Events Research Programme

Damian Collins Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Huddleston]

We will be announcing phase 3 of the culture recovery fund very shortly, and I am sure that it will be received as positively across the whole House as the previous phases. It is important to be very clear that we are unable to get to step 4 of the road map not because of the delay in the release of this document but because of increases in infection rates, concerns about the variants of concern, and the inability to meet the tests required to get to phase 4. That is why we are not able to open all the events programmes as we would like to at this moment in time. It is responsible for us to continue with the events research programme so as to be in the best possible position to take full advantage when we are able to open.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con) [V]]

I welcome the work that has been done through the events research programme. However, does my hon. Friend agree that even when step 4 is reached, the events sector will need some confidence that it can plan for future events knowing that they are either considered to be safe because of the work of the events research programme or because there is sufficient insurance in place to protect them in case new restrictions come, and that without that confidence it will be very difficult for events organisations to plan for the future?

[Nigel Huddleston]

My hon. Friend, who has a lot of credibility and experience in this area, makes absolutely the right points. Even when we can open, there will be a need to build confidence in the public arena, and some of these sectors have been hit so hard that it will take several years for them to recover. We will be continuing to support them through the next phase of the CRF and other support measures. We will publish guidance along with the report that will also help these sectors to open up.

Football Governance

Damian Collins Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con) [V]]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Elliott. Football governance has been debated in Parliament and has been the subject of Parliamentary and Government reports over the last 10 years. What all those reports have in common is a consensus that there needs to be more independent regulation and supervision of what happens within football, to stop bad things happening.

Many financial failures could have been resolved before they happened if there had been proper independent scrutiny of the finances of the clubs. Issues around ownership could be resolved if there were a fit-and-proper person test that could be administered against people when they buy clubs or during their management of those clubs. Time and again, we have seen that no such effective operation exists and that the football leagues simply do not have the resources to enforce that. Too often, when a club gets into difficulties, fans speak up, but find the football authorities can do nothing to help and, when they turn to Parliament, we do not have any legislative power to intervene.

If the fan-led review, the latest football governance review, is to be meaningful in its outcome, it needs to recommend an independent regulatory body that can oversee the financial management of clubs, have the power to intervene when things go wrong, see accounts to ensure clubs are spending within the limits of their rules and not overspending, and ensure that clubs are being run in a sustainable way, so that they are there for the future. These are the basic common failings. Why do they exist? Because football does not have an effective governing body in this country. It is run by a combination of vested interests that do not always agree with each other and at league level it is run by a rule book that is set and voted on by the chairs of the clubs themselves. Historically, they have not been interested in independent scrutiny of what they do.

Football clubs are unlike any other business. They deserve to be run in a sustainable way. The community should expect that they will be there for future generations to enjoy. They are cultural assets, really. Yes, they can be run in a commercial way and they can be competitive, but they have to be run in a sustainable way as well.

In other industries, such as broadcasting, we have regulators in place with certain special powers that mean they can intervene and even withdraw the licence to broadcast, should they need to. Such a regulator in this country for football would similarly need a golden share. I believe it should be independent of all the existing football bodies, including the FA, have a strict and limited remit regarding the financial performance and governance of clubs, and have very clear powers to intervene and even to put clubs into a form of sporting administration if things go wrong.

The review should also consider other aspects of commercial pressure in football that can have a detrimental impact, particularly the relationship between agents, clubs and players, where agents can end up representing all three parties in a transaction. It is difficult to break that model when clubs want to sign players. These are other financial issues that a regulator could look at. This is a reform that has been long needed to make football sustainable.

Safety of Journalists

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

This is an incredibly important debate. I am grateful to the Minister for leading it for the Government. He is quite right to say that we had a similar debate in Westminster Hall just before the recess, but it is an important enough subject to demand scrutiny again.

