Enterprise Act 2002 (Mergers Involving Newspaper Enterprises and Foreign Powers) Regulations 2025

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Geddes) (Con)]

My Lords, I must inform the House that if the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, is agreed to, I will not be able to call the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell of Beeston, for reasons of pre-emption. The Question I therefore have to put is that the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, be agreed to.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, although I take a different position on this from the noble Lord, Lord Fox, I too would like to welcome him back to his place, and I am pleased to see that he is making a good recovery from his accident.

Last year, the House protected and guaranteed press freedom by forcing the Government to change the law and put beyond doubt the risk of a foreign Government owning, controlling or influencing a British newspaper. None the less, we accepted that it would be necessary to allow limited exemptions to state-owned investment funds to ensure the industry’s financial viability. So the principle of what we are debating today is not new. Although I do not endorse how the noble Lord, Lord Fox, depicted some of the differences, we certainly cannot deny that the regulations before us today present a different model from the one we were promised over a year ago. The cap is, as we have heard, 15%, not 5%, and instead of distinguishing between different states’ investment funds so that only some are permitted, all are included but limited to passive investment only.

The other thing we should not ignore is how badly the Government have handled this whole process and made arriving at a solution far more complicated than it needs to be. I will come back to that in a moment, as well as raising some questions for the Minister to address when she comes to wind up.

The question I have grappled with is whether a 15% cap, restricted to passive investment only, still supports the much bigger principle of press freedom that we fought hard to protect. I have concluded that, with some safeguards, it does, and in reaching my view, I have not just considered what is best for the future of the Telegraph, I have very much taken account of how we need to safeguard the future of the whole news industry. Because, while we all care about protecting a free press, upholding that principle will serve little purpose if our news industry cannot survive, and its economic conditions are worsening.

Last year, when I brought forward my amendment, the Communications and Digital Committee was conducting a major inquiry into the future of news. It was plain to see then that the news industry was in jeopardy and its business models threatened like never before. The Minister has already outlined how the pace of technological change, as well as fierce and unfair competition from the tech sector, has eaten away at advertising revenue for many years. But the situation has accelerated since last year. The sharp decline in traffic to news websites from AI-generated news summaries via search pages or models such as ChatGPT, never mind the ongoing uncertainty over copyright law, which the House has debated many times in the last few months, presents an existential threat—I repeat that phrase which the Minister used, because I genuinely think that is real.

By the way, it is also worth pointing out that the major foreign tech platforms, which curate news stories based on algorithms and provide these AI summaries, are far more powerful and potent in shaping public opinion than any British newspaper. They have access to all the investment capital they need, without any constraints as to where they source their funds.

The news industry needs to invest heavily to compete with the tech sector, yet its routes to readers and revenue streams are shrinking rapidly. Subscription is not a viable model for all organisations, with the mid-market red-tops and local news at gravest risk. But, even though market consolidation is likely and conditions are bad, we can be confident that our action last year dealt with the threat of several British newspapers or news organisations ending up in the hands of foreign powers. Now, we need to make sure that the UK news industry itself can respond to the challenges it faces.

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[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean (Con)]

Before my noble friend leaves the point, would she just pick up on what the noble Lord, Lord Fox, said? She just described the plight of the Daily Telegraph and other newspapers, basically saying they are struggling to be viable. So why would a foreign Government pay a premium price to invest in them? Are we assuming that foreign Governments are profligate with their money and that they do not invest to get a return? The noble Lord’s point was that the reason why they are prepared to pay £500 million or whatever it is for the Daily Telegraph, when other people are prepared to pay only £300 million or whatever, is that they are buying influence.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

As my noble friend knows and as I have already described, we are now in a different situation from that which we were facing in March of last year, when there was a real prospect that a foreign Government could be the owner of a British newspaper. That matter has been dealt with. What we are dealing with now is state investment funds and, as I am going to come on to talk about, the question is whether the safeguards in place are sufficient.

I am grateful to Lisa Nandy for meeting me on several occasions over the past few months and I am pleased that, because of pressure from me and other noble Lords, the intolerable prospect of multiple foreign powers each owning 15% of a newspaper will be ruled out in the supplementary regulations that the department published in draft last week. Let us be absolutely clear: the 15% must be an aggregate cap. But how on earth that loophole went unnoticed is hard to understand and, once it was pointed out to them, it is baffling, as well as hugely regrettable, that the Government took two months to find a way to close it and chose to do so via additional regulations, instead of immediately withdrawing the regulations before us today and relaying a comprehensive set, so that we could tie all this up in one go before the Summer Recess. I would be grateful if the Minister could tell us why they could not do that. I know she has told us that they plan to lay the supplementary regs by the end of October, but I would like to know why it was not possible to do what I advised them to do back in May.

This foot-dragging and apparent incompetence have given rise to legitimate questions about who or what has really influenced the Government’s approach to this incredibly important matter. If the Government were acting only in the interests of the press industry, we would have sorted all this and resolved the Telegraph’s ownership long before now.

Although I can accept a 15% aggregate cap for state-owned investment, it will require rigorous government oversight of the boundaries that passive investors must not extend, and Parliament will need to be better equipped and more active in holding Ministers to account. In my view, it was frankly unacceptable for the Government to stay silent for 11 months on the matter of the secondary regulations and on what they were doing to safeguard the Telegraph’s future ownership during that time.

Noble Lords may have seen, and indeed have heard already from the Minister, that the supplementary regulations that are to follow these include a new notification requirement, meaning that any state-owned investor that acquires more than 5% must notify the Secretary of State within 14 days of that acquisition to be eligible for the exemption status. In my view, as a follow-on to that, the Secretary of State should be required to notify Parliament twice yearly about any or nil such notifications, together with information about action taken by her as a result. In future, we are going to need more information. Can the Minister ensure that this additional requirement of accountability to Parliament be added to the supplementary regulations the Government are now consulting on?

Although parliamentarians must respond to any failings by Ministers, when it comes to upholding press freedom, the most important line of defence is the newspaper proprietors. They are who and what must provide a strong shield between newsrooms and illegitimate pressure or demands from investors and advertisers. They know that not doing so undermines public trust in journalism, and that would damage the value of their investment.

It is not for Parliament to dictate how proprietors should discharge their responsibility, but in a media world that includes the presence of state-owned investors, clarity and some transparency about what proprietors are doing to protect their newspapers’ independence and editorial freedom becomes important. This is particularly so where proprietors are new to the newspaper industry or are private equity funds. Can the Minister tell us, therefore, what such demands the Government will make of the new Telegraph owners if and when that transaction is completed? Can she confirm that the Telegraph deal, once finalised, will be subject to detailed scrutiny by the CMA before it is completed?

If the noble Lord, Lord Fox, pushes his amendment to a Division, I will vote against it. Of course, as a former Leader of your Lordships’ House, I have a general aversion to this Chamber seeking to block legislation. Indeed, it was me, as Leader, who was the last Minister at that Dispatch Box defeated by this House on a piece of secondary legislation. But I am not against this amendment for any kind of constitutional-like reasons of convention or tradition, important though they are. Believe me, if I thought that supporting this amendment was the right thing to do, I would. But I do not.

While I respect those who are framing this debate as a battle over the future of press freedom, actually, if it is a battle about anything, it is over the future of a financially viable press. We do not just need our newspapers to be editorially independent; we need them to survive.

When it comes to the Telegraph, of course I would have loved someone serious to have come along with a consortium that could offer investment and honour a cap of 5%. Indeed, I would have loved it if this sorry saga, which has been so destabilising to the editorial team at that newspaper and has gone on for more than two years, could have been avoided altogether. But, as I have already argued, this is not just about the Telegraph; it affects all newspaper titles.

The regulations before us set the cap at 15%. As long as the Government follow through with the supplementary regulations to close that loophole and are prepared to give the necessary undertakings to ensure that that cap will be enforced, I am willing to accept them. Everyone else gets to fight another day; let us make sure the same applies to the Telegraph Group and the wider UK press industry.

Of course, if the noble Lord, Lord Fox, withdraws his amendment and supports mine instead, noble Lords can express their regret and record their dissatisfaction with how the Government have handled this matter by supporting my amendment.

[Baroness Boycott (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to support the Government on this measure. I think that 15% passive ownership is perfectly okay. I very much support a lot of what the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, said about the roles of proprietors. I have edited three national newspapers, so I know a lot about proprietors. Indeed, my last proprietor sold our newspaper to a man who had made his money out of Big Ones and Asian Babes. If that is considered a good way to pass things on, I would really question this.

A passive investment is perfectly okay and, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, said, the power and influence of a newspaper is absolutely about the proprietor. The proprietor will appoint an editor who is more or less in line with them. If this investment is passive, the Government have done something valuable because we have a lot of problems in our press and with various things. For instance, the Independent is highly linked financially to Saudi Arabia. I declare an interest as Geordie Greig, the editor, is a friend of mine. We have discussed this endlessly. He says that you cannot find any influence of Saudi Arabia within his newspaper, and I agree. The fact that it does a Saudi Arabian issue is its business. I am not saying I like it, but it is making a newspaper, which many of us read, available free at the point of delivery, and all sorts of good things that are otherwise going to disappear.

