George Freeman
MP for Mid Norfolk · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I am calling in this speech for, first, real honesty of a 1979 scale about the extent of the emergency; secondly, bold devolution to the people, cities and mayors who know how to do it better—frankly, they could not do worse than Whitehall—thirdly, serious Whitehall reforms, so that we end the juvenile process of His Majesty’s Treasury pl…”
“The normal deficit is when a Government do not earn as much as they are spending; because the economy has taken a downturn, they borrow a bit to keep spending and then pay it back. The structural deficit is that bit of the deficit that goes up every year even when the economy is growing, and it is driven by four things.”
“Convenient though it may be for my party politically, the idea that the answer is a regicidal political infighting crisis and a leadership contest in office is for the birds. Take it from me: my party has tested that idea to destruction, and we have all paid the price. We do not need a Labour party beauty contest.”
“My right hon. Friend makes an important point. I will make a slightly different point, which is that there are huge opportunities for good growth in this country.”
“I was doing my work as the Minister for Life Sciences, for agritech and for Science and Technology following in the footsteps of Paul Drayson and David Sainsbury. In life science, fusion, AI and quantum, we have built an unbelievably competitive economy, but other countries are moving fast. Our competitors are more agile.”
“My right hon. Friend makes an important point. The King’s speech that my constituents loved was the King’s speech in Washington, in which he spoke for the very best of this country. My point is that it is in all our interests—I say this as a friend of mainstream politics and democracy—that we tackle this challenge more boldly.”
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“We have not just done the deep science; we are building an ecosystem of genomically informed medical research and medicine in the NHS. I was particularly proud that we launched the NHS genomic medicine service. It is about not just science but research to drive better medicine in the NHS. In the NHS around the country, genomic medicine clinics are now accelerating access for researchers and patients. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland is right, as was the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), that we are in a global race in so many of these technologies, and particularly in genomics. In my recent speeches, I have set out what we mean by being a science superpower. It is not just a glib phrase.”
“I pay tribute to all the people at GEL, because in the 10 years since it was launched there have not been huge debates in Parliament or any scandals. People have not been marching up and down. In fact, thousands of NHS patients have happily enrolled and, through Biobank, we have taken the number of NHS volunteers to half a million. I pay tribute to the team behind that work. It is possible to build these datasets. We were absolutely clear that it was embedded in the values of the NHS: one for all, all for one, and shared data for national as well as personal good. Alongside GEL, there is the UK Biobank, the National Institute for Health and Care Research BioResource, and now Our Future Health, which is looking at longitudinal datasets.”
“We might discover that men over the age of 55 with red hair, a beard and early-onset diabetes are more likely to respond to a particular drug than others. The work transforms not only the business of drug discovery but diagnosis, and it accelerates access for patients to treatments. We originally focused GEL—Genomics England—on cancer and rare disease, which is where the appliance of genomics is most urgent and transformational, but we were clear that it was never going to be a lending library, so nobody would ever have access to an individual patient genome or an individual patient record. Researchers could interact with the database for the basis of research, but they would never be able to take out of the library any of the core data.”
“I am delighted to respond to this debate, not least because, when I was the Minister for Life Science in the coalition Government, I had the great privilege of setting up Genomics England, which was our first big move to capture our leadership in this global race. I remind the House that we set up Genomics England very carefully as a reference library, not a lending library. Some 100,000 NHS volunteers and patients offered to be sequenced—it was not just the snip, which is the bit of DNA segment that we know is implicated in disease, but the whole of their genome. We could then look at whole-genome analysis at scale and link it to someone’s phenotype, life cycle and hospital records, and start to shine a light on the real insights into the mechanisms of disease.”
“Across the UK, we have such an understanding of not only genomics across humans, animals and plants, and their diseases, but the application of those genomics to help to develop drought-resistant crops for Africa and disease-resistant crops that do not need to be sprayed with highly carbon-intensive pesticides. The underpinning technology is fundamental to net zero and global sustainability, to allowing agriculture in sub-Saharan Africa and to improving nutrition and health around the world. The front end now is cancer and rare disease, but the revolution in technology will drive sustainability and prosperity around the world over the coming decades.”