I was interested to note from press reports this morning that in Cornwall today the Prime Minister and the President of the United States will have their first meeting together and on the agenda is a reaffirmation of the principles behind the Atlantic charter, signed 80 years ago by Winston Churchill and President Franklin Roosevelt. That charter was based on what was known as the four freedoms: freedom from want, freedom of worship, freedom of speech and freedom from fear. This debate is about freedom from fear in part, because there are journalists around the world who face direct persecution or who have been murdered because of the investigations they have pursued, which have threatened the positions of powerful people in those countries. We are seeing authoritarian Governments around the world with greater boldness deliberately persecuting and targeting people who are critical of their regimes.

Yes, this debate is in part about freedom from fear, but it is also about freedom of speech, because the persecution of journalists is taking place. That intimidation, the deliberate closing down of an opposition voice, and the example that is designed to send to other people are about suppressing speech and silencing criticism, and we must be increasingly concerned about the boldness with which many authoritarian Governments around the world act.

As the hon. Member for Leeds North West (Alex Sobel) rightly pointed out in his remarks, strategic lawsuits against journalists are something that is happening in this country today, including to journalists such as Catherine Belton, who has faced multiple lawsuits from Russian oligarchs because of a book she has written. Those lawsuits may ultimately fail, but they are principally designed to tie down a journalist in potentially expensive litigation for years and to dissuade others from seeking to criticise or investigate powerful people for the same reason: because they know their work will not be completed and they will be frustrated and exhausted in the courts for many years.

We see that again with increasing boldness in authoritarian countries around the world, and particularly in the Philippines, where the campaigning journalist Maria Ressa, chief executive of the Rappler news organisation, has faced repeated lawsuits from the Government of that country, led by the president. That includes cases where the law has retrospectively been changed and the Government seek to enforce it against the journalist for doing something that was not an offence at the time and, many would argue, is not an offence anyway. We are seeing that happen increasingly, too.

The suppression of speech in the digital age can also be conducted highly effectively through social media and online, with people creating hate mobs to crowd out the legitimate voice of people speaking with passion and concern about particular issues. I was pleased that my right hon. Friend the Minister mentioned the work that the Government have done in this regard on protecting journalists. I will be very interested to see where the Government come out with regard to the action plan for the safety of journalists in the context of the online safety Bill. It is incredibly important that journalists are allowed to do their work.

The active denigration by some politicians of the mainstream media is also an attack on democracy and democratic principles. To run down our institutions, including our great media institutions, is also an attack on speech and an attack on our institutions as a democracy. As we all know, there is far more to being a democracy than having elections. The ability to challenge, debate and question those in authority is vital, and it is vitally important for citizens when making informed decisions in elections.

I welcome this debate today, and I welcome the combined efforts we will take to ensure the freedom of journalism, the safety of journalism and the freedom of speech in our open democracy.

World Press Freedom Day

Damian Collins Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Westminster Hall

[Ms Nusrat Ghani (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that there have been some changes to normal practice in order to support the new hybrid arrangements. Members participating physically and virtually must arrive for the start of Westminster Hall debates and are expected to remain for the entire debate. I also remind Members participating virtually that they are visible at all times, both to each other and to us in the Boothroyd Room. If Members attending virtually have any technical problems, they should email the Westminster Hall Clerks at their email address, which is [e-mail]. Members attending physically should clean their spaces before they use them and as they leave the room. I also remind Members who are here with me physically that Mr Speaker has stated that masks should be worn in Westminster Hall debates, unless the Member is contributing.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered World Press Freedom Day 2021.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Ghani. World Press Freedom Day, which falls on 3 May, is a reminder to Governments of the need to respect their commitment to press freedom; a day of reflection among media professionals about issues of press freedom and professional ethics; and a day of support for media workers who are targets for the restraint or abolition of press freedom. It is also a day of remembrance for those journalists who lost their lives in the pursuit of a story.

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for having granted time for this debate today, which has been the first opportunity to hold it since the start of the new parliamentary Session. I also declare my interest as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on media freedom, which is supported by Reporters Without Borders.

