King’s Speech

Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

It is 65 years since the first Baroness and the first life Peer, Baroness Elliot of Harwood, made her maiden speech in this House—also on the fourth day of the debate on the gracious Speech. It is therefore a very auspicious day and my pleasure to congratulate the newest noble Baroness, Lady Owen, on her excellent maiden speech. Like those pioneering Baronesses 65 years ago, as my noble friend has just illustrated, she brings a fresh voice, new skills and energy that those who remember thinking dial-up internet and the Spice Girls were cutting edge are going to need as we navigate the future for science, technology, media and culture. I am sure that my noble friend has many years ahead of her in this House, but whether, like Baroness Elliot of Harwood, she votes against the Government and becomes known as “the despair of the Whips”, only time will tell. We welcome those who work hard and who show commitment. My noble friend does both. I therefore warmly welcome her today and look forward to her contributions in the years ahead.

In looking to the future, one of the challenges that we need to address with some urgency is the future of broadcasting, as we move into a multimedia, fragmented landscape. I too was delighted to find the long-awaited Media Bill in the gracious Speech. I draw your Lordships’ attention to my interests as set out in the register, for I am a board member of Creative Scotland, which includes Screen Scotland in its remit. Screen Scotland is a Scottish success story. In 2021, the screen sector contributed £627 million to Scotland’s economy and provided over 10,000 jobs. Scotland’s annual level of inward investment for film and high-end tv production doubled between 2012 and 2019, with nearly three times the growth rate experienced by the UK as a whole. But we have a finely balanced infrastructure in Scotland that has invested in development, production and skills. While the Media Bill is warmly welcomed, there are a few points that I want to highlight today that I trust we will clarify as the legislation progresses and which are important to get right so that we ensure that this finely balanced and successful industry continues to grow and thrive.

Our public sector broadcasters have successful homes in Scotland—Channel 4 and the BBC both operate from Glasgow, alongside the strongly performing STV, the main channel of which reaches 80% of Scots every month. Channel 4’s publisher-broadcaster model allows it to harness the power of the market to deliver a public service both on and off screen. This effective model has played a key role in supporting a large supply chain of UK production companies, many of them SMEs, most of them outside London and a great deal of them in Scotland. Channel 4’s role and economic importance to the production sector was the key defence against plans for its privatisation. However, by giving Channel 4 the power to produce without applying a cap on the amount of in-house content, the Government risks undermining the independent production and distribution sector at a time of very difficult market conditions.

We need to ensure that all our public sector broadcasters, including STV in Scotland, are given significant prominence—rather than just appropriate prominence—on internet-enabled TVs, smart TVs and streaming sticks. We cannot risk public service content becoming more difficult to access in the shift away from traditional linear TV broadcasting. It is with concern that I hear that public broadcasters such as STV are being asked to pay for prominence by big global networks such as Amazon. Figures of up to 30% of revenue have been quoted, which would wipe out the viability of PSBs in general but would be particularly crippling for smaller, regional companies such as STV.

Finally, the draft Bill stipulates that PSBs must make available a broad range of content which is

“likely to meet the needs and interests of as many different audiences as practicable”.

This is not just about journalism, yet other than news and current affairs the Bill makes reference only to provision of

“an appropriate range of genres”.

Removing existing specifications is of concern to providers of socially valuable but perhaps not so commercially valuable content—for example, science and technology, and, as the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle highlighted in her excellent maiden speech, religious broadcasters, and also those for minority languages such as Gaelic. At present, Gaelic is notable in the draft Bill entirely by the absence of any reference to it, unlike the Welsh language and S4C—something which MG Alba is extremely vexed about.

I trust that we will be able to address some of these issues as the Media Bill progresses. The Minister will not be at all surprised to hear that I will be looking to scrutinise it closely from a Scottish perspective, to ensure that public service content is easily accessible for all our nations’ communities and that we enable the Scottish screen industries to continue to thrive in a digital age.