“Gentleman did, by reminding listeners and viewers of what a success story British genomics has been, going right back to Watson and Crick’s famous pint in the Eagle in Cambridge—and, in this International Women’s Week and week of women’s science, let us not forget the third discoverer of DNA, the great Mary Black at King’s College London, [Official Report, 9 March 2023, Vol. 729, c. 1MC.] who often gets left out of the story—through the work that Fred Sanger and his team did at the University of Cambridge on the structure of DNA and how it works, and right up to our leadership in genetic research and medicine in the UK. It is worth saying that that leadership is not just in human genomics but in animal and plant genomics. I was recently up in Scotland visiting the Roslin Institute and the James Hutton Institute.”
“It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Davies. I thank the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) for bringing this important issue to the House. He and I both know how important the subject is and that the Chamber is not full because of the business going on elsewhere. I reassure him that we take this issue very seriously. Some of things that we are doing are not in the public domain, for obvious reasons, but I will answer his questions. I agree with just about everything that he said, so we are very much on the same page. Let me start, as the right hon.”
“I will come back to him on the CPNI point. I look forward to pursuing the subject with him in future. Question put and agreed to.”
“We all recognise that the threats now mean that we need to think about the value of other infrastructure. I will come back to him on that. The right hon. Gentleman made an important broader point about how the Government handle data. It is fair to say that the pandemic revealed the best and the worst, in a way. The NHS put together the world’s biggest clinical trial—not just bigger than the next one but bigger than the next 10, and faster than any of them—which was an incredible operation, embedded in the values of the NHS, and it worked brilliantly. Equally, the clunkiness of some testing data feedback from different towns and regions held back some decisions. I think the role of data will be rightly highlighted in the covid review. I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for bringing this subject to the House.”
“Member for Orkney and Shetland that we have put research security at the heart of discussions at the G7 and G20. If we are to harness science and technology for global good and to deliver that extraordinary opportunity of helping to feed, fuel and heal emerging populations safely, international collaboration will be required. However, we have to ensure that we defend not only the values of good and open science but our own economic security, and that we get the balance right. We do not want to conduct research only with our strong, strategic, military partners, but we want to defend our values. The right hon. Gentleman made an interesting point about critical national infrastructure that I will pick up in the economic security cabinet. It is a point that I have made in connection with another bit of our science infrastructure.”
“I had been prepared to pay tribute to the work of BGI when my officials pointed out that at that point Genomics England was suffering several hack attacks from BGI each week. [Official Report, 9 March 2023, Vol. 729, c. 2MC.] That was a wake-up call for all of us. We are well aware that we have to manage such risks properly. On that point, I commissioned and have literally just received from UKRI a detailed assessment of all the China research and innovation links across our system—we did the same last year for Russia. I have passed that through to my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security. He and I, and our officials, will go through it shortly in detail, looking in particular at some of the actors such as BGI that we know to be aggressive in their international acquisition of intellectual property. I reassure the right hon.”
“That includes everything from genomics to the biosecurity piece that I have discussed, along with semiconductors, space and cyber-security—the whole piece. We are now in a global race not just with our benign competitors but with hostile actors who wish to use science and technology to hold us back and undermine us, or to steal our science and technology for their own use. BGI is clearly one of those danger points in the ecosystem. I share with the House the fact that, in 2014, I was wheeled out to give a speech on the occasion of the visit of President Xi to the Guildhall. When President Xi and then Prime Minister Cameron were wheeled in, I was speaking to around 1,000 Chinese delegates about Genomics England.”
“We have set up RCAT as a specialist advisory group in the Cabinet Office, connected to our intelligence agencies, so that it can check quickly whether a partner is benign, hostile or dangerous. [Official Report, 14 March 2023, Vol. 729, c. 5MC.] That system has been working well since we set it up a year ago. The team is in the Cabinet Office, 350 queries have been handled, and we are getting international visits from people who congratulate us on getting it right, although a lot more remains to be done. I reassure the right hon. Gentleman that we have an economic security cabinet, which I joined three weeks ago. It looks much more strategically and in granular detail across exposure to hostile actors in the UK economy.”
“Absolutely; it is as if the right hon. Gentleman has read my notes. Here in the UK, we are toughening up our regime. The National Institute for Health and Care Research has a set of very clear principles, as does UK Research and Innovation. We have set up the research collaboration advice team—RCAT—which is a new system to help all our researchers across the UK ecosystem with advice and support. We insist that they exercise due diligence if they sign a collaboration with, say, the “South China Sea research collaboration company”. We do not expect all our researchers to be policemen and women, but we do expect them—and they are now required—to show due diligence before they sign some lucrative research agreement.”
