Problem Gambling

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted to hear the Statement and thank the Minister for repeating it. I and others will welcome those who have made the commitments that were described in this Statement and recognise that it is indeed a step in the right direction.

I am just back from Birmingham, if I may start autobiographically, from the Methodist conference. Some 25 years ago I was the president of that conference, and I was installed in my office in Leeds town hall. It was the year that the National Lottery was launched, and I was launched into putting the Methodist position on the National Lottery almost from the time I left Leeds. I confessed to myself that it was useless to put what some noble Lords would recognise as a traditional Methodist position on gambling: it was here to stay, it was part of our culture, so where was the room for manoeuvre?

I remember going on television with my noble friend Lady Bakewell on a Sunday evening; I limited myself to two points, which I have stuck to ever since. First, the proceeds of the National Lottery should not be used to spend on programmes that were properly the responsibility of government—they would be extra, over and above. Secondly, since there was a proven percentage—I had the facts at my fingertips in those days—of those who gamble becoming problem gamblers, a levy should be imposed on the National Lottery to deal with the problem gamblers that were going to be produced by that industry. This was directed towards the National Lottery at that time, but why not impose it on all lotteries? Those were my two points 25 years ago; they remain my two points now.

The Statement is good, as far it goes, but we have to recognise that this voluntary levy is simply not producing the goods. My O-level maths, which is where I left the subject formally, in the year that King Uzziah died, suggests that the agreed percentage of the turnover of the gambling industry should produce something like £145 million a year. It produces £10 million. The voluntary agreement is not working. The Statement says that we should be prepared to recognise that what has been proposed is for now, but it will take a year to produce the necessary legislation to achieve the mandatory levy. Let us do what has to be done now, and do the legislation a year hence also. We can wait a year, but we cannot wait for things to happen until we come back and say, “Let’s do it”, because then it will be a year after that. It seems necessary for us to move inevitably towards a mandatory levy.

I know that these figures were given in the other place an hour or two ago, but they are worth repeating. SportPesa, which sponsors Everton, and Fun88, which sponsors Newcastle, gave £50 last year. Both are white labels of TGP Europe. Best Bets gave £5: I have just paid more than that for a taxi to get here. GFM Holdings Ltd gave a pound. What on earth would you get for £1 anywhere these days, even on the high street? Pounds shops are giving up on that one.

We have 430,000 gambling addicts, 50,000 of whom are children—it is just not acceptable. The mandatory levy is the step that we have to take, and I urge the Minister not to just echo his master’s voice from another place in suggesting that because it will take another year it is better to settle for what we have. It is necessary to take the first steps towards imposing a levy now, so that the National Health Service, which picks up the cost of dealing with problem gamblers, can perhaps have—even in a hypothecated way—the proceeds of such a mandatory levy to deal with the problem.

I trust that your Lordships will see this point of view, which makes a lucid and obvious case, and that the body language, if not the words, of the Minister shows that he agrees.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, I too thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. I am a member of your Lordships’ Social and Economic Impact of the Gambling Industry Committee.

It is, however, my membership of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Gambling Related Harm that has led me to meet the parents of a number of children who have committed suicide because of gambling. It has given me the opportunity to meet people with mental health problems who have done everything they can to exclude themselves from gambling websites but are still being bombarded with gambling advertisements and free bet offers. I have also met people who have lost thousands of pounds in a very short time because they have been using multiple credit cards.

For far too long, the gambling industry has failed to take responsibility for the harm that it is causing not only to individuals but families and communities. As the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, pointed out, far too many of the gambling companies are failing to contribute even the 0.1% of the gross gambling yield to the voluntary levy for research, education and treatment. This Statement is of course welcome. The commitment by the so-called “big five” is welcome and I congratulate all, in all parts of the House and elsewhere, including Ministers, who have managed to shame some—but not all—of the gambling companies into taking this action.