Rupert Murdoch is a very complicated proprietor. A lot of the stuff to do with phone hacking is still not resolved. It is very rich of the noble Lord, Lord Fox, to say that everything is going to fall apart if we get some investment in the Telegraph. Proprietors have politics and they want things to be done their way. The Government have a right, indeed, a duty, not only to make sure that this passive investment is kept that way, but to look at the whole question of proprietors. Obviously, they are going to want influence, so it is very important that the Government carry on if this is going to be about general press and, indeed, media regulation, which looks also at online regulation. Heaven knows where the money for all of that is coming from.

We need to have very firm standards here. In the meantime, I thoroughly support what the Government are proposing today, and a fatal amendment against it would be a real mistake.

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[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

If the Minister is going to come back to it, I will happily sit down, but I asked her a question about those new notification requirements in the draft regulations yet to be made, and whether the Government would consider my recommendation that the Secretary of State be required to notify Parliament on a twice-yearly basis if she receives any such notifications, and about the actions that she has taken as a result. Is she able to give me a response to that?

[Baroness Twycross (Lab)]

That is not in my speech, but I have an answer for the noble Baroness. We think that it is a reasonable suggestion. We need to work out how we can do that. There was a suggestion, for example, that it might require primary legislation. Obviously, that feels a little bit heavy-handed in terms of where we would want to get to. If the noble Baroness is content, I will come back to that. We think that it is a good point and it is worth doing, but I am not able to commit until we have clearer legal advice on how we could achieve that.

Going back to the other points, we have listened carefully to the concerns raised by noble Lords. I thank many noble Lords for the time that they have taken to meet me and the Secretary of State as well as officials. On the new regulations that we put out for consultation on 16 July, we have committed to change the legislation to eliminate entirely the risk that was identified by the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, and others, and to backdate this change to 13 March last year, which is the date on which the foreign state influence regime came into effect. I give noble Lords an absolute commitment that we will lay regulations in the autumn. I am not allowed to say that we will do it by the end of October; I am allowed to say that we will aim to do so by the end of October.

Some noble Lords queried the difference between sovereign wealth and government control. I want to be explicitly clear: for the avoidance of doubt, this is not state ownership. It is not about Governments owning or influencing our media. We do not want that to happen either. The term “state-owned investors” refers to a narrow group of organisations that will need to be different and distinct from the Government who sponsor them. Foreign Governments will not be allowed to hold a direct stake. Key is the requirement that they make or manage investments, including international investments, as their principal activity. I agree with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Udny-Lister, that this is not necessarily about influence. I give way—

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Tabled by

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

At end to insert “but that this House regrets that the draft Regulations do not distinguish between state investment funds that are directly or indirectly controlled by a foreign power; that the Secretary of State must be relied upon to intervene if a state investment fund does not act in accordance with the Regulations; and calls upon the Government to withdraw the draft Regulations and replace them before 15 September with Regulations which cap foreign state investment to a total of 15 per cent of the ownership of any newspaper, as opposed to 15 per cent per foreign power.”

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, I do not have an awful lot to add to what I said during the debate. I think I covered all the important points. As I said, I have accepted that an aggregate cap of 15% for state-owned investment funds is necessary to ensure the financial viability of the news industry, but with some safeguards. I am grateful to the Minister for her gracious acceptance of the criticisms that I and others have levelled about the Government’s handling of this. It was good of her to do that, and I appreciate it.

I take the Minister at her word about bringing back the supplementary regulations to deal with the loophole. I am disappointed that she is unable to give us a guarantee that it will be before the end of October, but I hear that she says that that is the Government’s intention. As I say that back to the Front Bench, I am looking at the business managers there: the Government Chief Whip and the Leader of the House. They will know from listening to this debate—although I know they were not in the Chamber—the strength of feeling among all noble Lords that the loophole that currently exists in these regulations must be closed.

The Minister acknowledged my requirement that the new notification requirements that will be reflected in the supplementary regulations should also include a requirement on the Secretary of State to report to Parliament. I know that she was not able to give me a guarantee that they will be reflected in the regulations, but I hope very much that they can be. I find it surprising that the Government think that might require primary legislation—I am a bit baffled by that—but I am grateful for her commitment to explore that requirement. I hope that, between now and the Government laying those regulations, we can discuss that further and get it properly nailed down.

I will not detain the House any further by pushing this regret amendment to a Division, because the noble Lord, Lord Fox, has already made it clear that the Liberal Democrats would not feel it necessary to support it—even though they have been so roundly defeated—but I am grateful to all noble Lords who spoke. Some important speeches were made, even those by colleagues who supported the fatal amendment. I think we all recognise that, as I said earlier, this is a very important matter. If there is one thing we all share, it is our commitment to a free press. Today is about ensuring that it can survive.

Baroness Stowell’s amendment to the Motion not moved.

Media Bill

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

I am not precisely sure of the figures. Certainly, the ownership of the press is a matter of record. I am not in a position to respond to that. It is perfectly true that it is a relatively minor group of people. I am not sure quite what that has to do with Section 40. We are talking about whether someone can make a complaint adequately and whether that regulator is independent. I ask the Committee to express the view that it is an independent regulator. There is a manifesto commitment. It is time that this provision is repealed. I understand from what I have read in an interview with the shadow Secretary of State that the Labour Party does not intend to amend the current system of press regulation. I look forward to hearing reassurance that this important Bill, including this provision, will be the subject of discussions in the wash-up.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, I will just speak briefly, because I know that we want to get to Front-Bench spokesmen. A lot of detailed arguments have been advanced by those who have tabled amendments in this group and I think they reflect the detailed nature of the measures proposed. I have listened to those arguments and also heard some of the examples of people who have had bad experiences of the media. I sympathise with a lot of what has been said but, when it comes to matters of principle—and I believe that freedom of the press is a matter of principle—I also have the view that there are some circles that cannot be squared.

It is worth us just remembering that, only a couple of months ago, when we were debating foreign power ownership, Lord Ashcroft did a poll which showed that two-thirds of British people do care about freedom of the press. I think we can all agree that people might not always love or approve of everything done in or by the British media, but the principle of a free press, free from government interference, is something that matters to them. I believe it is a principle that serves the public interest and therefore one that Parliament must uphold. For that reason, I cannot support any of the amendments in this group and I will support my noble friend the Minister in resisting them.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I begin by saying that, while I disagree with a great deal of what the noble Lord, Lord Black, said, I agree entirely with him in his view that this Bill is not the right place for discussing Section 40. I am enormously grateful for the best wishes for a speedy recovery that have been passed to my noble friend Lord McNally and I know that he is bitterly disappointed that he cannot be here. He would have been proposing a very simple way forward —that Clause 50 should not stand part of the Bill. The implication of that would, of course, have been that Section 40 would have continued to be on the statute book. But he would have gone a stage further and argued that it would be certainly the view of these Benches that it should not only be retained on the statute book but also should have been implemented.

There have been all sorts of debates about and criticisms of the proposal that came from Sir Brian Leveson. We should accept that a great debt needs to be paid to the noble Baroness, Lady Hollins, for the way in which she has forensically gone through many of those criticisms and debunked them. The one criticism that has not been debunked by her is that it is no longer necessary to have protection of the type that was proposed by Leveson because there is not really a problem now with what the press is doing. I think the noble Lord, Lord Watts, put it very clearly: there are still many examples of wrongdoing by the press. We need to be well aware of the implications of removing Section 40. There would be virtually no access to justice for victims of press wrongdoing. Ordinary people who find themselves defamed, have their privacy invaded or their grief intruded on by wealthy and powerful newspapers in search of higher circulation or clickbait will find themselves virtually helpless.

The noble Lord, Lord Hunt, may well be right that the degree of wrongdoing has reduced. That does not alter the fact that it still exists and there needs to be a mechanism to help in particular those who do not have deep pockets to ensure that they can get justice. Therefore, it requires the Government—were they to be continuing—to make very clear what their alternative is to provide the protection for those very people. There may not now be the opportunity, given the announcement about the forthcoming election.

We have heard many alternative solutions put forward in the various amendments before us today. There is not now time to go through all the detail. So, on these Benches, we are very clear that the best way forward now would be for the Government to accept the view of the noble Lord, Lord Black, that this is not the right place for a discussion of Section 40, that Section 40 should remain on the statute book and that a future Government—whichever party is in charge—should have an opportunity to discuss the right way forward to continue to provide the protection that is still going to be needed. I give way.

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Moved by

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston]

89: After Clause 51, insert the following new Clause—
“Review: impact of this Act on the ownership of UK broadcasters(1) Within one year of the passing of this Act, the Secretary of State must publish a review of the impact of provisions in this Act on the ownership of UK broadcasters, including their ownership by a foreign power.(2) The Secretary of State must consult such persons they consider appropriate in preparing the review under subsection (1).(3) The review under subsection (1) must be laid before both Houses of Parliament for debate.(4) A foreign power for these purposes of subsection (1) has the same meaning as in Section 70E of the Enterprise Act 2002 inserted by Schedule 6 of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment would require the Secretary of State to review of the impact of provisions in this Act on the ownership of UK broadcasters, including their ownership by a foreign power.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, I am pleased to move the final amendment to this Bill in Committee. Noble Lords will recall that we debated foreign government ownership of UK news at Second Reading, courtesy of my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s amendment to the Motion regretting that the issue was not in scope of this Bill.