This debate comes in the wake of last Sunday’s hijacking of a civilian aircraft by the Belarusian Government in order to kidnap the journalist Roman Protasevich, an outspoken critic of President Lukashenko’s illegitimate and oppressive regime. This is one of the most audacious attacks on press freedom we have seen, but it is just another example of the increasingly brazen way in which Governments seek to oppress legitimate journalism with increasing impunity.

In 2018, we saw the murder of Jamal Khashoggi by agents of the Saudi Arabian Government in the grounds of their own consulate in Istanbul. In 2017, Daphne Caruana Galizia, a campaigning journalist who investigated corruption and organised crime and delved into visa-for-sale schemes, energy deals and Caribbean offshore companies set up for Maltese politicians, was assassinated by a car bomb planted by a professional hitman.

According to Reporters Without Borders, 50 journalists were killed around the world last year, and a further 13 have already been killed in 2021. These include Sadida Sadat and Shahnaz Roufi in Afghanistan, who worked for Enikass TV’s dubbing service and were gunned down in an alley in Jalalabad as they were walking home at around 4.30 pm. Their colleague Mursal Waheedi was shot in the rickshaw she had taken to go home. All three women were aged 20 or 21. Furthermore, in 2020, 387 journalists and media workers were held in detention: 117 of those were in China, and 34 were in the next highest country, Saudi Arabia. In the Philippines, in the five years since President Rodrigo Duterte came to power, 16 journalists have been killed in connection with their work, the latest of whom was beaten to death in May 2020.

Media freedom is being threatened not just by violent physical attack, but by the use of dubious legal procedures to intimidate or close down journalists. In the Philippines, Maria Ressa, a journalist and the chief executive of the digital news service Rappler, has been under repeated legal attack since the election of Duterte. Rappler has tirelessly investigated human rights violations and the country’s increasingly authoritarian Government, and Ressa, whom I am proud to serve alongside on the Real Facebook Oversight Board, currently faces 10 open charges against her, relating to nine separate cases. Some of those have been brought retrospectively through new laws created since the alleged offences occurred.

In this country, too, our legal system is being used to intimidate legitimate journalism through lawfare—the misuse of legal systems and principles against an opponent by seeking to damage or delegitimise them, wasting their time and money—and what is known as SLAPP, a strategic lawsuit against public participation. Such actions are intended to censor, intimidate and silence critics by burdening them with the cost of legal defence until they abandon their criticism of the opponent. The initiator of such a lawsuit does not usually expect to win, but to wear down the defendant until they succumb to fear, intimidation and mounting legal costs or exhaustion, and cease their otherwise legitimate criticism. A current example is the journalist Catherine Belton, author of “Putin’s People”, which was published last year by HarperCollins, who is facing lawsuits, along with her publisher, filed in London by four Russian businessmen, including Roman Abramovich.

Mr Abramovich has also recently forced apologies from British newspapers—The Times and The Daily Mail—for stating that he gave a yacht, Le Grand Bleu, to Eugene Shvidler, a Russian-American oil billionaire, despite the fact that Mr Shvidler had stated this himself in English court proceedings on 14 November, 2011, during the hearing of the Berezovsky v. Abramovich case. I also understand that in 2019, Mr Abramovich’s lawyers were also successful in preventing the broadcast of a BBC “Panorama” investigation. It is interesting that Mr Abramovich, who is not a resident of the UK, has not visited the country since 2018 and has not been granted a new UK visa, can nevertheless retain the services of the London law firm Harbottle & Lewis and has full access to the English courts.

Data protection legislation is also being routinely abused to make multiple requests against investigative journalists and corporate research and intelligence companies, for any information that they hold on any individual or organisation. In Australia, the Protection of Public Participation Act 2008 seeks to

“protect public participation, and discourage certain civil proceedings that a reasonable person would consider interfere with engagement in public participation.”

In the USA, high-profile public figures are also limited in their access to the courts to pursue such cases. It is time we looked at whether such reforms are required in the UK, and also to review the GDPR legislation to prevent it from being used to intimidate those engaged in legitimate investigations acting in the public interest.