An increase from £10 million to £60 million for research, education and treatment is of course welcome, but we should put it into context. Just some of the £60 million will be used to help the approximately 430,000 people, including children, with gambling problems, when we know that only 2% of them are getting any form of treatment. That £60 million should be compared with the £40 billion annual turnover of the gambling companies, the nearly £1 billion of government cuts to our public health budget and the annual salary of the boss of just one gambling company: today we are welcoming £60 million, while Denise Coates, the head of Bet365, earned £265 million last year.

The £60 million is welcome but, as the Secretary of State admits, there is much more to be done, and we need to ensure that this is not a cynical ploy by the gambling companies to prevent the Government introducing further regulation. The Secretary of State says that he is not yet minded to introduce a compulsory levy. If we do not have one, how will the many companies that are not party to this deal, and which do not make an adequate contribution, do so? Surely the way forward is a compulsory levy.

Further, what more does the Minister believe needs to be done to prevent problem gambling in the first instance? Does he agree, for example, that we need to do more to ensure that individuals can afford to gamble at a particular level, and that we should ban the use of credit cards for gambling? Does he agree that we need a code of practice for advertising? The industry says that it is keen to have one but has so far failed to come up with the goods. What will the Government do to make sure that we have one?

Should we not also have a system of redress for individuals? I am sure the Minister is aware that, if an individual has a problem whereby, for example, they have self-excluded but are still bombarded with advertisements and therefore lose more money because they are tempted, they can go to the Gambling Commission and report it. The commission will take evidence from them and other such individuals—it may take action against the gambling company or even fine it, as has happened in the past—but there is no redress for the individual because the commission does not act as an ombudsman. At present, all someone can do is go to the gambling company and seek redress or take expensive legal action. Does the Minister agree that we need a proper redress scheme? Today’s Statement is a small step, but it is certainly not a giant leap.

Birmingham Commonwealth Games Bill [HL]

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, people have sung the praises of Birmingham, and I add my voice to theirs in expressing delight that Birmingham will host the Commonwealth Games. A body of expertise has produced its own voices. The two old pros on the Benches over there, whose wisdom has been quite extraordinary, can challenge me at dawn whenever they wish. Behind me, a clutch of Brummies—and one almost-Brummie of 54 years—have added their feelings from a personal perspective about how this Bill and the Games will impact Birmingham.

I do not have those direct links, either with the sporting endeavour or the geography, except in one way. The little Welsh town that I come from, Burry Port, was turned into an industrial town because of its symbiotic relationship with Birmingham during the Industrial Revolution. We produced the finest refined copper and smelted silver in the United Kingdom, which was sent to Birmingham, where electromagnetic plating had been invented. It produced a gobsmacking, wonderful new invention that was sold all around the world and publicised largely at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Therefore, Birmingham and Birmingham philanthropy have contributed hugely to many of the significant buildings in Burry Port. Since others have got their oar in, I felt it legitimate to get mine in too.

The hidden factor in any lauding of Birmingham that we care to make is its population. The noble Baroness, Lady Burt, reminded us of its enormous diversity. It is as if the Commonwealth Games are coming home. There will be populations that identify immediately with the players, and the old adage that you can tell a real British person by who they cheer for at sport will be challenged enormously in the Commonwealth Games, by parts of the crowd supporting all kinds of people who remind them of places that they have long associations with.

I am a little perplexed. It should be a cinch. We have had the Glasgow and Manchester Games in fairly recent history, and of course the Olympics. I cannot think of the London Olympics without thinking of Tessa Jowell, who played such an important part in the planning and organising. I wanted to introduce her name at this stage as a tribute.

As I have listened to the debate, I have asked myself about the very worthwhile suggestions made from across the House. How much will appear on the face of the Bill and modify it, and how much will be what we want to happen but would not be appropriate to put in the Bill? If there is a body of material we want that represents a corpus of thinking and concern that perhaps is not appropriate for the Bill, how do we ensure that the bodies to which we commit these aspirations wrestle with them, deal with them, come up with solutions to our problems and keep in touch with us as we move forward with these deliberations? As I understand it, there is an organising committee, the Commonwealth Games Federation, the DCMS, and, as we have heard, perhaps a less than open stance on the part of Birmingham City Council. Therefore it is important that lines of communication are open, a point that has been made. The people to whom we confide various aspects of the concerns that we express—some directly legislative, others in a body of supporting material—must interplay and support each other, and in the end produce a totality that works for the best in terms of the outcomes that we all desire.

