TV Licences for Over-75s

Debate between John Lamont and Kevin Brennan

Wednesday 8th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (Con)]

I very much support the continuation of the concession, but is it not important to recognise that when the House passed the Digital Economy Act 2017, which transferred responsibility for the concession to the BBC, Opposition Members supported it?

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

No we did not!

Televised Election Debates

Debate between John Lamont and Kevin Brennan

Monday 7th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Kevin Brennan]

I will not give way to the hon. Lady, because she was not here for the debate and I am old school in that regard, I am afraid. I am happy to give way otherwise. It is not personal, but that is how I prefer to operate.

The hon. Member for Carmarthen East and Dinefwr made a valid point, but I think it raises interesting issues about which parties should be involved in these debates. They certainly must have a role and somehow be incorporated into this process, whether through the means suggested by the hon. Member for Wellingborough (Mr Bone) or others.

The hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay also said that leaders are much more visible and accessible these days than they used to be. I am not sure that is entirely true. When Clement Attlee was campaigning to be Prime Minister in 1945 and 1950, he drove around the country with his wife, Violet, in a Hillman Minx, to engage with the electorate. It is certainly true that times have changed. Attlee also said that being Prime Minister was the job that took up the least amount of his time of any job he had ever had.

The hon. Gentleman gave an interesting response to the questions from Parliament’s social media. Some of the points being made about the potential Americanisation of politics are important. However, I think the real challenges are not about the Americanisation of politics through TV debates, but about the involvement of large and shadowy amounts of money in British politics—the activities of organisations such as Cambridge Analytica and so on. Those are more worrying issues with the Americanisation of politics, rather than our having television debates.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) quite rightly said that the decision about whether we should have debates should not just rest in the hands of the Prime Minister. He also quite rightly pointed out the lack of television coverage of regional politics these days. He wanted to take the issue of debates out of party politics. He referred to the Nixon-Kennedy debates, saying that the thing he knows is that Nixon lost. Interestingly, of course, a lot of the polls showed that Nixon had won, particularly for people who had followed the debates on the radio rather than on television. That makes a valid point about the role of image in people’s political perspectives. Whether or not the TV debate was responsible for John Kennedy’s narrow victory is highly debatable, not least because when his father, Joseph Kennedy, was asked why the victory had been so narrow, he said that he could not afford a landslide. Again, money was perhaps more compelling and important in American politics than the debates.

In response to the hon. Member for Wellingborough, who also mentioned the 2010 debates, I am tempted to say—unusually—“I agree with Peter,” because I did agree with much of what he said. We look forward to seeing the details of his private Member’s Bill. He is the sort of Member who would never commit to supporting a Bill without having read every clause and word, and without having carefully performed an exegesis of every part, so I will not make any commitments about his Bill until we have seen what it says, but it certainly sounds like it contains some interesting ideas. We look forward to it surfacing on the Ides of March, as he suggested, and hopefully it will have a less portentous fate than that date might otherwise suggest.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the inclusion of the minor parties in one of the debates proposed by his Bill. It is an interesting area, because it is true that some parties that have a lower share of the vote and that do not stand in all parts of the United Kingdom were represented in previous debates—for example, in 2015, when David Cameron insisted on having a diluted debate because he did not want to have a head-to-head debate with my right hon. Friend the Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) and preferred to have a large number of voices, possibly to defuse the impact of the event overall. Nevertheless, despite the fact that it is the “Conservative and Unionist” party, at no point was it suggested that the Democratic Unionist party should participate in the debate. Unlike Plaid Cymru and the Scottish National party, it was not invited, even though it also stands in only one of the constituent countries of the United Kingdom. Nor was the Social Democratic and Labour party, which had hon. Members elected to this House at that time; the Ulster Unionist party, which has had hon. Members elected to this House in recent times; or indeed—whether it would have turned up or not—Sinn Féin, which stands in the general election and has elected MPs, although they do not take the oath or take their seats in this place.

There is an asymmetry to the way that such debates have been organised. Northern Ireland has largely been excluded from that process, even though it is an integral part of the United Kingdom. It is interesting that we now frequently debate the issue of the British border in Ireland, as I call it, because of the backstop and Brexit, but that in those general election debates, Northern Ireland was treated as a sideshow and almost as a separate election from the United Kingdom general election in terms of inviting people to participate. We look forward to the Bill tabled by the hon. Member for Wellingborough.

