Your commercial news round-up: AI music, Lidl, house prices, bus fare cap

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Happy new year! Have you been keeping up with the commercial news over the holidays? The government has proposed changes to copyright law, which has been met with protest from the British music industry. Meanwhile, Lidl revealed a 7% boost in sales in the lead up to Christmas, Nationwide reported that house prices increased by 4.7% over 2024 and the single bus fare cap is set to rise by £1 next week. Check out this week’s commercial news round-up to find out more.

• The trade association for the British music industry has warned against changes to copyright law proposed by the government. A consultation, which was announced in early December 2024, suggested an exemption to copyright laws, which would give technology companies free reign to use music, books and media to train AI models. The proposed new rules would make media available unless the rights holders object under the “rights reservation system”. The trade association said that the consultation “risks taking away value” from British artists and rights holders. The union argued that an “opt out” option would be difficult to monitor, costly and time consuming. The British Phonographic Industry also cautioned that changes could affect the UK’s “cultural power”. Many songwriters, including Kate Bush and Sir Paul McCartney, have joined a petition, which states: “Unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted.”
  
  However, Chris Bryant, the technology and culture minister, explained that the consultation aims to “improve access to content by AI developers, whilst allowing rights holders to control how their content is used for AI training”. Bryant warned: “If we were to adopt too tight a regime based on proactive, explicit permission, the danger is that international developers would continue to train their models using UK content accessed overseas, but may not be able to deploy them in the UK… this could significantly disadvantage sectors across our economy, including the creative industries, and sweep the rug from underneath British AI developers.”
   
• Lidl has recorded a 7% increase in sales in the four weeks to Christmas Eve, compared with the same period last year. The supermarket made more than £1 billion during this period for the first time since it opened in the UK. The chain sold more than 16 million pigs in blankets, eight million stuffing balls and two million litres of gravy, and experienced its busiest day of the year on Monday 23 December. Other UK retailers are yet to publish their Christmas takings but shoppers had been expected to spend almost £23 million over the festive period. As Lidl moves closer to overtaking Morrisons to become the UK’s fifth biggest supermarket chain, Ryan McDonnell, chief executive of Lidl in the UK, said: “This year we were thrilled to welcome more customers than ever before. […] Looking ahead, we’re excited to build on our momentum, growing our presence across the country to deliver the highest quality at the best prices on the market.”
   
• House prices rose by 4.7% in 2024 but the housing market activity remained “remarkably resilient”, according to Nationwide. The bank’s figures show that the average home in the UK cost £269,426 at the end of December. Northern Ireland saw the fastest price growth, while values rose faster in Northern England compared to the south. Despite price growth, average costs remained below the peak of summer 2022. Looking ahead to 2025, housing experts have forecast more sales in the first few months of the year before the planned changes to stamp duty that are scheduled for April. As part of these changes, house buyers will need to pay stamp duty on properties priced over £125,000 – a decrease from the previous threshold of £250,000. Similarly, first-time buyers will be required to pay stamp duty on homes costing more than £300,000, down from the current £425,000 threshold. The Bank of England (BoE) is also expected to reduce interest rates throughout the year, which could lead to lenders cutting the cost of new fixed mortgage deals. UK Finance, the lenders’ trade body, has predicted a 10% rise in mortgage lending for 2025. However, the BoE expects to see a jump in payments for around 4.4 million mortgage holders, with repayments rising by around £146 per month.
   
• The single bus fare cap is set to increase from £2 to £3 on Wednesday 8 January. The previous cap was introduced by the Conservative government to help with the rising cost of living. The Department of Transport said that the change will help support travel in rural communities and towns where there’s heavy reliance on buses. Fares that remain below £3 without the cap are permitted to rise only in line with inflation. While buses are the most commonly-used form of public transport in the UK, bus mileage outside of London was around 25% lower in the year ending March 2024 compared to 2005. The fare cap was initially expected to be scrapped in Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ autumn budget. However, the policy had proved popular with passengers, according to Silviya Barrett from lobby group Campaign for Better Transport. Commenting on the upcoming change, Barrett said the increase is “significant” and “the government must now look for a long-term replacement for the scheme from next year to avoid any further rises”.

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