I tried very hard to keep track of the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, speaking of Clauses 12, 15 and 24, and paragraph 15 of Schedule 2. I will have to read Hansard for most of it, but of course we want to know what things such as “in the vicinity of” mean. Those things must be given attention; they will cause the Minister endless sleepless nights.

On all this business about “What’s not in the Bill can wait”, the one word that springs from so many of the contributions to this debate has been “legacy”. We really have to think through what kind of outcomes we want and learn from what has happened in recent times. My noble friend Lord Hunt mentioned that as far as the Olympics are concerned the legacy has been tremendous but that the Games have not necessarily increased levels of sporting activity or, in housing, reached perhaps as broad a swathe of people as they should have. We want to learn from that; we want information about how the plans are evolving to ensure those sorts of outcomes.

Then there is the question of the well-being of the people. Will we be able to use this stimulus to the economy to generate the kind of interests and commitments on the part of trainers, mentors and people in the public sphere, as well as the population at large, so that we leave Birmingham after 2022 throbbing and thriving in the best way that we can imagine? Are there measures we can anticipate now that might be woven into the planning, so that these outcomes are maximised as we move forward? We will look for that.

I have heard in this debate for the first time the figure of £778 million; there are others, too. I would imagine that work has gone on until the last minute to provide these figures but there is a legitimate concern about how this money is organised. There was the suggestion of having one bank account. I am not sure about having one bank account—I am at Santander if anyone is interested—when it is really about how that money is spread across the various bodies that will spend it. How will they account for themselves and how do we plan those kind of overlaps of responsibility, so that people can get as clear a picture as is humanly possible at the end of it?

I say to the noble Lord, Lord Coe, that I remember reading a theology book about bereavement where somebody identified the stages of grief that people go through: there was denial, anger and bargaining before peace arrives. We have euphoria today because we are all happy; perhaps there will be panic when we get to Committee and persecution of the innocent on Report. When the Bill goes over to the Commons, there will be a comparison with the previous House and, at the end of the day, the glorification of the uninvolved. We will be able to absent ourselves from that category because we have all been very involved.

This is a great event for which we will have some sort of responsibility. There are questions about security and there is complexity in the financial considerations. The legacy thing keeps looming up. All these are to play for and if we get them right, because we have flagged up our concerns, then there is no reason why the Games in 2022 will not be the most successful yet.

Free TV Licences for Over-75s

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I must express a declaration of interest, as recorded in the annals of the Registrar-General, since I was born in 1942. This was the first year that I might have benefited from this particular payout, and since I got there before my wife she changed the name on the television licence from hers to mine. If this is now withheld I will end up paying it, and I am a bit afraid of that.

It cannot be right, whatever terms were agreed between those renewing the charter and the BBC, that the BBC should be turned into a welfare agency. It is not its job. Despite the fact that it might trim back on some top executive salaries and the other remedial measures mentioned by the Minister, the amount of money lost will be trivial compared to the £725 million in question. The BBC already seems ready to act in good faith by making such payments available to licence-owning couples in residence if one of its members is on benefits of some kind. Will the Government think again about the decision that was made by the current editor of the Evening Standard, in collaboration in the coalition Government with the Liberal Democrats—

[Noble Lords]

No.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port]

