Queen’s Speech

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury Excerpts

Tuesday 18th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD) [V]]

I join in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Fullbrook, on her maiden speech.

The Government say they want to build back better— an aim we share, as we do levelling up—but I have a major concern, already mentioned by my noble friend Lord Paddick. There is a deafening silence about the creative and cultural sector, whose contribution to the economy was £111.7 billion pre pandemic. Its huge contribution to well-being is not so easily demonstrated through figures, but we all know it to be true. It is a sector whose very nature is about levelling—about the communality of humanity—and it is a sector for which Covid has been nothing less than catastrophic. While the Government have been generous with their rescue packages, there is much that has left a terrible legacy.

First, there is the effect on individuals. The vast majority of cultural workers are self-employed; they are the ones who fell through the gap and who have largely found themselves ineligible for the support on offer. This has led to a damaging migration of people from the creative workforce. The Government’s skills agenda must recognise this and, in particular, that those hardest hit have been from lower-income, diverse and disabled communities. Does the Minister not agree that addressing this is an essential part of levelling up?

Secondly, live events were inevitably particularly affected. Help is at hand—introduce a Government-backed insurance scheme, as has been done for TV and film. But the Secretary of State has provided a positively Catch-22 response to this request: no support until live events are possible again and it becomes clear, which it will, that they cannot happen because of insurance market failure. This is too late. Live events involve planning; it is not a matter of switch on, switch off. Does the noble Baroness not agree that an indemnity insurance scheme should be put in place right now? It is not expenditure but investment.

Then there is the major problem faced over touring. Here, the restrictions of Covid have been exacerbated by the fact that the creative sector was dealt a no-deal Brexit. Can the Minister report on progress towards achieving a bespoke visa waiver agreement with the EU and bilateral agreements with member states that do not offer cultural exemptions?

Returning to skills, the acquiring of a skill begins at school, but successive Conservative Governments consistently and persistently undervalue and undermine arts education, first via the EBacc, then via proposals to scrap the performing arts BTEC, and now HE and the announcement that there is to be a 50% funding cut to arts subjects. “STEM not STEAM” has been the mantra—totally ignoring the fact that there should not be a choice between arts and science: they are symbiotic. The success of the iPhone is as much about the design genius of the UK’s own Sir Jonathan Ive as the tech genius of Steve Jobs, yet this Government say that arts subjects are not strategic priorities. This is the same Government whose industrial strategy prizes the creative industries as a “priority sector”. This is baffling. Can the Minister explain the disconnect? Will she listen to the words of the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, last week that the cuts are “misguided and ill judged”?

Finally, among the most successful drivers of our world-beating creative sector are our PSBs, in particular the BBC. PSBs held us together during the pandemic, providing news that people could trust and, in the case of the BBC, essential support for home schooling. What the PSBs need is prominence extended to all digital TV platforms. What they do not need is an underfunded BBC and a privatised Channel 4. This is a world-leading sector that we have. Global Britain needs it—so support it, do not unravel it. Culture, creativity and our public service broadcasters will be central to getting us through this next period, both the recovery and the renewal.

Leveson Inquiry

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

The noble Lord is quite right that Leveson has a very broad remit. However, it is a vehicle for all manner of evidence to be brought into the open and fully discussed. It appears to be doing an extremely thorough job on that basis. The Secretary of State is very well aware that he needs to answer to Parliament, which is one reason why he gave the Statement today followed by a full set of answers to questions. That will continue to be the position. We are not simply pushing these questions to the back of Leveson, but once you have set up an inquiry of this nature, you might also ask—and indeed Lord Justice Leveson has also asked, having set up the inquiry—that it be allowed to proceed.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury]

I thank my noble friend for repeating the Statement. As so often, I find myself echoing my noble friend Lord Fowler. Does the Minister agree that this affair demonstrates that there should be safeguards to ensure that no one organisation should be in a position to own a disproportionate share of the British media—which, by the way, is possible thanks only to the Communications Act 2003 and despite prescient warnings by my noble friend Lord McNally and the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam—and finally, as my noble friend said, that decisions on media mergers should not be taken by politicians but openly and transparently by an appropriate and independent regulatory body?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I entirely agree with my noble friend. As I mentioned in my reply to my noble friend Lord Fowler, these measures are under way. We are not intending to delay taking this forward. We recognise that in the past the Murdoch empire was an enormously powerful factor for both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party. The coalition Government have now set up a thorough inquiry into those matters, which we hope will come up with some really good answers.

Crime: Reoffending

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury Excerpts

Thursday 1st March 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether a reduction of reoffending is one of their key priorities.