However, it was possible to protect UK newspapers and news magazines from being owned, controlled or influenced by foreign powers via the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill. I was going to say that I very much hope that the Bill gets on to the state book swiftly, but now we know that we are entering wash-up, I am sure that it will be top of the list as it is very nearly there anyway. The scope of the DMCC Bill did not allow us to close any gap in the legal framework that could allow a foreign power to own, control or influence news websites and our broadcasters. During the debates on that Bill, my noble friend the Minister said that the Government would bring forward secondary legislation to deal with online news and that we could deal with broadcasters in this Media Bill.

Before I return to this Bill, I would be grateful if my noble friend, when he comes to wind up, could update us on when we should expect to see the regulations relating to online news. Clearly, I take account of the news of this afternoon but, none the less, are these regulations ready? Has the work been done so that they are ready to be brought forward, even if it is not possible to deal with them in the short time that we now have available? Can he also tell me whether the regulations will address the concerns that were raised some time ago about what are known as “online news creators”, who are not currently covered by any of Ofcom’s ownership regime. I am talking about the kind of organisations, usually platforms, that now have huge influence and control over the news online but do not qualify as owners of news organisations. If he could cover that as well, it would be useful.

Indeed, while he is at it, can my noble friend update us on the timing of the regulations for what we termed the “carve-out” for non-direct foreign state investors in newspapers, capped at 5%? These are the regulations that would bring into effect that bit of the new regime for newspaper ownership which addressed the important aspect of financing and the sustainable future of newspapers. That is also an important objective.

To go back to this Media Bill, regrettably, and contrary to what my noble friend had hoped, foreign power ownership of broadcasters is not in scope. Sadly, the limit of this amendment—which, as noble Lords will be able to spot, is drafted in a roundabout way to make it within scope—is to require the Secretary of State to do a review so that the gap in the legal framework can be closed. Of course, I acknowledged during the debates on the DMCC Bill, when broadcasters were raised, that quite a comprehensive media ownership regulatory regime is already in place. However, we need to put beyond doubt the risk that exists in relation to foreign powers. There is no clear block, just as we discovered there was not in relation to newspapers and news magazines.

When it comes to UK broadcast news channels, we should reflect on the fact that Comcast has committed to Sky News only until 2028; Paramount, the owner of Channel 5, is subject to ongoing speculation about its ownership; and, as we saw recently with News UK’s decision to move away from TalkTV, broadcast news is a very expensive business and most news channels are operating with losses. They are therefore vulnerable to being targeted by those with deep pockets who seek power and influence.

Since tabling this amendment, however, I have learned that Ofcom’s next scheduled review of the media ownership rules will be published in November this year. It would therefore be possible for foreign power ownership to form part of that review. As I understand it, however, for that to happen, the Secretary of State would have to issue instructions to Ofcom. When Ofcom’s CEO was before my committee last week, she was under the impression that the issue would be dealt with in the Media Bill, so there is some confusion out there as to how and when this matter will be dealt with. Of course, it does not need to be looked at via the media ownership rules; it could be addressed through an amendment to the Enterprise Act in the context of the mergers regime.

My main point, however, is that the risk of a foreign power owning, controlling or influencing our news channels, public service broadcasters, or indeed any broadcaster or platform such as Sky, is real and needs addressing as soon as possible. What I am looking for today is clarity and a commitment from the Minister on when and how the Government intend to do just that. While I know that it will not happen this side of a general election, it would be good to know whether the officials are already working on it, so that they can continue working on it during the general election campaign and be ready for Ministers to act on it after the general election takes place.

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Turning very briefly to the specific requirements of my noble friend’s amendment—

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

Before my noble friend moves on, would it not be appropriate, none the less, for Ofcom, when it does its media ownership rules review, to just consider again whether there are any weaknesses in the existing regime? He may be right that what is now in place for newspapers, or will soon be in place, may not be directly appropriate for broadcasters: a cut and paste may not be the right thing. Because it emerged only in the process of using the existing regime that there was a weakness in that regime, and we have had to take the steps that we have, it seems prudent for Ofcom to satisfy itself that there are no potential weaknesses in its ownership rules that ought to be addressed before they are put to the test.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

Perhaps the Minister will comment on whether this matter has been under active consideration, because I think that is important. There is a shared concern across the Chamber on this, and the noble Baroness has touched on a very good point.

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[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Thank you. Let me turn to the questions posed by my noble friend Baroness Stowell. She asked when we should expect to see the regulations relating to online news. We will shortly consult on expanding the existing media measures regime and the foreign state ownership provisions to include online news websites. That will enable us to make changes which ensure that online news, whether from an established newspaper group or an online publisher, is covered by the media regime and the new measures we are introducing for foreign state media ownership.

My noble friend is right about civil servants’ ability to carry on working even during the election period. Judging from the activity in my private office, I can certainly say that they are already springing into action on a number of fronts in the best traditions of the Civil Service. Work will of course continue as it always does, notwithstanding an election. This is an opportunity for me to thank the officials who have been working on the Bill and who will continue to work on these areas—rather hastily—over the next few days, but also more broadly on an ongoing basis in the way we have set out.

My noble friend mentioned the review of media ownership rules. I confirm that Ofcom can look at whatever it would like to in its review of the rules. The Secretary of State does not have to issue instructions to Ofcom to do so. I am happy to clarify that and, I hope, assist with some of the confusion which my noble friend has pointed out.

On the timing of regulations for what we termed the “carve-out”, as my noble friend knows, we are currently undertaking a consultation on proposed regulations to follow the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill to ensure that the drafting achieves our stated policy objectives in terms of the partial carve- out of small minority stakes held by sovereign wealth funds. The regulations will be finalised when the consultation concludes. We hope then to align the timeline for the introduction of these regulations with the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

I am grateful to both the noble Lords, Lord Foster and Lord Bassam, for their support for this amendment. Before I withdraw it, I want to check on a couple of things that my noble friend has just said.

On the media ownership rules review by Ofcom, my noble friend said that it is a matter for Ofcom and clarified that the Secretary of State does not need to issue an instruction. He emphasised that Ofcom is independent, and it is a matter for it. However, I am saying that Parliament wants it to look at the rules. I know that my erstwhile noble friend Lord Grade is listening, and it is fortuitous that the chairman of Ofcom is also a Member of your Lordships’ House. It would be reassuring to know that the Government, having listened to this debate today, will say to Ofcom that the media ownership rules review that it is about to conduct should look at foreign state ownership. I do not see how that in any way undermines or jeopardises its independence. I urge my noble friend to do that.

On the online news regulations and the work being done on that, the other issue was the category known as “online news creators”; that is, not just the news websites but this other, powerful force in news online. It does not necessarily involve a platform owning a news site but refers to just how much they are able to have an impact on the success, or otherwise, of other news organisations. It sounds like that is not part of what the officials are looking at. Perhaps the Minister can consider this and write to me. It would be helpful to get some clarity on that too.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am very happy to do that. In relation to Ofcom’s review, my noble friend draws a helpful distinction. It is clear from the debate—which I am sure the noble Lord, Lord Grade of Yarmouth, has heard—what Parliament is keen for Ofcom to do. There is a material difference between Parliament sending a message and government sending a message. Ofcom is an independent regulator. I am sure that it will heed what is said in Parliament, but I think it is better that it hears it from Parliament and is not instructed by the Government. It is an independent regulator, and I am sure the noble Lord will have heard the debate and feed it back to his colleagues.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend. I withdraw my amendment.

Amendment 89 withdrawn.

Media Bill

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)]

My Lords, I too have added my name to Amendment 9. As the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, said, a clear definition of the genres, rather than the vague “appropriate”, is necessary to ensure commissioning from the PSBs across a full range of programmes and proper oversight from Ofcom. As my noble friend Lord Foster mentioned, the Minister said earlier that the Bill has not removed Section 358 of the Communications Act, which requires Ofcom to collect information on principal genres, but it does not define what these genres are, so we return to the essential fact that, if not specified, Ofcom will not be required to monitor this crucial content in quantitative terms.

Specifying genres provides guarantees for a future we cannot predict. It does not take a lot of imagination to envisage the slippery slope. With the genres gone, there are two likely consequences. First, the commercial PSBs will seek to diminish their commitment and will lobby accordingly, exactly as ITV did with regional current affairs programmes. Secondly, Ofcom will have less discretion to hold them to account if it is under no obligation to monitor individual genres.

I return to the pre-legislative DCMS Committee report and to what the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, said so forcefully, that removing the requirement on commercial PSBs to provide specific genres for UK children’s content

“led to significant reductions in the production of original children’s TV, and we are concerned that the draft Media Bill’s removal of the specific reference to other genres will lead to similar reductions in content, particularly in the less commercially successful areas”.

That is from the committee’s report, but we all agree on it, I think.

