major parties committed themselves to reintroducing it, in a broadly similar form, in the new Parliament. None of the parties intended to introduce any matters relating to copyright into the Bill when they discussed it in the run-up to, and during, the general election. I warmly commend those who are fighting the corner of the creative industries—of course I do; I am the creative industries Minister—but there comes a point at which the Lords is barring the Commons from fulfilling a pledge made by both major parties. We shall now be entering the fourth round of ping-pong. Few Bills in our history have gone this many rounds. In the cases of the Prevention of Terrorism Bill of 2004-05 and the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill 2006-07, at issue was what the Government had put in rather than what it had not included. Neither of those Bills had been openly advocated by both main parties at a general election. By tradition, the House of Lords does not interfere with Bills to which Governments have committed themselves at the time of a general election. Everyone agrees that this Bill is a valuable piece of legislation, and for that reason I urge their lordships to let it pass into law.

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

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  I understand the concern of the creative industries—they have expressed it to me in no uncertain terms on many occasions, both individually and in larger groups. We have heard the message loud and clear. I think some people have been labouring under the misconception that this Bill is doing something to undermine copyright. I know that the right hon. Gentleman listened to the debate in the House of Lords yesterday, because I was standing next to him, listening to the fullness of the debate as a courtesy to the House of Lords. As I have said before, I worry that to legislate on a part of this issue, rather than the whole of it, is a mistake. For the sake of argument, let us say that we only legislated in relation to what transparency should be required and did not come up with an enforcement measure. What would happen if the companies simply refused to provide that information? Would we have to introduce a new offence of not providing such information? What would we have to do? That is my argument for why I think—notwithstanding the clamour for us to go as fast as we possibly can, which I fully understand—we need to get it right and to legislate in the round, rather than just piecemeal on the back of a Bill that is not meant to deal with these matters at all. I heard my hon. Friend the Member for East Thanet (Ms Billington) attempt to intervene earlier.

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

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  I have got to give way to the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon first, but then of course I will come back to my hon. Friend.

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

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  I will give way first to the hon. Member for Gosport, and then to the right hon. Member for Skipton and Ripon (Sir Julian Smith).

• 22 May 2025 · Creative Industries: Bedford · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right; it is great that the theme park is coming. The shadow Secretary of State says that it was all down to him, but he did not get it across the line. The whole point of a deal is that it is not a deal until you actually get it across the line, which we did. My hon. Friend is also right that we do not just need to develop massive theme parks; we also need small venues such as the one he refers to, where I think George Ezra has performed and where Coldplay have performed twice in the past. That is one reason I am really glad that we have now managed to get over the line a levy on arena tickets to help fund small music venues across the whole of the UK.

• 22 May 2025 · Creative Industries: Bedford · Hansard source

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  The most important thing we have done for Bedford is secure the Universal Studios theme park, which will be the biggest theme park in Europe and one of the biggest investments in the UK for many years.

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

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  The right hon. Member must have missed several of the debates in which I expressly said that I did not think there was any uncertainty about the law as it presently stands.

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

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  And fashion.

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

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  Sugababes, surely!

• 22 May 2025 · UK Film Production · Hansard source

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  I am glad somebody is celebrating the film industry. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: we need to make sure that kids from every single constituency in this land can think of the possibility of working in the film industry. I am delighted that since we introduced our two new tax reliefs in last autumn’s Budget, we have already seen a large number of people making applications to the British Film Institute, and I am absolutely certain that that will mean that the British film and television sectors in the UK will be very lively for many years to come.

• 22 May 2025 · UK Film Production · Hansard source

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  We support and incentivise film production in the UK through our range of audiovisual tax reliefs, through support for business rates relief, and through funding directly to the industry.

• 22 May 2025 · UK Film Production · Hansard source

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  What utter nonsense! The hon. Gentleman may only just have arrived in this House in the last year—of course, today is the anniversary of the moment when the former Prime Minister called the election and it rained on his parade. I simply point out that the company suspended its plans in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency in 2023, when there was a Conservative Government.

• 22 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  All I really want to say is yes, because I agree with everything my hon. Friend said. Since you like brevity, Mr Speaker, and brevity is the soul of wit, I am just going to say yes.

• 22 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I have looked at some of the material for Havelok’s weekend—I think he is getting a weekend. I did not know the story of Grim, the fisherman who saved the young Prince Havelok, but it is a great story. It is also good to see that there is a new artwork to modernise the old artwork outside the Grimsby Institute. My hon. Friend is right that we need to do more for our coastal communities.

• 22 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I get a lot of invites. [ Interruption. ] Yes, I honestly do get a lot of invites—and some of them I take up. I am a bit Ado Annie: I’m just a girl who cain’t say no I’m in a terrible fix I always say “come on, let’s go” Just when I orta say nix.

• 22 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  That is a bit transporty for me. First, the best ice cream in Britain is produced in the Rhondda by Subzero, and I am happy to have a contest with the hon. Member any day of the week on that front if he wants. Secondly, I suggest gently to him that one of the reasons the beaches in the UK improved was that we joined the European Union. Before our membership of the European Union, all our beaches were filthy and covered in tar.

• 22 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Yes, and if the hon. Member sends me a link, I will contribute myself.

• 22 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I am happy to look at anything, but we are reluctant to start putting levies on things that close down the British business. My hon. Friend makes a good point about trying to make sure that people have an opportunity to make a career and a living out of the creative industries. It strikes me that with more than 50% of people working freelance in the industry, that is one of the things we definitely have to look at, and I know that my hon. Friend has a large sector in her constituency.

• 22 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  Since the last Question Time, we have closed the deal on a multibillion-pound investment in a new Universal Studios theme park, and the Secretary of State has signed a cultural co-operation agreement between the UK and India, which helped underpin the free trade agreement that we concluded this month. I have been working with colleagues in the Department of Health and Social Care to deliver a solution to the ongoing uncertainty facing the advertising and broadcasting sectors, as will be reported today in a written ministerial statement. The Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley South (Stephanie Peacock), the whole of the Department and the Secretary of State worked hard with thousands of others, including the Royal British Legion, to deliver an 80th anniversary of VE Day that we can all be proud of. Mr Speaker, I should just say that today’s Order Paper, as you know, refers to Members of Parliament who gave their lives during the second world war, which is actually an idea I came up with many years ago. However, there is a little mistake in it today. It refers to Major John Cartland, but it was actually Major Ronnie Cartland who gave his life in the war. He was one of the bravest people, and he protected thousands of others by giving his life in the retreat to Dunkirk.

• 22 May 2025 · Topical Questions · Hansard source

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  I think my hon. Friend asked what steps I am taking to promote dance. Well, it takes two to tango, and we are working with the Department for Education to try to ensure that creative education is a really important part of everything we do in all our schools. The fact that fewer kids are now studying creative subjects is a problem, and we need to rectify it.