We also have to consider the commercial pressures faced by the news industry today, which pose perhaps one of the greatest threats to the freedom of the press. In 2019, the Cairncross review, commissioned by the Government, highlighted that the sales of both national and locally printed papers have plunged. They fell by roughly half between 2007 and 2017, and are still dropping. In addition, print advertising revenues, which used to carry much of the cost of producing news, have fallen even faster, declining in that decade by 69%. To cut costs there have been mergers, as well as heavy cuts in staffing numbers of frontline journalists in the UK, and in that period those numbers have dropped from 23,000 to 17,000, and the numbers are still falling.

These pressures came to light recently in Australia, where an investigation by its competition authority has highlighted that for every $100 of online advertising spend, $53 goes to Google, $28 to Facebook, and $19 to everybody else. This creates enormous pressure on other organisations, particularly news companies and publishers that have in the past relied on advertising revenue to pay their journalists and investigations. The decline in ad revenue for publishers is a direct challenge to the news industry itself, which has already led to the closures of a great number of publications, and many of those that have survived have had to make significant cuts and reductions.

In order to preserve the future of public interest journalism, the Australian Government presented the news media bargaining code to oblige companies such as Facebook and Google to enter into commercial arrangements with the news industry to ensure fair renumeration for their content. It was only because they legislated to require this, and to give a regulator the power to mediate and set the term of renumeration if no deal was done, that Google and Facebook eventually did move. We have to consider what the role of journalism is in the digital age, where people increasingly use the internet as their primary source of news and information. The most recent Ofcom “Media Nations” survey, published last summer, showed that around 35% of people now regularly get their news from Facebook.

News media and the freedom of the press face a constant assault every day. Direct challenges are issued, through social media, against “the mainstream media”, which is used as a derogatory term, seeking to persuade the public that they should not believe the so-called mainstream media on anything they write, whether critical or praiseworthy, and putting people in a position where they simply do not know what they should believe anymore. In the world of social media, where algorithms of engagement drive content through those platforms, often it is the misleading or the downright lies and conspiracy theories that gain a bigger audience, are more interesting and are actively promoted by those platforms. When Parliament considers the online safety Bill later this year—it is currently in draft form—we must take into account the impact of harmful disinformation, spread through and sometimes amplified by social media, which is undermining news and, through that, democracy itself.

We need to protect journalism and the freedom of the press if we are to remain an open and democratic society. We need to recognise that those values are increasingly under attack from authoritarian Governments around the world who actively and deliberately target journalists, sometimes physically, sometimes emotionally, sometimes economically, but always with intent to suppress their necessary work. We need to ensure that our modern media landscape, driven by social media platforms and their engagement, still works to provide fair remuneration for journalists creating content, because if journalists cannot be paid for what they do, few will do it. The people who will win in that situation will be those who fear legitimate investigation and questioning.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Collins]

Thank you for calling me again, Ms Ghani.

I thank all Members for their participation in what has been a really excellent debate. We have heard many harrowing stories of attacks on individual journalists, many of whom have lost their lives, for seeking to speak truth to power, to make citizens aware of abuses of power, and to campaign for change.

In my 11 years as a Member of Parliament, I can think of so many issues that I have been involved with, personally or as a member or Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, and coverage of so many of them was initiated by the work of investigative journalists, bringing to the attention of Parliament and politicians serious issues that needed to be addressed. So journalism is a vital part of a vibrant democracy, and we should take any attack against the media and journalism anywhere in the world incredibly seriously.

A number of Members, and indeed the Minister, too, raised the serious challenges that exist in the digital world. As the Minister said, it is right that we create the infrastructure to safeguard journalism in the future, through the operation of the draft Online Safety Bill and in particular through the Digital Markets Unit, to ensure that there is not an abuse of market power that will undermine media and could effectively turn journalism into a behind-closed-doors product that a few people pay for but many citizens are simply not exposed to at all. That would be a terrible outcome.