My hon. Friend the Member for Blackley and Broughton (Graham Stringer) reluctantly accepted that there would have to be a quango to administer election debates, but quite rightly pointed out that any such body should have a greater diversity than bodies such as the Electoral Commission. I agree that different political views should be represented, and it would also be important for any such body to have representation from the nations and regions of the United Kingdom, and from different social classes. Many of our bodies tend to be made up of the same kind of people with similar views. His suggestions on that were refreshing and interesting.

My hon. Friend also discussed the 2010 leadership debates and the so-called Cleggmania that allegedly resulted. Interestingly, of course, despite that spike in the polls, the Liberal Democrats won fewer seats in the 2010 election than they had held before, but because it was a hung Parliament, they ended up in government for the next five years.

The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (John Lamont) was extremely critical of Sky News for having campaigned on the issue. I have thought carefully about what he said and whether it is appropriate for a broadcaster to campaign in that way. It would be wholly inappropriate for a broadcaster to campaign on a political policy issue, but I do not think it is inappropriate—it is not outwith Ofcom’s rules—for a broadcaster to campaign in such a way for such debates. It is possibly more difficult for the BBC and ITV, which are also party to Ofcom’s rules, because special considerations are involved for public service broadcasters. I do not agree, however, that it was inappropriate for Sky News to campaign on the issue and in fact, in doing so, I think it has provided a valuable public service and has helped to bring about this interesting debate.

[John Lamont]

Given that other petitions on Parliament’s petition website are arguably more worthy and, in some cases, have more support, why has Sky News not given them any coverage or reported on them, but has given almost hourly coverage to its own campaign?

[Kevin Brennan]

I suggest, probably, because it is its own campaign. It is a valid point that a lot of the issues that the hon. Gentleman mentioned are worthy of more news coverage. Hopefully his remarks will have brought those campaigns to broadcasters’ attention and they will receive more coverage in future.

The hon. Gentleman said that he thought debates provide little additional information for voters, and again I disagree. As I said in an intervention on the hon. Member for St Austell and Newquay, the Hansard Society report indicates that the general public say that they find debates a valuable way—indeed, among the most important ways—of gaining information to help them to decide how to vote. He went on to talk about the SNP leader’s role in the debates and whether a voter in Cornwall would be interested in what the leader of the SNP had to say. He said that such a voter could not vote for the leader of the SNP, but, of course, nobody in Scotland could vote for the leader of the SNP, because the leader of the SNP was not a candidate in the general election. That raises interesting points as to who should participate in debates and whether those who do should be the leaders of political parties or the leaders of groups that are hoping to gain election to the House of Commons. It is a moot point, but a valid one. Even though the leader of the SNP is extremely important to Scottish voters, it is true that Scottish voters would not have an opportunity to vote for her in a general election.

The hon. Member for North Devon (Peter Heaton-Jones), who always speaks with a great deal of expertise on broadcasting matters because of his previous career with the BBC, asked how leaders could be compelled to attend if we were to pass a Bill, such as the one envisaged by the hon. Member for Wellingborough, that said that political party leaders had to participate in such debates.

As other hon. Members have pointed out, it is not unreasonable for us to expect the leaders of political parties, who have ambitions to become the Prime Minister, to comply with the law. I am not suggesting that we should have draconian penalties for anyone refusing to comply, but it would be extraordinary if the leader of a political party, a potential candidate to be the Prime Minister of this country, sought not to comply with a perfectly reasonable law to get them to participate in an essential element of the democratic process as judged by this Parliament. That is a bit of a red herring; they would turn up by virtue of the fact that it would be the law that they should participate. Nor is it unreasonable that such a law should be considered and potentially reach the statute book.