I have one rather off-the-wall question, having listened to the very interesting debate about language: can we please find another word instead of “genre”? Maybe there is a Welsh, Gaelic or Cornish word that we could use instead.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, if I may contribute briefly to this debate, I would not go as far as saying that I support the amendment tabled by the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, but I think it raises some interesting questions. The point made by the noble Lord, Lord Foster, about the role of Parliament in making clear its expectations of Ofcom in discharging its responsibilities in regulating broadcasters is an important one and I will be very interested to hear more from my noble friend about the Government’s position on that.

One of my concerns more generally—I have raised it in the context of other Bills—is how we as parliamentarians can do our job properly in overseeing and properly holding regulators to account for the powers and responsibilities we give them through legislation. What the amendment really does, for me, is expose what I see as quite a strategic challenge, and I will be interested to hear what my noble friend the Minister says about this, because I find it a bit of a dilemma. On one hand, the vaguer the obligations on the public service broadcasters become, the harder it is to argue for the privileges they enjoy as public service broadcasters; on the other hand and by the same token, the more prescriptive the obligations on them are, the harder it becomes for them to compete in the modern media world. It gets to the heart of quite a dilemma. On that basis, I am very keen to listen to my noble friend, because I find this one of the knottiest and most difficult things to come to a hard and confident position on, in terms of the questions it raises. I look forward to what my noble friend says.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

When the Government first released Up Next, the White Paper that preceded the Bill, it made no reference to genres such as entertainment, drama, science and religion being removed from the remit, as they have been in this Bill. That is why this is an important question, and why we were very keen to add our name to the amendment from the noble Viscount. As other noble Lords have said, we have seen the effect—particularly with children—of what happens when we do not have specific mention of genres with which we can hold the regulator to account.

It is good that the public service broadcasters have issued reassurances that the new remit will not significantly impact on programming in the removed areas, but I agree with the noble Viscount that the addition of “appropriate range of genres” to the Bill is a small protection. We believe the removal of references to specific genres is still a matter of concern. We think that there is no guarantee, therefore, that Ofcom will be held to account to monitor. In many ways, this is what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds was talking about when he mentioned the matrix: how do we know that things have been delivered properly? That is why we support this amendment.

We do not propose that every genre would have to be addressed by every provider, but I hope the Minister can take on board what Amendment 9 proposes. Simplifying the remit is a worthwhile objective, but not if it is done at the cost of the kind of content that sets our public service broadcasters apart.

Telegraph Media Group Ltd: Acquisition

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Wednesday 1st May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, I will pick up on the theme of timescales. I am grateful to my noble friend for the answers he has given to the noble Lords, Lord Bassam and Lord McNally, because they cover some of the issues I wanted to ask about. Could my noble friend also tell us what the expectation is for the Government to bring forward the secondary legislation that covers the carve-out for legitimate indirect foreign state investors, such as sovereign wealth funds? That is important in providing clarity for prospective buyers. This has already been said, but it is worth saying again: in raising this, I am very conscious that, in meeting our essential objective of a sustainable future for our free press, we should ensure that there is a proper channel for inward investment into the media industry. If my noble friend could give an update, that would be helpful.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Many of the provisions we have made in the digital markets Bill require the Bill to receive Royal Assent, which I hope it will very soon, and they will come into force then. Once that has happened, we will be able to bring forward the measures we have committed to via secondary legislation. I will be writing in the coming days with a bit more information about that and about the consultation process on some of the points my noble friend raised, and we discussed in debates during the passage of the Bill. I will write to all noble Lords with further information about that very soon.

Media Bill

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 28th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Foster. I will come to my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s amendment and the important issue it raises in a moment. First, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on his efficient opening speech. I welcome this long-awaited Media Bill. The Communications and Digital Committee that I have the privilege of chairing has been calling for many of its measures for several years.

The Bill is in good shape, and I would not advocate for any substantial amendments. However, there are still questions about the consequences of its changes and how well the public service broadcasters are currently responding to their strategic challenges. As my noble friend the Minister said, my committee’s current inquiry is about the future of news and how the news industry is responding to strategic challenges, such as falling audience trust, impartiality in a world of evolving social divides and the impacts of tech platforms on news media business models. These are big challenges which are unlikely to solve themselves. I am sure that many of the points that are made today will also come up in our session with the public service broadcasters next week.

PSBs must serve all audiences across the United Kingdom with high-quality programming. The changes to the public service remit for TV are understandable and I hope they will provide the direction and flexibility to deliver the remit more efficiently. But such changes must not become an excuse for cutting back content that is more difficult to produce or addresses an area of market failure—the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, gave a powerful illustration of some of those genres. As our inquiry on the future of the BBC emphasised, PSBs fulfil a vital function in providing valuable content that would otherwise disappear, particularly as they face growing competition from international streaming giants. Although I am content with the changes, for Ofcom to be effective in ensuring the public interest is best served through them, the broadcasters must provide clarity on how they will interpret their responsibilities, including what they will not do, as well as what they must.

The prominence provisions to ensure content is properly carried and easy to find on various devices, including audio devices, are also crucial to the future of PSBs. I am particularly pleased that the measures for radio and smart speakers were included in the Bill; the world is changing fast, connected devices are becoming increasingly ubiquitous, and our regulations need to keep pace.

Radio is an area where there are legitimate concerns about the BBC’s proposals to spin out new digital stations from Radios 1, 2 and 3 that will compete with existing similar offerings from commercial stations. It comes at the same time as the BBC appears to be transitioning away from local radio to local websites, which struggling local news industry representatives say is impossible to compete with. Moreover, BBC local radio, at its best, is the ultimate example of distinctiveness in a crowded marketplace. These changes underscore the need—as called for by my committee—for the BBC to set out a refreshed strategic purpose and clarify what changes are necessary for it to continue delivering for all audiences so this can be used to inform decisions about its future funding.

More broadly, making changes to help our broadcasting sector thrive involves striking a balance. The structural changes in the market pose a growing challenge to all UK providers, and we should not be shy about championing and supporting things that make the UK’s broadcasting sector distinctive and internationally valued. The Bill has done a good job here; but, equally, it must not mean that PSB status can be taken for granted. The PSBs must continue to demonstrate the value of what they provide, and that includes doing a better job of serving all audiences across the country and showing that they are responding to people’s concerns, particularly around impartiality in news and other genres. There is more to do here, and we should continue to press for improvements because these organisations and institutions exist for the benefit of everyone.

Finally, I want to state my personal support for Clause 50 of the Bill, which repeals Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act.

I will turn at this point to my noble friend Lord Forsyth’s amendment and the matter of independent media. We are all aware of the issues around foreign Governments owning print or broadcast media. Personally, I agree with my noble friend: I have no problem with foreign businesses owning UK media; they are a large reason why we have a thriving media environment that is financially independent of government. But I do have principled concerns about ownership by foreign Governments or outfits under significant government control. That is materially different, and raises big questions about foreign policy, editorial independence and the relationship between an outlet’s owners and its coverage.

We need to have confidence in our media. Having foreign Governments own such a critical and sensitive part of our nation is not only unnecessary and troubling; if it was allowed to happen, it would completely undermine public confidence in our free press. At the moment, there are no automatic measures to prevent this, which does not seem right. My noble friend Lord Forsyth has argued that this Bill is the right vehicle to do something about this. In principle, I agree and I had assumed the same, but like my noble friend I have also had extensive discussions with the Public Bill Office, which has also advised me that such an amendment would be out of scope. I certainly look forward to my noble friend continuing his discussions with the Public Bill Office.

Instead, I have tabled an amendment to the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill. That amendment states that foreign Governments should not be allowed to buy our news media organisations unless the Secretary of State and relevant regulators have agreed the proposal and it has been confirmed by Parliament by the affirmative procedure. In other words, it cannot happen unless Parliament says so. That amendment, which I have tabled and has been co-signed by my noble friend Lord Forsyth and the noble Lords, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen and Lord Anderson of Ipswich, is a serious one, and I expect the Government to take it seriously. To that end, I ask my noble friend the Minister and his colleagues to meet me and my co-signatories as soon as possible, because it is due for debate on Report in less than two weeks, on Monday 11 March.

As to this Bill, I am very pleased it has made it this far. I support it and urge all colleagues to support its speedy passage through Parliament.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the previous speakers, who have been advocating for more emphasis and importance to be ascribed to Welsh and Scottish television. As a Cumbrian, we do not have any regional dialect television, but I live in hope.

I am also delighted to support the Bill, and simultaneously slightly depressed because we heard from a number of speakers that the previous Bill covering this was 20 years ago. Well, I was the Minister sitting where the Minister sits now on the Bill before that. On that occasion, I told your Lordships, who I do not think really believed me, that we were on the cusp of a revolution. We are now dealing with the effects of much of that revolutionary change. Everything has morphed and evolved, and all the hardware that we were talking about are now forms of computer.

There is a single universe of multiplicity, variables and variations behind the subject that we are discussing. It began with the moving image. I am glad to say that radio is now increasing its prominence, and I would never have guessed at the popularity of podcasts, with some of them so important to people who work in the Palace of Westminster.

Then, as now, there was a vigorous debate about public service broadcasting, and in an era of almost limitless quantities of information, it is just as important —arguably more important—given the volume of material that is available and washing around in the digital space. At the centre of it, a core of curated and moderate material is very important.