“We will have a rather deeper conversation with the all-party group, whom I met yesterday, and with experts in both Houses and in the industry—creators, platforms, publishers, broadcasters and digital intermediaries—to ensure that we do not rush precipitately into a knee-jerk move that is wrong. We must try to anticipate the challenges that are coming and to get a regulatory framework in the UK that can keep pace with the pace of the technology and the issues it raises. I reassure the hon. Member for Richmond Park, who secured the debate and asked a specific question about this, that we will not be proceeding with the proposals. I will go on to answer the question that I know the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar) is going to ask me, which is, “How did this happen and what are the lessons from it?””
“In case the Division bell goes or we have some other interruption, let me make it clear that when I returned to office, the Minister of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), and I met promptly to look at the issue. We have written around to make it clear to other Ministers that the proposals were not correct, that we have met with a huge response, which should have been picked up in the pre-consultation before the proposals were announced, and that we are looking to stop them.”
“I am also from a family with a lot of interest in the creative industries—my wife is a musician, artist and writer, my brother works in film and I have published a book—so I am very aware of the balance that has to be struck and that colleagues across the House have spoken about this afternoon. I think it is fair to say, as a number of colleagues have, that AI is coming at us as a transformational technology at a pace that we have not had to deal with before in Government. The pace, the halving of technology cycles, and the speed at which it is maturing and reinventing itself are creating some big and interesting challenges for established industries, new industries that are taking shape and creators across all the different spheres of the creative industries. We need to get the balance right.”
“It is a particular pleasure for me not only to be back in this role as the Minister responsible for AI, the Office for AI and the Intellectual Property Office, as part of my wider role as Minister for science, research, technology and innovation, but as someone who years ago ran a very basic AI drug discovery business. I mean, it was very basic: it was an algorithm with an elastic band connected to it compared with the technologies of today. It deployed basic early AI to look in the pharmacopoeia of “failed medicines” to find those that are actually dream medicines for certain segments of the population, trying to reprofile them. I have therefore seen for myself how AI, properly deployed in an ethical framework, can be a huge driver for not only drug discovery, but better medicine and public services.”
“It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson, and to have the chance to put the record straight in answer to the sensible points and questions made in the debate. I congratulate and thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney). Had the debate not been scheduled, I would have hoped for someone to secure such a debate in order to give me a chance to explain the situation. I also thank all colleagues from across the House, from all parties, who have spoken this afternoon. I think we have covered most of the points.”
“Theses have been written on whether it was an announcement with a capital “A” or a small “a”. I do not think I could be clearer that the two Ministers concerned agree that the proposals submitted, approved and published did not meet with the expected support. I hasten to say that they were published after I left Government, and it was a period of some turmoil. One of the lessons from this is to try not to legislate in periods of political turmoil. The key bit of the right hon. Member’s question is: when will we see proposals? My strong instinct is that we should draw breath, take a chance to go through all the feedback from the last few months, and then, in rather more deep consultation with all the various interests, see if there are proposals that might command the support that is needed.”
“The creation of regulatory frameworks that command the confidence of both consumers and investors helps to position this country as a global testbed for innovation, drives international markets, attracts investment and establishes the UK’s leadership in standards. As Minister for Science, Research and Innovation, I am passionate about our leaning into that sort of leadership, as well as getting rid of some of the dafter regulations, such as the one that says that coffee machines have to turn off after 30 minutes. I do not know which Committee passed that, or nodded it through one day a few years ago. The truth is that our regulatory framework is incredibly complex for regulators, innovators and investors to navigate.”
“Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah) knows me well enough to know that I do not believe that there is a huge dividend from scrapping all the regulations that were put on the statute book during our membership of the European Union. There is, however, a very strong case for clearing up our regulatory statute book; there is an awful lot of dead wood and daft regulations. It can be very unclear. I have led the charge in my party for saying that a lot of the Brexit regulatory opportunities are to set the frameworks in new and fast-emerging areas, whether it is AI, autonomous vehicles, nutraceuticals or satellites.”
