King’s Speech

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, it is an immense pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Ranger and congratulate him on a superb and memorable maiden speech, which was elegant, captivating and moving in equal measure. He has an exceptional track record of distinguished service at the highest levels of industry, government and the public sector, and a specialist knowledge of transport, digital and technological issues, which will be of inestimable value in this House. His many achievements—the delivery of the Oyster card, as described, establishing the Digital London office, helping prepare for the hugely successful 2012 Olympics and championing Crossrail—speak volumes in themselves. He has also been closely involved with key environmental issues as a member of the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group, sitting on the board of Bristol 2015 European Green Capital and campaigning on issues such as cleaner air and electric vehicles. With such a track record of accomplishments, many at an international level, and such a strong sense of public service, he will bring real insight and wisdom to our deliberations.

His powerful speech—the harbinger, I have no doubt, of many more to come—gave us an inspirational insight into his family story. I was of course delighted to hear that his maternal grandfather founded the first Indian newspaper in the UK, which is a shining achievement. His journey to becoming the first British-born, turban-wearing Sikh in this House is a remarkable one and his experiences will enrich our deliberations beyond measure. My noble friend is exceptionally welcome. We look forward to hearing from him in years to come on public policy issues of huge importance to everyone in this country—not least digital transformation and artificial intelligence—with the fascinating perspectives that he will bring to our work.

I want to talk about aspects of the gracious Speech relating to the media. I declare my interest as deputy chairman of the Telegraph Media Group, a member of the News Media Association and director of the Regulatory Funding Company, and note my other interests in the register.

First, I want to pay my own tribute to our late friend and colleague the noble and learned Lord, Lord Judge. I had the pleasure of working with him on an issue he held most dear, the freedom of the press, for which he was a consistently passionate and eloquent champion. His commitment to the principles of an independent, self-regulating media was as strong as tungsten, and his calm, wise voice will be sorely missed in our debates.

I welcome the Government’s commitment to bring forward

“legislation ... to support the creative industries and protect public interest journalism”,

which has never been under such threat, and I applaud their commitment to press freedom. Central to this is the Media Bill. It will ensure that broadcasters such as ITV can continue to invest in their brilliant British content, by guaranteeing prominence on digital platforms for PSBs. It will take forward the principles established by the Online Safety Act by levelling the deeply unfair playing field between the platforms and the traditional media and bringing streaming regulation into line with broadcast TV.

At this point, I am going to disappoint the noble Lord, Lord McNally, because, for me, the most crucial part of the Bill is the repeal of Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013—one of the most pernicious and draconian pieces of legislation ever put on to the statute book. It sought, in effect, to put a gun to the heads of the free and independent media by attempting to force them into a system of state-backed regulation or saddle them with costs, whether or not a case was won in court, that would have killed stone-dead investigative journalism and bankrupt most of the regional press and a large part of the national media. Fortunately, common sense has since prevailed, and Section 40 has never been put into effect. But its baleful, chilling presence remains—one reason that we have sunk down the international press freedom tables—and it must go.

Perhaps we can then move on to dismantle the royal charter on state regulation of the press, another otiose part of the detritus of the Leveson inquiry, along with the Press Recognition Panel, which shamefully continues to receive commitments of hundreds of thousands of pounds from the taxpayer, despite its mission to become self-funding.

I applaud too the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill. This heavily consulted-on legislation will give the Digital Markets Unit within the CMA the teeth it needs to level the playing field between news publishers and the unaccountable giant tech platforms, and will pave the way for a sustainable future for quality journalism across the UK. We must scrutinise the Bill carefully to ensure that there are no unintended consequences of the sensible provisions to crack down on unscrupulous operators deceiving customers with malicious subscription traps in a way that impacts on responsible news publishers who are building new business models on the back of subscription revenues. We must also ensure that the carefully constructed appeals mechanisms are retained intact. Chief among these is the robust judicial review appeals standard, which is an essential part of the provisions redressing the imbalance in market power. To amend it as a result of aggressive lobbying by the giant platforms would undermine the whole regime. I associate myself absolutely with what the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, and my noble friend Lady Stowell had to say on the subject —she hit the nail on the head.

I hope that both pieces of legislation will move swiftly though this House, with as much cross-party support as possible, so that the Government’s stated aim to protect journalism can be fulfilled as soon as possible. Other legislation—including the Automated Vehicles Bill, which could pose a threat to the future of public notices in printed local newspapers—will need careful scrutiny to ensure that it does not pull in the opposite direction to this vital legislation.

As the Government are committed to ensuring a sustainable future for a free press, then one issue that they must tackle—not foreshadowed in the gracious Speech—is the burgeoning imperial ambition of the BBC. Here, I am afraid that I will again upset the noble Lord, Lord McNally. I am going to talk just about its local activities, because I recognise that it is a national treasure and I absolutely support it. However, an absolutely vital part of the rich tapestry of the British media is the local and regional press, yet it is under commercial threat as never before as a result of the BBC’s Across the UK plan. This will inexorably lead to an increase in its online news provision in areas already well-served by independent news publishers, which means the inevitable loss of jobs for journalists in the local press.

The BBC’s royal charter requires the BBC to

“avoid adverse impacts on competition”

and causing harm to commercial providers. But that is precisely what these plans do. The BBC, which I absolutely support, is using the might of its enormous taxpayer funding aggressively to draw local audiences away from commercial providers and deprive them of readers and the revenue needed to continue investing in independent journalism, and does so at the expense of much-loved local radio services, to which it is taking the axe. It is inexplicable that, at a time when the BBC claims to be facing financial pressures—I am sure that it is—it chooses to invest heavily in news provision that is already well-served by the commercial sector.

If the BBC is allowed by the Government—the ultimate arbiter of the charter—and Ofcom to continue down this dangerous path, it will end up eradicating plurality in the local news market and leave local people only one source of news about their area: the corporation’s. As the clock ticks towards the mid-term review of the charter, I hope my noble friend will take note of the strong views of local publishers in particular and act to stop the BBC destroying independent local media.

Our free press is under the most terrible commercial strain. Much in the gracious Speech will help the situation but there is a great deal more to do.