It is equally important that it is not from a single monopoly supplier, and it must be from independent organisations that are free from either domestic or foreign political control. I entirely agree with the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, about the control of newspapers by foreign Governments or their fronts. I assume that he would agree that, were that to go ahead, the Government would deserve to lose the next general election.

These matters underpin our civic society and freedoms and rightly sit at the heart of the Bill and our discussions. Since much of this is, in one way or another, paid for by all of us, it follows that access should be free to the user and made simple, and the material should be didactic and give some pleasure as well.

I feel like I am the Grinch at Christmas, but we are in a world where excessive prominence is given to sport. I enjoy sport and it has an important place in our society, but it seems all politicians go weak at the knees at the mention of it. There are a range of things behind paywalls that matter to people, and we need to recognise that. A system where people can come together over subjects that they value is part of the project’s raison d’être; we must recognise there are other things beyond sport.

When we look at the media from the perspective of this Chamber—and the noble Lord, Lord Mendoza, made this point—we sometimes forget that media is big global business, and that we must, as a nation, have our share of it, and the policies surrounding our media must support this and our media’s contribution to our national prosperity and global influence. This depends on having trained and skilled entrants into the industry, and we must recognise that, first, we have a good record in this country and, secondly, it is expensive, but it will be even more so if we do not get it right. Equally, we must make sure that the working capital of the media industry is not killed off by public parsimony, greed or confiscatory taxation. Outcomes are capable of being measured not only in strict financial terms.

In some ways, the digital world is a kind of Wild West, but it is neither the public bar nor simply a private domain. Private matters can go viral, and private point-to-point communication can become as publicly available as deliberately broadcast material. In this country, we have a limited jurisdiction over the interface between the virtual and territorial worlds, and we must find ways of dealing with often difficult, ever-changing problems for lawmakers, Governments and regulators.

Some of the problems with the material that we are dealing with and the extent of it—we have recently discussed in this House digital markets, this Bill, data protection and artificial intelligence—occur within the context of Brexit repatriating to this country a significant amount of regulation that was previously dealt with at European level, which is an unnoticed aspect of this. The effect is that all these things are connected, are complicated, move quickly and are always changing, and I agree with the noble Lords, Lord Russell and Lord Mendoza, that one of the great challenges we face as a nation in this sector is how can we properly legislate in a timely manner in a fast-changing world.

What is clear from the Bill is that much of this will be done by secondary legislation, but there is considerable dissatisfaction, which is entirely legitimate, with the way Parliament handles these things. Setting aside general constitutional principles, I wonder whether our system of scrutinising secondary legislation is doing this properly on a technical level for the individuals and commercial sectors affected. I also wonder—and I do not know if they will thank me for suggesting it, and I rank it no higher than a suggestion—whether, on a rolling basis, the Communications and Digital Committee could have a standing role in examining the substance of these things. I can see that the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, in front of me is sceptical about that.

Finally, I turn to Clause 50. I chaired a local newspaper group for 10 years and one of the characteristics of the newspaper industry, based on its traditions of investigative journalism that this House has always endorsed, is the great suspicion of the Government of the day. I am surprised by the apparent nonchalance of the national press about what looks like an attempt in the Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Bill to corrupt our legal system. The changes in this Bill will proceed; on the other hand, there is hard and soft law, and if the abuses that undoubtedly took place are going to be kept under control in future, it is important that the soft law—if that is the way we are going—deals with the problem. The difficulty is there is not sufficiently wide public confidence in the self-regulatory system that is in place. There still are abuses from the national newspapers, although not what we saw previously, but the confidence is not there, and they need to look at themselves to see if they think they can improve their standing in the wider world, which underpins their acceptability and long-term sustainability. Maybe a bit of blood on the carpet will help.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord, and I say to my noble friend on the Front Bench that we are still on an advisory speaking time. The noble Lord made a very important point about parliamentary oversight of the powers delegated or devolved to regulators through various pieces of legislation that have gone through Parliament in the last few months. The solution is to expand our existing Select Committee capacity to manage that and not to try and manage it through our existing capacity, because we do not have the relevant resources and we need more. I have tabled an amendment to the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill precisely to meet that objective, and I urge the noble Lord to support it when it is debated in a couple of weeks’ time.

[Lord Inglewood (Non-Afl)]

I was delighted to hear what the noble Baroness said. My remarks were clearly justified because they elicited that remark from her and got her on her feet to tell us all about it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

If I may, I will point the noble Lord to the answers we have given which set out some of the timelines; there are different timelines under the different Acts and the work that Ofcom and the Competition and Markets Authority do. I will set them out, rather than try to give them off the top of my head, but I have answered questions from this Dispatch Box before and will continue to do that and through Written Questions where possible.

I pointed my noble friend Lord Forsyth to the Enterprise Act and the National Security and Investment Act, which cover the actions available to the Secretary of State, including where she has concerns about media freedom and freedom of expression. As my noble friend indicated, his lively discussions with the Public Bill Office and his resorting to this regret amendment reflect that this is not a matter for this Bill, but, as the contribution from our noble friend Lady Stowell of Beeston showed, she has had more success with tabling an amendment to the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill. I would certainly encourage them both to continue their conversations with my noble friends Lord Camrose and Lord Offord of Garvel.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

I am grateful for what my noble friend has just said, but am I to take it from what he said to the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, that the DCMS is not going to engage in this matter at all? Am I to direct my questions to the noble Lords who are responsible for the DMCC Bill?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

As it falls to my noble friends Lord Camrose and Lord Offord to take that Bill through, it will be more fruitful to have the discussions with them—they will be having them on behalf of the whole Government. But, as my noble friend will appreciate, because my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has a quasi-judicial role, she is limited in what she can say, and so it limits what we can say. I am very happy to continue to answer questions on the process while my noble friends continue their discussions with my noble friends who are answering for the Government on the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill. I look forward to the discussions with my noble friend Lord Forsyth, who I hope will not press his regret amendment this evening. With that, I beg to move.

Telegraph Media Group: Proposed Sale to RedBird IMI

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his questions and welcome him to the ranks of Telegraph and Spectator readers—I hope he will enjoy what he sees in their pages. He will understand that the Secretary of State is acting in a quasi-judicial capacity following the provisions laid out in the Enterprise Act 2002. She is considering whether mergers raise media public interest concerns. She has issued public interest intervention notices, reflecting the concerns that she continues to have that there may be public interest considerations in this case: the

“accurate presentation of news; and … free expression of opinion”

as set out in Section 58 of the Enterprise Act, which are relevant to this planned acquisition. I hope the noble Lord will understand that, as she is acting in a quasi-judicial capacity, it is essential that she does not take into account, and that there be no perception that she has taken or is taking into account, any political or presentational considerations. I therefore find myself in the same position as my honourable friend Julia Lopez in another place yesterday in being limited in what I can say while that quasi-judicial process unfurls.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, alluded to, the strength of feeling against this deal in the House of Commons yesterday was widespread and from all quarters of that place, and I would be surprised if there was much support in this House for the deal going ahead. Notwithstanding what my noble friend said about the Secretary of State acting in a quasi-judicial capacity in considering this matter, could he none the less give us an indication of how soon the Secretary of State can reach her decision? It seems to most people that the reasons for objecting to this deal are fundamental and points of principle, not necessarily points of technicality, and it should not require a great deal of time for her to reach her decision.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The public interest intervention notices which the Secretary of State issued trigger the requirement for the Competition and Markets Authority to report to her on jurisdictional and competition matters and for Ofcom to report to her on the specified media public interest considerations. She has asked them to submit their reports by 9 am on 11 March 2024.

BBC: Funding

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, the convention in this House is to shout “Stowell”, but I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Vaizey for his support. The Communications and Digital Committee published a report on BBC future funding 18 months ago, in which we found that the status quo is not an option. Decisions about how to fund the BBC in the future are becoming increasingly urgent. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that, for this review to be meaningful, it is important that the BBC itself sets out its proposals for its role in the next 10 to 15 years and how it will change to fulfil that role? What is happening to meet that need as part of the Government’s efforts?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My noble friend and the other members of the committee she chairs do valuable work in scrutinising and adding to the thinking for both the BBC and the Government. The BBC is obviously independent, and it is for it to decide how to take forward the recommendations that the committee makes. However, we would like to understand the BBC’s perspectives and make sure that they are clearly understood and factored into the review and, ultimately, any decisions on the BBC’s funding model. We look forward to working closely with the BBC and my noble friend and her committee as we do that.

Royal Albert Hall Bill [HL]

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Thursday 19th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Viscount, Lord Chandos, and I echo his remarks about my noble friend Lord Harrington and the way he introduced this Second Reading debate. Like the noble Viscount and my noble friend, I too am a great admirer of the Royal Albert Hall in terms of its importance as a cultural and national institution. It has formed part of my own past too; in fact, only the second time I visited London was to go to the Royal Albert Hall as a teenager, so it is something of which I too have fond memories.

I also recognise, as my noble friend made clear, that he is one of the minority group of five appointed trustees and not one of the 18 majority seat-holders. So I reassure him that my criticisms are not directed at him—but I will have a question or two for him as a member of the hall’s trustee board.