[The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)]

My Lords, the Government have made it clear since first taking office that we are committed to breaking the cycle of crime and reducing reoffending. We set out our proposals on how we will achieve that in the sentencing and rehabilitation Green Paper, Breaking the Cycle, and in subsequent government proposals and initiatives.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury]

I thank my noble friend for that Answer and declare an interest as I am involved with the Rehabilitation for Addicted Prisoners Trust. Given that we know that treating drug and alcohol dependence is one of the most effective ways of reducing reoffending, what is my noble friend’s department doing to ensure that spending on drug recovery programmes will remain at the levels we have seen in recent years once responsibility for this funding moves to the Department of Health in the form of Public Health England, and that that will not result in a decreased emphasis on these vital programmes?

[Lord McNally]

My noble friend raises a problem that always emerges: if you go for localism, do you lose the central control on an issue? She is quite right that spending, or the commissioning of drug treatment services in the new public health system, will move to local authorities. However, the public health grant will be ring-fenced and the public health outcomes framework will include specific indicators on the completion of drug treatment and reoffending to make sure that my noble friend’s fear, that somehow there will be no spending on drugs programmes if left at the local level, will be averted. It is always a risk that localism will make its own decisions, but I hope that the priorities in funding and the checks on how it is spent will mean that her fears are unfounded.

Defamation Bill [HL]

Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury Excerpts

Friday 9th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury]

My Lords, I start by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, on her admirable maiden speech and my old friend the noble Lord, Lord Willis, on his contribution. His wit and erudition, just demonstrated, will add so much to this House. I will speak briefly. Indeed, as noble Lords can probably hear, it is hard to speak at all. It is only because of the huge esteem in which I hold my noble friend Lord Lester—from today I shall think of him as the Earl of Leicester—and his Bill that I speak at all. I will also speak specifically about the effect of our libel laws on our journalists, writers and broadcasters, and the need for this Bill to address the unacceptable state of affairs that presently exists.

The Bill is welcomed not just by myself but a long list of stakeholders, as mentioned earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh. Organisations such as the BBC, Index on Censorship, Channel 4, English PEN—indeed anyone who is passionate about the need to place more protection on the right to freedom of speech—must support the aims of this Bill.

The journalist Nick Cohen, who took such an active part in the Simon Singh case, said:

“It is intolerable for lawyers to start policing science”.

It is equally intolerable for lawyers’ threats to stifle the ability of investigative journalists to ply their trade. Faced with the threat of libel action, which could result in crippling costs, all too often the only choice is to present a watered-down and hence weakened case, or repulsed by that idea, not to publish or broadcast at all.

Only recently, Channel 4 faced a libel case in which it was alleged by a participant in a documentary that bits of it were faked. Despite the fact that he now acknowledges that the programme was not faked, Channel 4 will not recover any of its costs, which came to a staggering £1.7 million. How much better would it have been had that money been invested in our creative talent.

At least in that case, the programme saw the light of day. One of the reasons that Robert Maxwell—mentioned earlier by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy—got away for so long with his fraudulent behaviour was his extremely successful use of the threat of libel. I have personal experience of that. I remember when I worked on “Panorama” at the end of the 1980s, that there was not a single weekly ideas meeting when “we must do Maxwell” did not come up. One investigative journalist had a good supply of ammunition, noble Lords will not be surprised to hear, but it never got past a tempted but ultimately cautious programme editor.

Maxwell died in 1991, but nearly 20 years on, the threat of libel sees documentary strands such as “Panorama” being told by inhouse lawyers to remove sections of what they had intended to broadcast or cancel whole programmes because they are not legally clearable. Most recently—and I emphasise that I am not comparing subjects—“Panorama” shelved a whole documentary programme about the noble Lord, Lord Ashcroft, due to the threat of legal action.

Our draconian libel laws are being exploited by those who come from abroad and from those who come from countries with no freedom of expression. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Hoffmann, mentioned an individual who, it has been alleged in various publications, has given money to al-Qaeda. Using British libel lawyers, he has launched no fewer than 33 suits. Furthermore, Cambridge University Press has been obliged to pulp one of its books rather than face a libel action in the British courts. To quote Denis MacShane MP:

“What is happening when Cambridge University Press … one of the flowers of British publishing for centuries, has to pulp a book because British courts will not uphold freedom of expression?”.—[Official Report, Commons, 17/12/08; col. WH72.]

The Bill is not by any stretch of the imagination a lone voice, as we have heard, in what it is asking. There are calls on all sides and from many different quarters for the need for Britain’s libel laws to be radically shaken up. Promises to do just that were in all three main parties’ manifestos and the coalition agreement contained a pledge to implement a full programme of measures to roll back state intrusion and review existing libel laws to protect freedom of speech. My noble friend’s Bill is a perfect opportunity to begin such a necessary and important process, and I sincerely hope that it will not be missed.

In the spirit of the coalition, I end with a quote from Edmund Burke. He said:

“It is not what a lawyer tells me I may do; but what humanity, reason, and justice tell me I ought to do”.