Fear that the Government will sell out publishers over AI to avoid heavier US tariffs - Yorkshire Post Letters

British newspapers including The Yorkshire Post rightly united in a campaign against Government proposals that might allow Artificial Intelligence firms to train their models on copyrighted material without payment or permission. Sadly, I fear proposals like this might be a sellout by our Government desperate to avoid heavier US tariffs.

US tech companies are lobbying heavily to have their way, to the detriment of British newspapers. A shocking feature is the way these companies are allowed to help their case by recruiting ex civil servants with inside knowledge of the system.

Sometimes the BBC gives interesting and even alarming information though unfortunately it sometimes does so on less popular channels. Relatively few listen to Radio 4's "Naked Week" but it can be most informative.

That programme found 24 or more ex-civil servants now working for major public relations and lobbying firms. A smaller player like TikTok employs four staff formerly at OFCOM and two from the Information Commissioners Office - people who were supposed to be the guardians of controls on tech companies. Meta employs at least seven ex-Civil Servants or those from OFCOM.

With access to such knowledge tech companies have an inside track to Government and it is entirely possible that a civil servant promised a lucrative job in tech lobbying might well alter his or her recommendations in the light of the job to come.

These appointments are supposed to be overseen by the Advisory Committee on Business Appointments, chaired until recently by the former Conservative Minister Lord Pickles.

He found departments weren't monitoring this "revolving door" between Government and private lobbyists and has described it as a scandal waiting to happen.

Lord Pickles has long called for penalties on ex-ministers and senior officials flouting the restrictions imposed by his committee, designed to prevent those with insider information from engaging in lobbying.

We like to think of the British Government and Civil Services relatively uncorrupt, but in the face of big money and lax safeguards there is scope for dangerous manipulation of information presented to Ministers - even if Ministers are not themselves complicit in lobbying,

The consequences could be damaging for British media but another triumph for American social media companies that already have too much power over our lives and data.