The final point that I will make, which I and others—particularly the hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson)—made during the debate, is the important one about abuse of the legal system in the UK to shut down legitimate journalism and legitimate inquiry with lengthy and expensive lawsuits. We have seen examples of that and it is another important area where we need to safeguard journalism in the UK, too.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered World Press Freedom Day 2021.

European Football Proposal

Damian Collins Excerpts

Finance (No. 2) Bill: (Freeports (Stamp Duty Land Tax)) (Ways and Means) & Ways and Means resolution
Monday 19th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I am tempted to thank the hon. Gentleman for the first line of his question and then to stop there; from my perspective, it all went a bit downhill after that. He is absolutely right to say that we should—and the Government will—stand up to greed and stand up for the fans, and to identify that even though it is English teams that are proposed for this league, it will have a severely damaging effect on all clubs in all parts of our United Kingdom. The game is, of course, as central to Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish identity as it is to English identity. It is a sport for the whole of our United Kingdom and it is right that we work together as a United Kingdom to stop this dreadful proposal.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con) [V]]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the decision to launch the fan-led review but, as he said, this is a review for the medium term, and decisions about the super league will need to be taken in the coming weeks and months. If, judging by what he said today, it is clear that, under existing competition law and existing powers of the premier league and the FA, nothing can be done to stop these six clubs joining the super league, are the Government prepared to amend the law to give those bodies the powers they need, in particular to prevent clubs from joining competitions that have not been sanctioned by either the FA or UEFA?

[Oliver Dowden]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for all the work he has done, which has helped to shape the fan-led review we have announced. On competition law, we are already engaging with BEIS on our response. As I said, we rule out nothing. I know from my conversations with the premier league and UEFA that they are already proposing to take some pretty draconian steps to stop this, but we stand ready to act. We will not allow anything to stop us in terms of timing; we will get on with it as soon as we need to.

Online Anonymity and Anonymous Abuse

Damian Collins Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con) [V]]

We should not have to tolerate online abuse targeting individuals with dehumanising language and threats of injury. Anonymity on social media has provided some people with a platform to abuse others in this way. There are clearly two parties at fault: the person who creates the hateful content, and the platform that both lets them do it and allows what they have posted to remain visible. Making people reveal their true identity to a tech company when creating a social media account would, I believe, make it more likely that they will treat other users with respect. These tech platforms also need to co-operate more effectively and transparently with investigations into the behaviour of their users.

Social media companies too often mistake harmful hate speech for legitimate freedom of expression. A recent report by The Guardian revealed internal moderator guidelines at Facebook, reportedly leaked to the newspaper, that say that public figures are considered to be permissible targets for certain types of abuse, including calls for their death. More needs to be done not just to take down harmful content, but to ensure that social media companies do not amplify it in their systems. No one has a freedom of expression right to be promoted on TikTok’s “For You” page or the Facebook news feed. An internal company report in 2016 told Facebook that 64% of people who joined groups sharing extremist content did so at the prompting of Facebook’s recommendation tools. Another report from August last year noted that 70% of the top 100 most active civic groups in the USA are considered non-recommendable for issues such as hate, misinformation, bullying and harassment.

The business model of social media companies is based around engagement, meaning that people who engage in and with abusive behaviour will see more of it, because that is what the platform thinks they are interested in. When we talk about regulating harmful content online, we are mainly talking about that model and the money these companies make from all user-generated content as long as it keeps people on their site. Content that uses dehumanising language to attack others is not only hurtful to the victim but more likely to encourage others to do the same.

When Parliament debates the online harms Bill later this year, we will have to remind ourselves what the real-world consequences are of abuse on social media. In Washington DC on 6 January, we saw an attempted insurrection in the US Capitol, fuelled by postings on Facebook, that caused the deaths of five people. In the UK, we have seen significant increases in recorded hate crimes over the past 10 years, suicide rates are at a 20-year high, and over the past six years the number of hospital admissions because of self-injury in pre-teens has doubled. Arrests for racist and indecent chanting at football grounds more than doubled between 2019 and 2020, even though hundreds of matches were cancelled or played behind closed doors. These issues are too serious to be left to the chief execs of the big tech companies alone. Those people need to recognise the harm that their systems can create in the hands of people and organisations intent on spreading hate and abuse. We need to establish the standards that we expect them to meet, and empower the regulatory institutions we will need to ensure that they are doing so.

Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Damian Collins Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con) [V]]

The Government have provided substantial support for the cultural, sporting and creative sectors since the start of the covid pandemic. This has been welcome but also essential, as many organisations within these sectors rely on revenue from tickets and events to survive. Through no fault of their own, they have been required to close, and the cultural recovery fund, in addition to the funding to support sports and TV and film production, has helped many important bodies to keep going that otherwise might have closed for good.

However, we now need to focus on the road ahead, through to the lifting of the covid social contact restrictions on 21 June and beyond. The coronavirus has challenged the whole of our society, but it has also exposed further weaknesses in sectors that in some cases we already knew about. The point has been well made about the need for pandemic insurance for the events industry. Events and live performances have already become incredibly important to the music sector, because the remuneration that artists get from on-demand streaming services is relatively low, but these events will not take place unless an insurance scheme can be put in place.

This is not just about events that could be held this summer; it needs to be done on an ongoing basis. It could be some time before the industry has any certainty, because new variants of covid might require further restrictions on the capacity of audiences and therefore restrict the viability of the event itself. Just as, several years ago, the Government partnered with the insurance industry to create Flood Re to minimise the risk of flood insurance and reduce the costs, we need a similar scheme to help to make insuring live events viable and reduce the cost to people putting on those events.

In football, the lack of a strong national governing body for the sport that is able to ensure fair dealing in financial matters has been badly exposed. Many football clubs were in great distress before the pandemic struck. Clubs in the championship division of the English football league were routinely spending more than they earned each year on players’ salaries alone, and were running a financially unsustainable model. There has been no real recognition of the impact of the covid restrictions on professional football. The money within the game has not been enough to solve all the problems, and the support that has been given is minimal. Many clubs continue to rack up large debts. At the moment, a lot of the football league is being run on unpaid taxes. It is believed that the amount of unpaid taxes owed to HMRC by football clubs could be in the hundreds of millions of pounds. We need a proper financial regulator for football to ensure that clubs are run on a sustainable basis for the long term, but in the short term we may need to look at how some sort of financial assistance can be given to those most in distress. Clubs outside the premier league are largely community assets, and they need to be run in a sustainable way.

I want to make two other points briefly. The last 12 months have exposed just how influential disinformation and hate speech on social media can be, particularly in relation to anti-vaccine campaigns to undermine confidence in the vaccine and spread conspiracy theories about the pandemic. It makes the bringing forward of the online harms Bill this year so important for the Department, and we must also ensure that there are proper resources for Ofcom, as the regulator, to ensure that there can be proper auditing and inspection of the way social media companies respond to campaigns of disinformation and hate speech, and other speech that can cause harm through social media networks. We have been talking about this for many years and I am glad that the Bill is coming, but it is also an imperative.

Finally, the pandemic has also had a big impact on the advertising industry and broadcasting revenues from advertising, just as other media have struggled with revenue from advertising. There is no guarantee that this money will bounce back, particularly as audiences are increasingly diverting their attention to online services—social media to receive news and on-demand platforms to view content. Increasingly, many people spend time not watching broadcast material at all, but playing games and doing other things online. This potentially undermines the public service broadcasting model in this country. I welcome the fact that we have the PSB review, but we need to understand that the long-term impacts of rising production costs for television due to the impact of Netflix and Amazon Prime and of declining advertising revenues because of switching audience attention are fundamentally changing the market, and if we have media that—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

Order. I am afraid we do have to move on.

