Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Peter Kyle. (Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty … More
Today, The Entrepreneurs Network has published an open letter to the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Peter Kyle, asking him to urge Members of Parliament and Peers to reject amendments to the Data (Use and Access) Bill that threaten to undermine the Government’s careful and consultative approach to legislating on copyright and AI development.
The House of Lords will debate the Data (Use and Access) Bill today, including proposals that would dramatically alter how UK copyright law applies to AI services. These amendments would undermine the Government’s ongoing consultation process – one that drew over 11,000 responses, including many from our entrepreneurial network. At stake is nothing less than Britain’s competitive position in the global AI race.
The signatories of this letter include some of the UK’s foremost experts in artificial intelligence, whose work bridges cutting-edge research and real-world application. Professor The Lord (Lionel) Tarassenko CBE, Founder of Oxehealth, is a pioneer in clinical AI and has advised government and industry on health technology for decades. Professor Alison Noble CBE, Founder of Intelligent Ultrasound, is one of the world’s leading authorities on AI in medical imaging and a former President of the MICCAI Society.
The signatories also include Professor Paul Newman, whose Oxa Autonomy is revolutionizing robotics and autonomous vehicles; Professor Niki Trigoni, whose groundbreaking work at Navenio has transformed AI-powered indoor location systems; and Professor Sir John Michael Brady, whose multiple AI-driven healthcare ventures have reshaped both academic research and commercial diagnostics. These are some of the minds driving Britain’s AI revolution.
These leading AI innovators don’t attach their names to public statements lightly. Their concern echoes warnings from the recent Social Market Foundation report, Getting the balance right: Copyright and AI, which emphasized “the need to avoid rushing through a poorly designed copyright framework.” Unfortunately, that’s precisely what these Lords amendments represent – hasty changes with far-reaching consequences.
The proposed amendments reveal a fundamental misunderstanding of AI development. They would impose crushing transparency obligations – like monthly reporting of comprehensive training data – that bear no relation to how modern AI systems are actually built. Such requirements wouldn’t just be technically unfeasible and prohibitively expensive; they would force companies to reveal their intellectual property and trade secrets. The practical effect? Making the UK an impossible place to develop or deploy cutting-edge AI models.
Furthermore, requiring companies “with links to the UK” to comply with these obligations regardless of where models are trained would make it unattractive to even offer AI services here. As the Tony Blair Institute argues: “This risks making the UK a less attractive location for businesses and researchers considering where to invest, and where to develop their next technology.”
As the Government commissioned AI Opportunities Action Plan argued, “AI systems are increasingly matching or surpassing humans across a range of tasks. Today’s AI systems have many limitations, but industry is investing at a scale that assumes capabilities will continue to grow rapidly. Frontier models in 2024 are trained with 10,000x more computing power than in 2019, and we are likely to see a similar rate of growth by 2029. If progress continues at the rate of the last 5 years, by 2029 we can expect AI to be a dominant factor in economic performance and national security.” The question is whether Britain will lead or follow.
Finding the right balance on these issues will be challenging, which is precisely why the Government initiated a careful, evidence-based consultation process. Resolving these tensions requires genuine leadership – not hasty amendments. The current debate around generative AI and intellectual property has been misleadingly framed as David versus Goliath: tech giants exploiting small creative producers. The reality is far more nuanced. As one analysis put it: “The picture is significantly more complex, and could be equally cast as exploitative media and content aggregators seeking rent from technology developers for creative tools they neither developed nor envisaged.” We need policy based on facts, not oversimplified narratives.
Oliver Cameron, founder of Odyssey and a signatory to our letter, captured what’s truly at stake: “AI is an unprecedented technology, and I know the nuances aren’t always clear, but this is a once in a generation opportunity for the UK to genuinely lead the world, and for the individual creatives of the UK to be the biggest benefactors of its benefits.”
This moment demands vision, not reactive legislation. The Government’s consultation process must be allowed to run its course, producing policy that ensures Britain remains at the forefront of the AI revolution. The Lords should reject these amendments and allow proper, evidence-based policymaking to prevail.