I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Hodgson for ensuring that the debate is happening today and for his tireless pursuit of addressing the current shortcomings of governance at the Royal Albert Hall. I look forward to his and other speeches today, and any proposed remedies that they may wish to suggest that we look at during later stages.

I am not an opponent of the Bill, as I think my noble friend is categorising those of us speaking today, but it takes some audacity for the trustees of the Royal Albert Hall to submit a Bill requesting more decision-making powers without addressing their unacceptable conflicts of interest policy. To be clear, as the noble Viscount said, the fundamental problem with the Royal Albert Hall’s governance regime is that, contrary to standard charity law, its trustees can benefit privately from the decisions that they make about how the hall is run. Noble Lords familiar with charity law will spot immediately that this flies in the face of standard legal practice, which prevents private benefit for trustees. While the Royal Albert Hall’s set-up is perfectly legal, it is none the less unique.

To be fair, a combination of previous Acts of Parliament and the hall’s historic constitution does not render the situation illegal. But in today’s modern world—where public trust in institutions is low and expectations of accountability high; boxes and seats at the Royal Albert Hall are bought and sold for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of pounds; and trustees of a charity can sell their tickets for concerts at prices at least 10 times their face value—the situation at the Royal Albert Hall seems, to me at least, to be completely unacceptable.

I remind your Lordships that I chaired the Charity Commission from March 2018 to February 2021, but I have no interest to declare and no ongoing involvement in this case, so I speak today in a purely personal capacity. I will come back later to the general practice of private seat-holders and ticket sales at the hall, as there is some connection to some of the general points I want to make, but I must emphasise that what private seat-holders at the Royal Albert Hall do with their own private property is their business and not mine—I well understand that. My concern and focus are on the trustees of a charity, not those who are not responsible for the charity itself, and my concern is that the board of trustees has failed to modernise the hall’s governance to protect its interests and reputation as a charity.

The Charity Commission was engaged in this matter long before I was appointed its chair. At the time of my arrival in post, the then Attorney-General had recently given permission for the regulator to refer the matter to the charity tribunal to clarify some legal questions about its charitable status. That was necessary because the hall had resisted dealing with the trustees’ conflicts of interest. As my noble friend said, they have an existing policy; it would be unfair to say that there is no policy. There is a policy—it exists and is there for anybody to read on its website—but it is a policy, in the minds of the Charity Commission, that is inadequate for the conflicts that exist by virtue of their dual interest. Unfortunately, it seems that, threatened with a judicial review, the Attorney-General withdrew permission and requested that the Charity Commission revise the questions and resubmit its application for the Attorney-General’s approval again.

While that was ongoing, I held several meetings with the then president and his successor to see whether we could resolve the matter without referral to the courts. Originally, the Charity Commission proposed changing the composition of the board so that the majority of trustees were not seat-holders and to introduce a regime so that decisions that might benefit trustees could be made by a quorum of non-seat-holders. Unfortunately, that was rejected. Failing to get the hall’s agreement to that, the Charity Commission proposed a new formulation of members—but that too was rejected. The board of trustees has even, as I understand it, resisted making any internal changes to guarantee that seat-holding trustees cannot sell seat tickets for anything other than face value or via the hall’s ticket office during their time sitting on the board. These are simple, straightforward measures that, I think, most people would expect as reasonable of trustees responsible for a charity.

When it comes to the benefits that private seat-holders who are trustees gain during their time on the board, the annual report of the Royal Albert Hall does not even declare how many seats the trustees or their close family members own or the income that they have derived from them. Ultimately, referring the case to the tribunal seemed to be the only way to find a resolution; but, as noble Lords have already heard, successive Attorney-Generals dodged the decision until, eventually, one of them rejected the Charity Commission’s request.

The hall has always maintained that what it wanted was a new Act of Parliament to modernise its governance and that there were outstanding issues that needed to be addressed. That is clear, as my noble friend has laid out, in the Bill that it has put forward, but the Bill fails to address the fundamental flaw in its model and any of the issues that have been of concern to the Charity Commission for the last 13 years.

As I said, it is important not to conflate the private property rights of seat-holders with the responsibility of the charity’s trustees, but that is what the trustees’ failure to act is doing. Increasingly, artists are objecting to the sale of tickets to their concerts at inflated prices. The hall argues that there is a difference between sale and resale because of their private property rights, but that kind of argument does not wash with fans when the effect on their pockets between resale and sale is the same. It is also worth reminding ourselves that the BBC Proms, the world’s largest classical music festival, is funded by licence fee payers. Yet that does not deter the sale of seats at massively inflated prices and for all we know—we do not know—some of those inflated tickets may be being sold by seat-holding trustees. We just do not know.

Retaining charitable status is clearly important to the hall’s trustees. Losing it was a big concern if the matter of this conflict got as far as a tribunal. It is also worth reminding ourselves, as my noble friend said at the start, that the Royal Albert Hall has not always been a charity, but if that is what it wants to remain, the hall’s trustees need to make some choices. Now is the time for them to modernise their governance and bring it in line with the rest of those charities on the register. I think it is as simple as that.

Just before I close, I have two questions. I ask my noble friend the Minister whether the Government set out any expectations of the hall in terms of modernising its governance at the time of its £20 million recovery loan during Covid. If they did not take that opportunity then, could he explain why not? Could my noble friend Lord Harrington tell us when the board last discussed how to deal with the conflict of interests of its seat-holding trustees and why it chose not to put that in the Bill? Also, has there been any recent discussion about what internal changes trustees could make to their own policies to bring them in line—something as straightforward as saying that for the period that somebody sits on the board, they must resist, or be refused the option of, selling their tickets for anything other than at face value via the ticket office? Clearly, the procedure for this private Bill makes amendments difficult, but I very much hope that as it proceeds to its later stages, that is something we are able to secure.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

My Lords, I have never been in a debate where I have been complimented so much at the beginning of everyone’s speech and then had almost everything I said disagreed with afterwards. I thank noble Lords for their contributions. The noble Baroness, Lady Fraser, referred to the people who spoke as “gadflies”—I believe that was the expression. With due deference to my noble friend Lord Hodgson, Robin Hodgson and his merry men comes to mind, although I do not think he would quite articulate this Bill in terms of taking from the rich and giving to the poor. I will leave that for him to consider.

In all seriousness, the core point, as far as I can tell, is that the hall’s perspective of the conflict point—which has been brought up by nearly all speakers—is that the existing arrangements with the majority of what would be perceived as conflicted trustees are not really enough for a charity to progress itself in a charitable manner.

My noble friend Lady Stowell asked me when the conflict rules were last changed—that was in 2022—and what discussions there have been about conflicts. There is an independent conflicts committee, none of whose members are trustees. That meets routinely after every council meeting, so there is a process. I accept the argument that it may not be enough and that it does not deal with conflicts properly. That argument can be made, but it is not taken lightly.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

Just to clarify, that conflicts committee meets after the decisions have been made by members who are conflicted.

[Lord Harrington of Watford (Con)]

Other than the fact that ongoing conflicts are discussed—it is not the conflicts that have come out in that council meeting, it is future conflicts. However, I accept there is an argument. I would argue, of course, that it is nothing whatever to do with the Bill. It is an argument, and it was very well articulated by other noble Lords.

I was impressed, as ever, by my noble friend Lord Hodgson’s and other noble Lords’ screenshots—I do not know how to do them—and technical knowledge, and by my noble friend’s serious point about tickets for Ed Sheeran and others going for large amounts of money. However, that implies that the people who own those seats have done something wrong by selling them. They own them and they are selling the seats that belong to them on the market, however crazy the market might be. I am pleased to see present Sharon Hodgson, the chairman of the APPG on such matters. She and I have discussed viagogo, for example, but I do not believe that that issue is relevant because those people own those seats.

Online Safety Bill

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

3rd reading
Wednesday 6th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I am very surprised that the Minister’s speech did not accede to the recommendations from the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee, published last week, in the report we made after we were forced to meet during the Recess because of the Government’s failure with this Bill. From his private office, we want answers to what is set out in paragraphs 6 and 7:

“We urge the Minister to take the opportunity during the remaining stages of the Bill”—


which is today—

“to explain to the House”—

I will not read out the rest because it is quite clear. There are two issues—Henry VIII powers and skeleton legislation—and we require the Minister to accede to this report from a committee of the House.

I think that every member of the committee was present at the meeting on 29 August, the day after the bank holiday. We were forced to do that because the Government published amendments to Clauses 216 and 217 on 5 July, but they did not provide a delegated powers memorandum until 17 July, the date they were debated in this House. That prevented a committee of the House being able to report to the House on the issue of delegated powers. We are not interested in policy; all we are looking at is the delegated powers. We agreed that one of us would be here—as it is not a policy issue—to seek that the Minister responds to the recommendations of this committee of the House. I am very surprised that he has not done that.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, I am very concerned to hear the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Rooker. I certainly look forward to hearing what the Minister says in reply. I confess that I was not aware of the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Powers Committee’s report to which he referred, and I wish to make myself familiar with it. I hope that he gets a suitable response from the Minister when he comes to wind up.

