Lord C-J for the Lib Dems criticises the Kings Speech

With the new parliamenrarty session the House of Lords held the customary debate on the goverbnment’s legislative programme set ou in the Kings Speech . This is an edited version of what I said about the tech and creative industry aspects.

My Lords, we have had a very rich and wide-ranging debate, which presents some challenges on winding up. I am very tempted to simply give a big tick to a number of the speeches that we heard today.

I warmly congratulate the four maiden speakers on their excellent contributions and the thoughtful points they made. It is difficult to shine with 70 or so other speeches in the same debate but, in my view, they all sparkled. I look forward to many future speeches from them.

Several contributions mentioned SEND provision and the Government’s proposals to fix what is, in essence, a broken system. This will involve earlier, more local support but autism charities — I am president of Ambitious about Autism — are clear that this must not come at the expense of families’ hard-won legal rights. Parents’ rights to assessment, EHCPs and redress must not be traded away for administrative efficiency, and every provider, including private SEND schools, must be properly regulated.

A number of contributors have referred to what might be considered very high demands on our teachers, and that point was made extremely eloquently. I absolutely share the support expressed for higher education, but of course that comes with considerable responsibility in terms of how those institutions are run.

I also believe that our education system must prepare young people for the age of AI; that is one of its particular responsibilities. I declare my advisory interest on the register as regards AI. A dangerous skills divide is already opening up. State schoolteachers are less than half as likely as those in independent schools to have received formal AI training. The National Foundation for Educational Research projects that up to 3 million UK jobs could disappear by 2035. That compounds the issues raised regarding young people who are not in education, employment or training, which is why we on these Benches have committed to a lifelong training grant of £10,000 as not a “nice to have” but a crucial lifeline.

We welcome the Government’s commitment to a broader computing GCSE and the exploration of new data science and AI qualifications, but with the final curriculum not due until September 2028 and the AI qualification still being only explored rather than confirmed, the pace is simply too slow. We on these Benches are calling for AI literacy to be embedded across the curriculum from primary school age now, not in two years’ time, and to be woven into how we teach critical thinking, civic understanding and creative writing.

The debate touched on the Government’s new proposals on ticketing. I pay tribute to the FanFair Alliance, UK Music, the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Ticket Abuse, Sharon Hodgson MP and others who have campaigned on this issue, including the fan-led review. I welcome the Government’s move to tackle industrial-scale ticket touting. The new Sporting Events Bill is welcome, but relegating the broader ticket tout ban Bill — which will cover the face-value cap for which music fans have waited so long — to draft Bill status risks years of further delay.

The damage done to the creative industries by Brexit has been powerfully set out in this debate. The AI copyright battle is where that damage risks being compounded. The creative industries contribute more than £145 billion to our economy. The music sector alone contributes £8 billion, while publishing contributes £11 billion. We welcome the Government’s decision to drop the text and data mining exception. A functioning licensing market already exists. A report published by the BPI in May this year documents 274 commercial agreements between content providers and AI developers that are already in place.

As chair of the ALCS — I declare an interest — I can confirm that the narrative that AI developers cannot access content legally has always been a myth. Three things are now needed: mandatory transparency, requiring AI developers to keep clear records of training inputs; labelling of AI-generated content; and, crucially, that any AI model deployed in the UK must comply with UK copyright law, regardless of where it was trained. I directly ask the Minister: will the Government give a clear commitment that the UK’s gold standard IP and copyright law will never be disapplied as part of the AI growth lab sandboxes or under the regulating for growth Bill powers more generally?

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Rebuck, on the success of the National Year of Reading. Emerging research suggests that AI’s very ease of use may undermine the critical thinking we are trying to develop. Unfettered AI access without challenge does not develop judgment but kills it. Media literacy is extremely important. The same AI models that scrape creative content without consent are producing the synthetic media — the deepfakes, fabricated quotes and algorithmically generated news — that is steadily corroding public trust. The Government’s media literacy action plan is welcome in parts, but we need a statutory media literacy duty that extends to platforms, requiring them to actively support media literacy, rather than leaving it entirely to Ofcom and the public sector.

Of course, the single greatest instrument of media literacy in this country is the BBC. It received not a mention in this King’s Speech. Reuters Institute data from last November shows that the BBC remains the most trusted news source, not just in the UK but globally. In an era where outrage travels faster than facts, that matters enormously. We wish the new DG, Matt Brittin, who started this week, well. The BBC is far more than news; it is an ever-more vital instrument of British soft power.

The debate has also addressed technology and digital sovereignty. Rishi Sunak has admitted recently that he wishes he had spoken to the country more about the change that AI is going to bring. This Government have been equally reticent. As I mentioned, there is a rising lack of trust in AI and concern about its implications. This makes the absence of an AI Bill all the more inexplicable. Given that AI is set to affect every aspect of our economy, how can that be sensible? Ahead of artificial general intelligence, fragmented rules will not be adequate. We need binding comprehensive regulation — particularly in the world of money and financial services.

We look forward to the results of the children’s online safety consultation, but there is disappointment that the Government have not brought forward any Bill on online safety. We are confined now to amendments bolted on to other Bills in response to specific crises rather than any coherent strategic architecture.

The question of AI sovereignty has been expertly discussed in this debate. We are threatened by President Trump with tariffs unless we abolish our digital service tax, and Washington is using the tech prosperity deal to pressure us into diluting the Online Safety Act and failing to regulate AI. I hope the Minister will give us sufficient assurances that we have the ability, as a sovereign power, to regulate AI, protect data and levy appropriate taxes, and that that will not be traded away. We must not become an AI taker, wholly dependent on foreign hyperscalers. I commend the Lords Science and Technology Committee’s report, Bleeding to Death, published last November, which clearly sets out the scale of the crisis.

We could say more on the Digital Access to services Bill. The voluntary character of this scheme must be guaranteed in primary legislation. There are gaps in cyber security and resilience. Anthropic’s Claude Mythos has demonstrated how important it is that we fill those gaps. There is the update of the Computer Misuse Act, and I hope that the Government will work with the industry to ensure that these reforms support the UK cyber security sector and will meet the CyberUp Campaign to discuss the proposals. I hope the Minister will assure us that that will be the case.

I urge the Government to introduce Herbie’s Law without delay. It would enable a phase-out of animal experiments over the next decade, supporting scientists with the transition and positioning Britain as a global leader in cutting-edge, human-specific medical research.

Energy strategy cannot be decoupled from our technology ambitions. The exponential growth of AI has created 30 gigawatts of data centre demand, currently stuck awaiting grid connection. Grid connection reform is urgent.

Across all these areas, the question is the same one that I return to repeatedly: will this technology be our servant, augmenting human potential and distributing opportunity more widely, or will it become our master, concentrating power in the hands of those least accountable for its consequences? The answer depends on whether this Government can focus on growth and opportunity and, at the same time, give citizens trust and confidence when they access new technology. We on these Benches will be holding them to that objective throughout the Session ahead.