They will have their moment to explain themselves. Will the Government look again at their responsibilities now that the BBC, using its independence, has taken its decision?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am very sorry to hear that this might cause marital disharmony in the noble Lord’s household. To be serious, this is not a payout, as he called it. This is taxpayers’ money which is going to support the BBC. This was decided between the BBC and the Government in 2015. That agreement took into account the fact that the BBC licence fee was fixed with inflationary increases for five years, which was the first time that had happened. The deal on that and the increases in salaries—I absolutely take his point that that will not approach the £745 million we are talking about at the moment—was made in full knowledge of what it would mean. It was also agreed that the Government would phase this in, so the DWP has contributed to the BBC for it for the past two years, but that was agreed then. That is why we are disappointed that the BBC has taken this decision. There are some potential benefits. I accept that not all noble Lords agreed at the time, but it was passed into law in the Digital Economy Act 2017. It is the BBC’s decision, because Parliament gave it that decision to make.

Brexit: Movement of People in the Cultural Sector (European Union Committee Report)

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Wednesday 15th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

Not yet, my Lords—let us not call it off until I have had my minute in the sun.

I concur with what has just been said about the continuing appositeness of the report, even though it has taken so long to be aired in this debate. It continues to have point and poignancy despite all the documentation and reports that have come between then and now—that needs to be emphasised again. The noble and embattled Lord the Minister, who now faces the concerns laid out so pungently by Members on all these Benches, will have to do his best to answer some very direct questions. We have been asking the questions for a long time. It is not the first time that even I, a rookie in these affairs, have stood here making these points and asking these questions, yet we still do not have a clear idea of how this part of our national economy, which represents an enormous percentage of what is earned for this country, will manage its future.

How could we expect differently? Almost all the Answers to the Written Questions gathered together at the end of the excellent briefing from the Library begin with a sentence that damns this whole process. It runs like this: “The Government is clear that free movement of people will end when the United Kingdom leaves the European Community”. If they begin in that way, any attempt to answer the particular Question seems to run into the sand right from the start. It is a fixed point, a red line, a determined position from which very little movement can be expected, yet it is in respect of a part of our national life that is about movement, development, unpredictability and glorying in spontaneity, colour and shape.

We are glad to have the report. Its questions—and they have been mentioned many times around the House—focus on uncertainty. The uncertainty which this sector of all sectors is faced with prohibits planning programmes and activities. In the gathering of information in the Library briefing, I looked at the ISM and Arts Council reports and noted for a start that they are so recent. Why do we have to wait for them, with their concerns about the uncertainty facing them, to produce the kind of evidence that should inject urgency into our debates? But that is what they have done.

I liked in particular the two case studies at the heart of those reports, not about country house music, which we heard mentioned earlier, nor indeed about the many organised festivals, but about the Hallé Orchestra and Sage Gateshead—nice, too, to get out of London when thinking about the arts and the cultural life of the country. Each of those case studies ends by stating that no preparations have been made in either case for a post-Brexit world. That does not mean that they are lacking in foresight, endeavour or energy, but that they do not know what they are responding to or preparing for. That is the uncertainty and I hope that the Minister will recognise the emphasis on that word “uncertainty” and have something to say about it when he rises.

Much has been said about visa requirements. I will say no more, but we must have a word too about flexible and usable visas for people who are travelling at short notice in the ways described. What provision will the Government make for people working in this way in this sector? Do the Government recognise that without such arrangements, it is a death knell for so much of what happens in the sector?

We have heard about social security, healthcare and so on, and I think there is enough clarity there, but we need some reassurance in those areas too. I was interested to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Jay, that the impact of what has been happening—or rather, what has not been happening—is already telling in the sector. There are already repercussions. We are already impoverished: bookings are down, and people are unready to make arrangements ahead of time. That too is a sad thing to say when we have been arguing this case again and again over the months and years that followed the referendum.

My noble friend Lord Parekh touched on something that has not been adequately mentioned: skills. People taken on in apprenticeship positions in order to acquire skills cannot qualify for the full apprenticeship scheme, because of the nature of the contracts and the way the work is done. I wonder whether we might consider a way for people to accumulate the necessary experience, by having a card which is stamped or something, to make it possible for people who learn skills in the sector to accumulate enough experience and qualification to fall within the terms of the apprenticeship scheme.