I am very grateful to the Minister for the amendments he tabled to Clause 44—Amendments 1 and 2. As he said, they ensure that there is transparency in the way that the Secretary of State exercises her power to issue a direction to Ofcom over its codes of practice. I remind the House—I will not detain your Lordships for very long—that the Communications and Digital Select Committee, which I have the privilege to chair, was concerned with the original Clause 39 for three main reasons: first, as it stood, the Bill handed the Secretary of State unprecedented powers to direct the regulator on pretty much anything; secondly, those directions could be made without Parliament knowing; and, thirdly, the process of direction could involve a form of ping-pong between government and regulator that could go on indefinitely.

However, over the course of the Bill’s passage, and as a result of our debates, I am pleased to say that, taken as a package, the various amendments tabled by the Government—not just today but at earlier stages, including on Report—mean that our concerns have been met. The areas where the Secretary of State can issue a direction now follow the precedent set by the Communications Act 2003, and the test for issuing them is much higher. As of today, via these amendments, the directions must be published and laid before Parliament. That is critical and is what we asked for on Report. Also, via these amendments, if the Secretary of State has good reason not to publish—namely, if it could present a risk to national security—she will still be required to inform Parliament that the direction has been made and of the reasons for not publishing. Once the code is finalised and laid before Parliament for approval, Ofcom must publish what has changed as a result of the directions. I would have liked to have seen a further amendment limiting the number of exchanges, so that there is no danger of infinite ping-pong between government and regulator, but I am satisfied that, taken together, these amendments make the likelihood of that much lower, and the transparency we have achieved means that Parliament can intervene.

Finally, at the moment, the platforms and social media companies have a huge amount of unaccountable power. As I have said many times, for me, the Bill is about ensuring greater accountability to the public, but that cannot be achieved by simply shifting power from the platforms to a regulator. Proper accountability to the public means ensuring a proper balance of power between the corporations, the regulator, government and Parliament. The changes we have made to the Bill ensure the balance is now much better between government and the regulator. Where I still think we have work to do is on parliamentary oversight of the regulator, in which so much power is being invested. Parliamentary oversight is not a matter for legislation, but it is something we will need to return to. In the meantime, I once again thank the Minister and his officials for their engagement and for the amendments that have been made.

[Baroness Ritchie of Downpatrick (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for his engagement and for the amendments he has tabled at various stages throughout the passage of the Bill.

Amendment 15 provides a definition:

““age assurance” means age verification or age estimation”.

When the Minister winds up, could he provide details of the framework or timetable for its implementation? While we all respect that implementation must be delivered quickly, age verification provisions will be worthless unless there is swift enforcement action against those who transgress the Bill’s provisions. Will the Minister comment on enforcement and an implementation framework with direct reference to Amendment 15?

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[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, I shall ask my noble friend the Minister a question about encryption but, before I do, I will briefly make a couple of other points. First, I echo all the tributes paid around the House to those involved in this legislation. It is no secret that I would have preferred the Bill to be about only child safety, so I particularly congratulate the Government, and the various Members who focused their efforts in that area, on what has been achieved via the Bill.

That said, the Government should still consider other non-legislative measures, such as banning smartphones in schools and government guidance for parents on things such as the best age at which to allow their children to have their own smartphones. These may not be points for DCMS, but they are worth highlighting at this point, as the Bill leaves us, soon to become legislation.

As I said on Report, I remain concerned about the reintroduction of some protections for adults, in lieu of “legal but harmful”, without any corresponding amendments to reinforce to Ofcom that freedom of expression must be the top priority for adults. We now have to leave it to Ofcom and see what happens. I know that the current leadership is deeply conscious of its responsibilities.

On encryption, I was pleased to hear what my noble friend said when he responded to the debate at Third Reading. If he is saying that the technology not existing means that Clause 122 cannot be deployed, as it were, by Ofcom, does that mean that the oversight measures that currently exist would not be deployed? As my noble friend will recall, one of the areas that we were still concerned about in the context of encryption was that what was in the Bill did not mirror what exists for RIPA. I am not sure whether that means that, because Clause 122 has been parked, our oversight concerns have been parked too. It would be helpful if the Minister could clarify that.

In the meantime, in the absence of Clause 122, it is worth us all reinforcing again that we want the tech firms to co-operate fully with law enforcement, either because a user has alerted them to illegal activity or when law enforcement suspects criminal behaviour and seeks their help. In that latter context, it would be helpful to understand what the Minister has said and to know what oversight that might involve. I congratulate my noble friend on this marathon Bill, and I am sorry to have delayed its passing.

[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

My Lords, I will make a short contribution so that I do not disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Moylan; I will make a few direct and crunchy comments. First, I thank colleagues who participated in the debate for giving me a hearing, especially when I raised concerns about their proposals. It has been a constructive process, where we have been, as the Minister said, kicking the tyres, which is healthy in a legislature. It is better to do it now than to find faults when something has already become law.

I am in the unusual position of having worked on problems comparable to those we are now placing on Ofcom’s desk. I have enormous empathy for it and the hard work we are giving it. I do not think we should underestimate just how difficult this job is.

I want to thank the Minister for the additional clarification of how Ofcom will give orders to services that provide private communications. Following on from what the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, said, I think this is a challenging area. We want Ofcom to give orders where this is easy—for example, to an unencrypted service hosting child sexual abuse material. The technology can be deployed today and is uncontroversial, so it is important that we do not forget that.

I heard the Minister say that we do not want Ofcom to move so fast that it breaks encryption. It should be moving but it should be careful. Those are the fears that have been expressed outside: on the day that this becomes law, Ofcom will issue orders to services providing encrypted communications that they will not be able to accept and therefore they will leave the UK. I think I heard from the Minister today that this is not what we want Ofcom to do. At the same time, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell said, we are not expecting Ofcom to ease off; any online service should be doing everything technically possible and feasible to deal with abhorrent material.

I humbly offer three pieces of advice to Ofcom as we pass the baton to it. This is based on having made a lot of mistakes in the past. If I had been given this advice, I might have done a better job in my previous incarnation. First, you cannot overconsult; Ofcom should engage with all interested parties, including those who have talked to us throughout the process of the Bill. It should engage with them until it is sick of engaging with them and then it should engage some more. In particular, Ofcom should try to bring together diverse groups, so I hope it gets into a room the kind of organisations that would be cheering on the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, as well as those that would be cheering on the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. If Ofcom can bring them into the room, it has a chance of making some progress with its regulations.

Secondly, be transparent. The more information that Ofcom provides about what it is doing, the less space it will leave for people to make up things about what it is doing. I said this in the previous debate about the access request but it applies across the piece. We are starting to see some of this in the press. We are here saying that it is great that we now have a government regulator—independent but part of the UK state—overseeing online services. As soon as that happens, we will start to see the counterreaction of people being incredibly suspicious that part of the UK state is now overseeing their activity online. The best way to combat that is for Ofcom to be as transparent as possible.

Thirdly, explain the trade-offs you are making. This legislation necessarily involves trade-offs. I heard it again in the Minister’s opening remarks: we have indulged in a certain amount of cakeism. We love freedom of expression but we want the platforms to get rid of all the bad stuff. The rubber is going to hit the road once Ofcom has the powers and, in many cases, it will have to decide between one person’s freedom of expression and another’s harm. My advice is not to pretend that you can make both sides happy; you are going to disappoint someone. Be honest and frank about the trade-offs you have made. The legislation has lots of unresolved trade-offs in it because we are giving lots of conflicting instructions. As politicians, we can ride that out, but when Ofcom gets this and has to make real decisions, my advice would be to explain the trade-offs and be comfortable with the fact that some people will be unhappy. That is the only way it will manage to maintain confidence in the system. With that, I am pleased that the Bill has got to this stage and I have a huge amount of confidence in Ofcom to take this and make a success of it.

Online Safety Bill

Baroness Stowell of Beeston Excerpts

Report stage
Wednesday 19th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hope of Craighead (CB)]

My Lords, I offer my support to the amendment. I spent some time arguing in the retained EU law Bill for increased parliamentary scrutiny. My various amendments did not succeed but at the end of the day—on the final day of ping-pong—the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Callanan, gave certain assurances based on what is in Schedule 5 to that Act, as it now is, involving scrutiny through committees. So the basic scheme which my noble kinsman has proposed is one which has a certain amount of precedent—although it is not an exact precedent; what might have been the “Callanan rule” is still open to reconstruction as the “Parkinson rule”. I support the amendment in principle.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Clement-Jones, have already said, the Communications and Digital Select Committee did indeed recommend a new Joint Committee of both Houses to look specifically at the various different aspects of Ofcom’s implementation of what will be the Online Safety Act and ongoing regulation of digital matters. It is something I still have a lot of sympathy for. However, there has not been much appetite for such a Joint Committee at the other end of the Corridor. I do not necessarily think we should give up on that, and I will come back to that in a moment, but in place of that, I am not keen on what is proposed in Amendment 239, because my fear about how that is laid out is that it introduces something that appears a bit too burdensome and probably introduces too much delay in implementation.