UK Musicians: EU Visa Arrangements

Damian Collins Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Gentleman is right to say how incredibly successful our music industry is around the world, and that is why we fought so hard to get much better arrangements in the agreement. What we need to do now is ensure that our sectors are prepared to face any challenges in the future, which is why we are continuing those dialogues with them to understand the ongoing impacts and challenges that may be faced. We need to ensure that they have the right support at the right time and do everything we can to work with other member states to ensure that the transition is as smooth as possible.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con) [V]]

In addition to trying to improve visa-free travel for musicians, could my hon. Friend say whether the Government hope to progress on easing the movement of musical equipment from country to country within Europe, so that it is not treated like any other physical goods, and on easing the cabotage restrictions for festivals and bands? Finally, can she confirm whether EU-based music showcases fall under the short business trip exemption for conferences, trade fairs and exhibitions? These showcases are often so important in making the careers of developing talent.

[Caroline Dinenage]

With regard to the haulage—the cabotage—that has not been imposed just on us because we have left the EU. They are rules that apply to both UK and EU haulage firms. I want to speak more about this with colleagues in the Department for Transport and with European colleagues to see what more can be done to address it. It impacts not just us but companies that are moving musical equipment across Europe, no matter which European member state they come from. As for my hon. Friend’s other question, if performers are visiting in a business capacity, that is to negotiate a future tour, for any other scoping arrangements or for various other things, that would fall under the business visa waiver. It is always really important to check the individual rules of that EU nation—that member state—to ensure that they do not have anything that would need to be abided by.

Online Harms Consultation

Damian Collins Excerpts

Tuesday 15th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point, and of course I will be happy to extend that discussion. I am already doing so with my right hon. Friend the Education Secretary, but I would happy to do so with representatives of the devolved Governments. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to highlight the importance of education, and that applies not just to children but to parents. The more that parents, particularly those who have not grown up with the internet, understand the risks involved for their children, the better equipped they are to take action. Probably the single most important thing that parents can do is better understand the risks. That is why, in respect of children, we will be publishing the online media literacy strategy in the spring to address exactly that.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his important and long-awaited statement on this piece of legislation. I have a few questions, though. He mentioned that social media companies would be required to produce transparency reports on their effectiveness in dealing with harmful content. Will Ofcom be able to audit those reports and request data and information from the companies? Otherwise, those reports will not be very transparent at all. He also said that there would be a carve-out exemption for news providers. I agree with that, but how is he defining a news provider? Some of the most egregious spreaders of disinformation pretend to be new providers but are actually fake news websites. It is important that we know that. He also said that if companies’ terms and conditions did not come up to standard and they did not meet their duty of care obligations, they would “face the legal consequences”. Can he say what those consequences will be?

[Oliver Dowden]

As ever, my hon. Friend raises some very pertinent questions. On the powers for Ofcom, it will be able to interrogate data and equipment. The question around the definition of news publishers is a challenging one, for the reasons that he sets out. Essentially, we want to avoid the situation whereby a harmful source of information sets up as if it were a news publisher. That will be an important part of our engagement with Members of the House through the pre-legislative scrutiny, so I hope I will be able to reassure him on those points.

Gambling and Lotteries

Damian Collins Excerpts

Tuesday 8th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

I am pleased to hear the Minister say that loot boxes fall within his remit of work at the moment, because they encourage people to spend more on in-game purchases than they otherwise would do if this were turned into a game of chance where there were no published odds. Will he also say something about social media targeted advertising by gambling companies? I am aware that social media companies are allowing online betting companies to target known problem gamblers with incentives to bet, which is completely unethical. It should be outside the rules and it should be part of the review.

[Nigel Huddleston]

My hon. Friend is very knowledgeable about this area as well, and I thank him for his comments. Let me be clear: the call for evidence relating to loot boxes is separate from this review; it is a separate activity being undertaken by the Department. I should also be clear that any advertising that is deliberately targeting children or vulnerable groups should not be happening, and therefore it is a major concern. The questions raised in this review and the call for evidence seek to ask how effective the current rules are, and those will be major considerations as part of the call for evidence.