Video Recordings Act 2010

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Rawlings]

The noble Lord is absolutely right that it has taken quite a long time, and it has done so because DCMS officials started work on the paper with no proper evidence base. For any videos and DVDs that might be affected by any change in the current set-up, an assessment is vital for proper and proportionate consideration of options. The noble Lord will be pleased to know that we have been working with a number of industry sources and looking into other sources of information and research to try to obtain the evidence as soon as possible.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, although we are all obviously sorry that there has been a delay, does the Minister welcome the best practice that is already being followed by those companies which are using the BBFC’s online classification services to protect children and empower parents? Those companies include not only organisations such as Paramount, Universal and Tesco, which perhaps we would expect, but also companies that we have heard rather less of such as Harmony and Darker Enterprises.

[Baroness Rawlings]

The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, has been involved with this matter for quite a long time and participated in the Digital Economy Act. It is important to note that any video that benefits from an exemption, whether it is music, sport, religious or a documentary, loses the exemption if it contains material that is sexual, grossly violent or criminal.