I hope that the Minister is going to speak about the £30,000 salary limit, because we have all recognised that it does not correspond at all to the reality of the levels of pay received by many people in the cultural sector. Incidentally, I think it was the noble Lord, Lord Inglewood, who wanted us to remember certain definitions of culture. I remember that a Bishop of Liverpool, describing to his congregation what he thought culture was, said, “Culture, my friends, is what happens around here”. It was reported in the newspaper the next day that the Bishop of Liverpool had stated that “Culture happens in Liverpool”. I mention that because I think culture happens in an indirect way, and the work of this sector has repercussions when we encourage people to travel to European countries. When in Vienna, Salzburg or wherever, ordinary people on their ordinary holidays have their horizons widened and their sensibilities touched. I think we should see that culture is a people’s thing; it is not just high culture and it can be caught and taught, so we must think seriously about the freedom of movement of people going on their holidays and visiting the continent of Europe in due course.

I was so pleased to hear the noble Lord, Lord Jay, mention for a moment the Cinderella in all this—poetry, my preferred option as well. I also heard “The Walrus and the Carpenter” as we were talking about high culture earlier in the debate. I will end, as I contemplate Brexit and the departure from Europe, with words from nearer to where I come from. I wish I could raise the country to its true height and rise, as Milton put it, to,

“the height of this great argument …


And justify the ways of God to men”.

I would say to the nation, alert and listening:

“Do not go gentle into that good night.


Rage, rage against the dying of the light”.

Over to the Minister.

Online Harms White Paper

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Tuesday 30th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very happy to contribute to the positive way in which the Minister has presented the case. I am delighted that, as promised by the Government, time has been made for adequate consideration of the issues in this debate. However, I am disappointed that more people are not here. There was such a swell of enthusiasm when this matter came before us the first time that I thought we would have a much better-peopled debate and a longer list of speakers. However, we are here and the ideas are waiting to be explored.

I am happy that this debate is taking place during the period of consultation and I hope that the record of this debate will contribute to the documentation being considered. It will make it 1,001 contributions thus far.

Bold claims have been made for what is hoped to be the result of this process. By the way, it is good to start with a White Paper and with regular rounds of conversations. The bold claims include the Government saying that they are going to create the safest place to be online and that this will be a world first, with no one having done it before. They also say that it could be part of a global response to perceived needs in this area. I feel that we are making something available for our country by way of regulation in respect of a global industry that is very difficult to contain within any framework that I can imagine. We will be hearing from various speakers about regulation, so I shall not deal with that now. The duty of care has already been mentioned. I wish that the digital charter had crept somewhere into the narrative because there are lots of ethical issues that would make it very appropriate to consider it.

There is much else in the White Paper but I want to focus on the list of harms on page 31. I shall not go through them all but I note the three columns headed “Harms with a clear definition”, “Harms with a less clear definition” and “Underage exposure to legal content”. There is a list beneath each heading. I want to compare those lists with the ones that appear in another DCMS document. I was reading it not for this debate, to be quite honest, but for the debate last week on advertising and the internet. It came out of the same stable as the White Paper. I am calling it the Plum report because that is what is on the front cover. It is called Online Advertising in the UK. It was commissioned by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, and it was published in January 2019, when drafts of the White Paper must have been in DCMS. As I said, it is from the same stable. On pages 17 to 19 of this report there are three lists of potential harms to be found online. They have different names from those in the White Paper: individual harms, societal harms and economic harms. This document was produced with the debate on the Communications Committee’s report on advertising and the internet in mind, and to feed into the Cairncross report on local journalism. But the two lists—in the White Paper and the Plum report—must be looked at together. They are rather unlike each other and point to things that we dare not ignore.

After the debate on the Statement, to which the Minister referred, I had a conversation on the Floor of the House with the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Rolfe, who I am sorry to say is not in her place today. She was worried about the absence in the White Paper of any reference to economic harms. I do not believe she was thinking about the responsibilities of small and medium-sized businesses, which would be the same, proportionately, as those of other institutions and bodies; she was talking about online harms to these small and medium-sized businesses. These concerns have been picked up by other commentators too.