“I sit on that, and it is there to grapple with the big geopolitical and ethical issues that some of these technologies are raising. That is why we are working this year on both a creative industry strategy, led by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and an AI regulatory strategy, which will set out our approach to regulating AI. As the global AI revolution accelerates, we need to be aware that we are working in a global environment, and to set a regulatory framework that does not drive AI creators and investors out. We are a leading AI nation. We have an opportunity to set the regulatory framework in a way that reflects the values that this country is respected for all around the world. I think the hon.”
“The right hon. Member is well aware, as a veteran of these things, that for something to be a formal announcement on policy, a Government write-round has to go through the various Committees. That process is under way. Until that is done, I cannot formally confirm that it is collective responsibility Government policy, but the two Ministers concerned say that the proposals have not met with the support that was expected. [Interruption.] He has just said that that is good enough for him. I hope that it will be good enough for all those listening. As colleagues have highlighted, the real issue is how we get the balance right. That is why AI is considered by the National Science and Technology Council, our senior Cabinet Committee, which is chaired by the Prime Minister and looks at the big issues that science and technology raise.”
“I do not want anyone to think that we were going out on a massive limb; we were making a move that was in the spirit of that made by other countries. There is an irony here, in that we were an active player in helping to shape some of those EU regulations. The challenge and opportunity for us, now that we are out of the EU, is to take the ambitions that we were pushing when we were in the EU and reach them more quickly and agilely—possibly even more digitally—in a new regulatory framework outside.”
“Unless an announcement has been made in the last few weeks that I have missed, yes. He has the right to depute the chairmanship of a particular meeting, but the point is it that it is the senior Committee of Cabinet dealing with science, technology and innovation. I am delighted that the Prime Minister reinstated it very early on—as soon as he took office. The argument of the Intellectual Property Office last summer, presented to Ministers in good faith, was that if we look at what is going on around the world, there are other jurisdictions that have moved quickly to put in place similar text and data mining exemptions—in the EU, the US, Japan and Singapore. They are structured differently, but all are wider than the current UK exemptions.”
“Although the Government need to be on the front foot in anticipating the regulatory framework and getting it right, the proposals have clearly elicited a response that we did not hear when they were being drafted. We have taken the responses seriously. The Minister responsible for this area—my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster —and I have made it clear that we do not want to proceed with the original proposals. We will engage seriously, cross-party and with the industry, through the IPO, to ensure that we can, when needed, frame proposals that will command the support required.”
“I am not quite suggesting that we should have run the AI-ometer over the consultation responses, but given the number of analogue Government processes, harnessing smart intelligence systems may provide us with a good way of identifying better clusters of feedback in consultations, and help to democratise the process of consultation. It is a slightly left-field point, but I am trying to signal that as we think about these industries, we have to ensure that we are not just talking to the same people, but driving new methods of consultation to keep up with the pace of the industry. I have probably detained you, Mr Robertson, and other Members long enough. I hope it is clear that we have listened and heard, and we are absolutely committed to making sure that we get this right.”
“I have started a conversation with the Intellectual Property Office to ask if we could not do more to ensure that we have better datasets on exactly what the situation is with new, emerging revenue streams, new providers and new creators. The industry is moving very fast, and when it comes to which bits of the market are working well and which are not, there is a slight lack of data on which to base policy. Creating market conditions in which everyone can have confidence is the real challenge for the Government and for me as Minister. I tentatively suggest that there may be another lesson, which is that we should harness the power of digital technologies and digitalisation when doing consultations.”
“We need to be careful to ensure that the creative industry can flourish, and that the rights of the creators, who may or may not want their material to be used, are not trampled over. If they do want their material to be used, that takes us to a second issue: fair remuneration. I have stood here and discussed this with the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) before. There are issues about rights and about remuneration. How should we ensure that small creators are properly remunerated? There are issues that we need to deal with. As a number of colleagues have said, this is about the balance between rights, responsibilities and remuneration in the world of digitalisation of content and creativity. There are two big lessons from last summer. One is that data is important.”
“What the Intellectual Property Office picked up on from both sides is that there is a middle ground: there are those without a strong organisational platform through which they can set out the terms on which they are prepared to have their material accessed, and there are digital creators using intermediary AI technologies to create digitally, which is a legitimate activity, and who are struggling to find that interface and make it work. It is in that space that we particularly need to look to get the balance right between our creative, digital and AI sectors. Many in those sectors are small, extraordinarily dynamic and entrepreneurial. In Coventry, I recently met a fantastic, almost underground coding community of teenagers doing amazing things.”