The hon. Member for North Devon made an interesting and valid point about how relevant TV debates are in this age of social media, whether they are old fashioned and whether, in a sense, we are asking a question that is no longer particularly pertinent and might have been more relevant 30 or 40 years ago. However, although I bow to his expertise about television, I think that where linear television still hits home is in the big live event type of television, whether that is “The X-Factor”, a sporting event, or the participation of political leaders at the time of a general election, when the nation’s attention turns to the question of who will govern the country for the next five years. At such times, a live television linear-type event is still highly relevant and of interest to the public, and would be supplemented massively by activity on social media; I think that is true. Obviously, social media has a huge role to play in modern elections and we need to look at the whole issue of social media, including Facebook and other types of platforms, in more detail, as it now has a major influence on our politics.

We support, in broad terms, the campaign that there should be some sort of independent means to ensure that TV debates take place between party leaders at general elections. The reason we are doing so is that the Minister, as a Minister, has the opportunity to try to make some sense of the complicated electoral law that we have. It is voluminous, it is fragmented, and it poses problems for electoral administrators, campaigners, voters and policy makers. There are 40 Acts of Parliament and more than 170 statutory instruments relating to our electoral legal framework and some of those provisions go back into the 19th century.

It is widely accepted by those involved in administering or competing in elections, such as the Electoral Commission and the Association of Electoral Administrators, that fundamental reform of electoral law is needed, but the Government have not really listened to that argument. In February 2016—nearly three years ago—the Law Commission published its interim report, calling for the laws governing elections to be rationalised into a single consistent legislative framework governing all elections, but the Government are yet to respond to that, even though, as I say, it has been nearly three years. I encourage the Government to look again at that report and respond to it.

I have mentioned this previously, but I also urge the Government to look at the 2018 audit of political engagement by the Hansard Society, which found that among the different sources of news and information that respondents used to inform their decision making at the 2017 general election, party leaders’ debates and political interviews were deemed to be the most important ways in which they were able to make up their minds. Furthermore, 74% of those who used those things in that way said the party leaders’ debates and political interviews were at least “fairly important” in their decision making. There is a need for a wider reform of electoral law and the issue of TV debates should be included within that.

My own party leader has said in response to this campaign:

“I welcome any move that will guarantee general election debates so that voters can hear directly from those putting themselves forward to lead the country.”

That was a welcome statement, but unfortunately the Prime Minister has not matched it, which is a shame. Speaking to Sky, she said:

“The next general election isn’t until 2022. There’s plenty of time to think about those issues at that time.”

In fact, that is exactly the time when there will not be plenty of time to think about these issues. Now is the time to think about them. We may not be immediately able to solve them, but now is the time to think across parties about the best way to handle the issue, because if we get to 2022 and start thinking about it, we will have the same old to-ing and fro-ing, and shenanigans, and jiggery-pokery that we have seen recently in relation to the discussions about the possibility of leaders’ debates on Brexit.

Whatever we think about the merits of such debates, and the question is different from that of whether party leaders should debate at a general election, the truth is that the way in which such arguments come about, and this has happened over the course of a number of Governments, going back some considerable time, is something like this—in fact, I know exactly how the suggestion of a Brexit debate came about. No. 10 went to Tom Newton Dunn at The Sun and said, “We need a page lead for the Prime Minister on Brexit. The Prime Minister is in trouble on Brexit. We need a page lead.” If someone needs a page lead in The Sun, they don’t get it for nothing. So The Sun said in return, “Well, what can you give us as an exclusive, or a scoop in old-fashioned terms, for giving you a front-page lead in The Sun?” Of course, the answer was, “Well, we’ll say that the Prime Minister is in favour of challenging the Leader of the Opposition to a debate on Brexit”, in the full knowledge that that would never happen unless some groundwork had been done, unless there had been some discussion between parties, and unless the other parties that have an interest in this matter—as the hon. Member for Edinburgh East, the spokesman for the Scottish National party, rightly pointed out—had an opportunity to have an input as well. A debate on Brexit was not going to happen on those terms, but that is how these things come about, which is a pretty shabby process. If we had a properly independent process, then we could get rid of all the jiggery-pokery around election debates and actually get down to concentrating on trying to present our policies effectively to the electorate.

Finally, I challenge the Minister to go a little further than the Government have so far and at least entertain the possibility of supporting the kind of measure that is being proposed by Sky News and her hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Wellingborough, which the Opposition and other parties support, whereby a consensus on a way forward can be found to ensure that such debates can happen, rather than waiting until 2022, when it will be far too late.