To return to the bigger question, I think that we as parliamentarians need to reflect on our oversight of regulators, to which we are delegating significant new powers and requiring them to adopt a much more principles-based approach to regulation to cope with the fast pace of change in the technological world. We have to reflect on whether our current set-up is adequate for the way in which that is changing. What I have in mind is very much a strategic level of oversight, rather than scrutinising operational decisions, although, notwithstanding what the noble Lord has said, something specific in terms of implementation of the Bill and other new legislation is an area I would certainly wish to explore further.

The other aspect of this is making sure that our regulators keep pace too, not just with technology, and apply the new powers we give them in a way which meets our original intentions, but with the new political dynamics. Earlier today in your Lordships’ Chamber, there was a Question about how banks are dealing with political issues, and that raises questions about how the FCA is regulating the banking community. We must not forget that the Bill is about regulating content, and that makes it ever more sensitive. We need to keep reminding ourselves about this; it is very new and very different.

As has been acknowledged, there will continue to be a role for the Communications and Digital Select Committee, which I have the great privilege of chairing, in overseeing Ofcom. My noble friend Lord Grade and Dame Melanie Dawes appeared before us only a week ago. There is a role for the SIT Committee in the Commons; there is also probably some kind of ongoing role for the DCMS Select Committee in the Commons too, I am not sure. In a way, the fractured nature of that oversight makes it all the more critical that we join up a bit more. So I will take it upon myself to give this more thought and speak to the respective chairs of those committees in the other place, but I think that at some point we will need to consider, in some other fora, the way in which we are overseeing the work of regulators.

At some point, I think we will need to address the specific recommendations in the pre-legislative committee’s report, which were very much in line with what my own committee thought was right for the future of digital regulatory oversight, but on this occasion, I will not be supporting the specifics of Amendment 239.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, very briefly, I was pleased to see this, in whatever form it takes, because as we finish off the Bill, one thing that has come up consistently is that some of us have raised problems of potential unintended consequences, such as whether age gating will lead to a huge invasion of the privacy of adults rather than just narrowly protecting children, or whether the powers given to Ofcom will turn it into the most important and powerful regulator in the country, if not in Europe. In a highly complex Bill, is it possible for us to keep our eye on it a bit more than just by whingeing on the sidelines?

The noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, makes a very important point about the issue in relation to the FCA and banking. Nobody intended that to be the outcome of PEPs, for example, and nobody intended when they suggested encouraging banks to have values such as ESG or EDI—equality, diversity and inclusion—that that would lead to ordinary citizens of this country being threatened with having their banking turned off. It is too late to then retrospectively say, “That wasn’t what we ever intended”.

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[Baroness Harding of Winscombe (Con)]

My Lords, I promise to speak very briefly. I welcome the Government’s amendments. I particularly welcome that they appear to mirror partly some of the safeguards that are embedded in the Investigatory Powers Act 2016.

I have one question for my noble friend the Minister about the wording, “a skilled person”. I am worried that “a skilled person” is a very vague term. I have been taken all through the course of this Bill by the comparison with the Investigatory Powers Act and the need to think carefully about how we balance the importance of privacy with the imperative of protecting our children and being able to track down the most evil and wicked perpetrators online. That is very similar to the debates that we had here several years ago on the Investigatory Powers Act.

The IPA created the Technical Advisory Board. It is not a decision-making body. Its purpose is to advise the Investigatory Powers Commissioner and judicial commissioners on the impact of changing technology and the development of techniques to use investigatory powers while maintaining privacy. It is an expert panel constituted to advise the regulator—in this case, the judicial commissioner—specifically on technology interventions that must balance this really difficult trade-off between privacy and child protection. Why have we not followed the same recipe? Rather than having a skilled person, why would we not have a technology advisory panel of a similar standing where it is clear to all who the members are. Those members would be required to produce a regular report. It might not need to be as regular as the IPA one, but it would just take what the Government have already laid one step further towards institutionalising the independent check that is really important if these Ofcom powers were ever to be used.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, I added my name to some amendments on this issue in Committee. I have not done so on Report, not least because I have been so occupied with other things and have not had the time to focus on this. However, I remain concerned about this part of the Bill. I am sympathetic to my noble friend Lord Moylan’s Amendment 255, but listening to this debate and studying all the amendments in this group, I am a little confused and so have some simple questions.

First, I heard my noble friend the Minister say that the Government have no intention to require the platforms to carry out general monitoring, but is that now specific in any of the amendments that he has tabled? Regarding the amendments which would bring further safeguards around the oversight of Ofcom’s use of this power, like my noble friend Lady Harding, I have always been concerned that the oversight approach should be in line with that for the Investigatory Powers Act and could never understand why it was not in the original version of the Bill. Like her, I am pleased that the Government have tabled some amendments, but I am not yet convinced that they go far enough.

That leads me to the amendments that have been tabled by the noble Lords, Lord Stevenson and Lord Clement-Jones, and particularly that in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam. As his noble friend Lord Clement-Jones has added his name to it, perhaps he could answer my question when he gets up. Would the safeguards that are outlined there—the introduction of the Information Commissioner—meet the concerns of the big tech companies? Do we know whether it would meet their needs and therefore lead them not to feel it necessary to withdraw their services from the UK? I am keen to understand that.

There is another thing that might be of benefit for anyone listening to this debate who is not steeped in the detail of this Bill, and I look to any of those winding up to answer it—including my noble friend the Minister. Is this an end to end-to-end encryption? Is that what is happening in this Bill? Or is this about ensuring that what is already permissible in terms of the authorities being able to use their powers to go after suspected criminals is somehow codified in this Bill to make sure it has proper safeguards around it? That is still not clear. It would be very helpful to get that clarity from my noble friend, or others.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell. My noble friend has spoken very cogently to Amendment 258ZA, and I say in answer to the question posed by the noble Baroness that I do not think this is designed to make big tech companies content. What it is designed to do is bring this out into the open and make it contestable; to see whether or not privacy is being invaded in these circumstances. To that extent it airs the issues and goes quite a long way towards allaying the concerns of those 80 organisations that we have heard from.

I am not going to repeat all the arguments of my noble friend, but many noble Lords, not least on the opposite Benches, have taken us through some of the potential security and privacy concerns which were also raised by my noble friends, and other reasons for us on these Benches putting forward these amendments. We recognise those concerns and indeed we recognise concerns on both sides. We have all received briefs from the NSPCC and the IWF, but I do not believe that essentially what is being proposed here in our amendments, or indeed by the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, are designed in any way to prevent Ofcom doing its duty in relation to child sexual abuse and exploitation material in private messaging. We believe that review by the ICO to ensure that there is no invasion of privacy is a very useful mechanism.

We have all tried to find solutions and the Minister has put forward his stab at this with the skilled persons report. The trouble is, that does not go far enough, as the noble Baroness, Lady Stowell, said. Effectively, Ofcom can choose the skilled person and what the skilled person is asked to advise on. It is not necessarily comprehensive and that is essentially the major flaw.

As regards the amendments put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, it is interesting that the Equality and Human Rights Commission itself said:

“We are concerned by the extent and seriousness of CSEA content being shared online. But these proposed measures may be a disproportionate infringement on millions of individuals’ right to privacy where those individuals are not suspected of any wrongdoing”.


It goes on to say:

“We recommend that Ofcom should be required to apply to an independent judicial commissioner—as is the case for mass surveillance under the Investigatory Powers Act”.


I am sure that is the reason why the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, put forward his amendments; if he put them to a vote, we would follow and support. Otherwise, we will put our own amendments to the House.

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[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am grateful to noble Lords for their further scrutiny of this important but complex area, and for the engagement that we have had in the days running up to it as well. We know how child sexual exploitation and abuse offenders sadly exploit private channels, and the great danger that this poses, and we know how crucial these channels are for secure communication. That is why, where necessary and proportionate, and where all the safeguards are met, it is right that Ofcom can require companies to take all technically feasible measures to remove this vile and illegal content.

The government amendments in this group will go further to ensure that a notice is well informed and targeted and does not unduly restrict users’ rights. Privacy and safety are not mutually exclusive—we can and must have both. The safety of our children depends on it.

I make it clear again that the Bill does not require companies to break or weaken end-to-end encryption on their services. Ofcom can require the use of technology on an end-to-end encrypted service only when it is technically feasible and has been assessed as meeting minimum standards of accuracy. When deciding whether to issue a notice, Ofcom will engage in continual dialogue with the company and identify reasonable, technically feasible solutions to the issues identified. As I said in opening, it is right that we require technology companies to use their considerable resources and expertise to develop the best possible protections to keep children safe in encrypted environments. They are well placed to innovate to find solutions that protect both the privacy of users and the safety of children.

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

Just to be clear, am I right to understand my noble friend as saying that there is currently no technology that would be technically acceptable for tech companies to do what is being asked of them? Did he say that tech companies should be looking to develop the technology to do what may be required of them but that it is not currently available to them?

[Lord Moylan (Con)]

For clarification, if the answer to that is that the technology does not exist—which I believe is correct, although there are various snake oil salespeople out there claiming that it does, as the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, said—my noble friend seems to be saying that the providers and services should develop it. This seems rather circular, as the Bill says that they must adopt an approved technology, which suggests a technology that has been imposed on them. What if they cannot and still get such a notice? Is it possible that these powers will never be capable of being used, especially if they do not co-operate?