“As was said by a number of colleagues from across the House, when I say “get the balance right”, there is clearly a difference between those small and sometimes voiceless creatives—whether analogue or digital, but particularly if they are not in the digital creative economy—because some may want to completely opt out and say, “I just never want to see my image turned into an avatar, ever.” People need the ability to just opt out. People also need the ability to license, to be on the front foot, and to negotiate terms, which happens.”
“The Intellectual Property Office was asking the right questions, but it is more complex than the original proposals suggested. That is why we have committed to continuing that consultation. Yesterday, I was with the all-party parliamentary group. I have instructed the Intellectual Property Office to share its analysis of the consultation findings, so that we can sit down together and go through what the issues are that we still need to deal with, and can get the balance right.”
“We heard rights holders arguing that no change should be made in the UK, and we also heard not just the big AI and tech firms but researchers in the life sciences and social sciences making the case that many of them were increasingly finding problems, not with negotiating with the obvious rights holders when it was clear who they were, such as universities, but with material available on the internet. They were finding it difficult to find the person to get permission from them, and that was holding back research, especially when working with multiple rights holders. While I am happy to concede that the proposals perhaps were not correctly, fully or properly drafted, there are some issues that are still worth pursuing.”
“That is exactly right. I will come to some of the lessons from that in a moment, but I am happy to confirm that. In the consultation carried out by the Intellectual Property Office, a number of consultees made the case that UK copyright law was too restrictive, and was impeding investment in AI. The point was made about text and data mining exemptions in other countries, but I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe. He has a distinguished record in these affairs as a former Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, and through his career. The regulations must be proportionate and reflect the economy that we are regulating. We have an incredibly strong digital creative industry and non-digital creative industry, and we must ensure that that is appropriate.”
“Onshore wind in the UK has been a great success. It generates 25% of our total renewables, and since 2015 around 10 onshore wind projects, totalling 30 MW, have been given consent in England. We have made it clear that onshore wind is an important part of the energy mix and that we will now need more, which is why we are consulting on making changes to the national planning policy framework in England so that local authorities can better respond to the views of their local communities when they wish to host onshore wind infrastructure.”
“In a word, no. What has caused family bills to skyrocket is the international pressure on energy supply chains, the war in Ukraine and the economic sanctions in respect of Russia. I accept the point that the costs of onshore wind have fallen dramatically through our contracts for difference round 4. This is a UK success story, which is why we are keen to do more. The public-opinion data show that 78% of the public support onshore wind. We want to make sure that we do not impose it on local authorities and are giving them more freedom to make sure they can reflect local demand so that it is renewable energy led by communities with community benefit.”
“As a BEIS Minister and as an East Anglian Member of Parliament, I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. The southern North sea is becoming the Saudi Arabia of wind energy, and the Norfolk and Suffolk coast and the new hydrogen freeport at Felixstowe and Harwich are part of the way in which we are growing the infrastructure for smart advanced wind and a linked hydrogen economy in the 21st century.”
“We agree that the most vulnerable consumers in this country should be protected. Those duties already lie with Ofgem. I shall repeat what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said earlier: it is completely unacceptable that vulnerable patients leave hospital and find that they have been automatically disconnected. We are convening a roundtable meeting and my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Minister for Energy and Climate are putting pressure on Ofgem to make sure that vulnerable consumers are looked after.”
“May I take this opportunity, on behalf of the Department, to thank the hon. Member and the Public Accounts Committee for their report, to which we will very shortly reply? I am delighted to say that the public sector has reduced emissions by 44% since 1990 and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy by 70% since 2010. We appreciate her Committee’s point that the data—the metrics—have to be clear and coherent, and we are taking that on board.”
“My hon. Friend makes a good point. We have the groundbreaking commitment to move from £15 billion to £20 billion a year of investment in public R&D over this comprehensive spending review, the creation of the National Science and Technology Council, the recent launch of our international science partnership fund, the ISPF, which I announced in Japan with a first tranche of £119 million, a series of strategic bilats and multilats, and, of course, our £7 billion ring-fenced for Horizon for three years—if we cannot deploy it through Horizon, we will deploy it in other ways to support UK R&D.”
“However, our preference remains to avoid that—not least because we would like to get a quicker solution for the benefit of all those in the industry.”
“As the co-chair of the Office for Artificial Intelligence and Minister with responsibility for the Intellectual Property Office on this issue, I will suggest that my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster and I convene that roundtable; I will obviously be in touch with the hon. Member for Cardiff West and the DCMS Committee. In closing, with two minutes on the clock, I will highlight the fact that we believe that there is an opportunity here. The industry has shown willingness to move in the right direction. The Government signal that our preference is not to legislate; our preference is to encourage the industry to move in the right direction but, if we must legislate to get this right, we reserve that right.”
“It will look at the rate of progress, the report from the Intellectual Property Office and the CMA, and the AI piece to see if we can get a proper settlement that everyone acknowledges would be fair and reflects the principles that we have set out, which—I will repeat again—are absolutely fundamental to our approach. I believe deeply that, if we get this right, we can establish a Government-supported but industry-led code of conduct that will be respected around the world. It will improve and continue the process by which the industry is improving and ensure that we continue that momentum, so that it does not require private Members’ Bills to keep nudging the industry and we have leadership in setting the standards for fair remuneration that are the envy of the world.”
“Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez), to highlight the fact that we must get this right. Of course, the UK wants to be a leader in AI—we are, and we want to continue building on that, but we must not allow that support to undermine our creative industries. My hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster absolutely agrees with me, and we have established a small taskforce of officials between the two Departments to ensure that we get this right. Following that meeting and this debate, I propose to convene a roundtable between DCMS and the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy of the key voices across the sector to look at the whole issue.”
“There has been some progress and these steps are welcome, but I appreciate that creators want to see more substantial and wide-ranging action on remuneration; that is why, in the coming months, we will be actively considering the evidence from the research, as well as the voluntary action taken by the industry, and weighing up our approach on remuneration. I will come on to a specific proposal that I am making to bring all of this together, including looking at the text and data-mining issue, which is my next point; it is causing real concern for rights holders. As the hon. Member for Cardiff West was kind enough to say, I was out of office when this reform was announced. In the few short weeks I have been back, I have already met with the DCMS Minister for the creative industries, my hon.”
“I made it clear at the time that further consideration of those measures was an active priority, and that remains the case. We have seen some positive action from some in the music industry on remuneration for creators. The three major record labels have agreed to disregard unrecouped advances in older contracts, which means that many artists are now being paid from streaming for the first time. Several independent record labels have announced minimum digital royalty rates in their contracts of 25% or more, even for contracts agreed prior to streaming.”
“The Copyright Royalty Board in the US recently laid down that song rights holders should receive around 15% of streaming revenues, which is similar to what we have achieved in the UK. Given that, and given the movement in France, which the hon. Gentleman highlighted, it is interesting that there is a global movement towards ensuring that this growing sector is based on principles of fair remuneration. I will come on to the changes to copyright law. The DCMS Committee recommended several changes aimed at improving remuneration, including a right to equitable remuneration for streaming, a right to regain ownership of copyright, and a right to renegotiate contracts; those are measures that the hon. Gentleman brought forward in his private Member’s Bill.”
“The question of how revenues are distributed between artists, songwriters, record labels, publishers and streaming platforms is complex, and we have a responsibility to ensure that any arrangements work for the industry as a whole. There is no perfect solution, but I repeat that there is more that we can do, by working with the industry, to get closer to something that is widely recognised as fairer. Record labels and publishers each play an important role in supporting and investing in British artists and songwriters. We do not want any unilateral or dramatic reapportionment to undermine the UK sector, but we want to ensure that we do right by the next generation of talent, which we require to feed the whole sector.”
“It is true that the publishing share has declined slightly since 2017—from 17% to 15%—but during that time overall publishing revenues paid out by the larger streaming services in the UK have more than doubled. More and more money is being paid out to songwriters and publishers from streaming, which is great. Because songwriters typically enjoy the largest share of publishing royalties—an average royalty rate of 84% in 2021—the vast majority of the publishing share is going to songwriters. The key point, however, is whether streaming revenues are fairly distributed within the ecosystem. There are still many who feel justifiably that the devil is in the detail. They want to know how that overall number is allocated, and think that we need to do more to ensure that the allocation is fair.”