The list of economic harms in the Plum report includes:

“Product bundling and exclusivity … ‘Walled Gardens’”,


on which stakeholders express concern that it is hard,

“to export user ID data collected during advertising campaigns”.

The list also includes:

“Lack of transparency in programmatic display … Differential treatment”—


whereby some companies are given better treatment and so on—as well as “leveraging”, “engagement with industry initiatives”, in which market players “do not always adopt” industry standardisation, and “control of web browsers”. It is quite a list, and of a different kind from the one in the White Paper. I wanted to keep these lists together.

After that same debate, I had another conversation, this time with the noble Baroness, Lady O’Neill. It is always a frightening experience to talk to the noble Baroness; she is clever and I do not feel that I am. If I felt even a little clever, I would feel much less so after a conversation with her than I did when I began. She is a quite remarkable woman, whose recent publications are on the subject of trust. Her earlier work was on Immanuel Kant, whom I have barely ever understood; the right reverend Prelate will be better versed in him than I am. These books on trust, however, seem to be looking, as a philosopher should, at a very important subject. Anyway, in this conversation, the noble Baroness expressed her worries about the lack of reference in the White Paper to societal harms. She and I have been greatly impressed by—and shared our impressions of—the recent book Democracy Hacked by Martin Moore, which looks forensically at the damage done online to our democratic institutions.

On societal harms, the list revealed in the Plum report is again very revealing. It includes,

“financial support for publishers of offensive or harmful content”—

that is, providing means of monetisation for those creating harmful content on platforms—as well as discrimination, which can occur either by design or inadvertently when advertisers target data to categorise people by gender, ethnicity and race. The list also includes “non-transparent political advertising”, whereby anonymous actors may “influence elections and referendums”.

It is interesting that in tomorrow’s Oral Questions, the noble Baroness will ask a Question on this subject. I am sure she will want to quote the sympathy of the Information Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, on this very matter. The contribution I want to make as the subject opens up today is to identify and, in some way, feel comfortable with, the range of online harms that we are referring to. They tend to be, as in the White Paper, to do with the plight of individuals. If that is the desired outcome, it ought to be said clearly that this is what we are dealing with. But online harm is a much more generic term and the economic and societal aspects deserve to be mentioned.

I conclude by saying that the Secretary of State has set himself a very difficult target. He wants a Bill that will put the UK’s house in order on a truly global matter of concern. How that will be done we wait to see. The proposals aim to get the right balance between the long-overdue regulation in this area and continuing adherence to the principles of free speech; the Minister has already given assurances on that. He is also looking to produce legislation that, while he gives it his best attention, will be overtaken by rapid development in the field of technology, even as we debate the Bill. We must look for a Bill that is light on its feet, flexible and can be put to work, rather than something static, heavy and fixed that will be out of date as soon as it becomes an Act of Parliament.

I look forward to hearing other views because, at this stage, this is a conversation. I look forward to shaping a document that, ultimately, will go beyond what we are comfortable with as a step in the right direction and needs to go much further.

Radio: Local Commercial Stations

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

Of course, the noble Lord is right. Not only community radio but commercial radio has seen a massive increase since 2010, when the current regime was bought in. But according to Ofcom’s guidelines, the large commercial radio groups still need to have studios that originate programming within approved local areas. The approved local areas were brought in under the last Labour Government. They will not be able to originate content solely in London. We support local radio in a number of ways and are looking forward, for example, to introducing multiplexes soon for local DAB radio.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I spent part of the recent break reading—or rereading—Seven Types of Ambiguity. It occurred to me that chapter 5 of that momentous work dealt with statements in the briefing I received from the radio industry putting forward its case:

“Through technology, stations have the ability to customise the news information they broadcast, irrespective of where the presenters are based”,


which means that we no longer have keep to the same number of stations open. These approved areas can be a pretext behind which we hide the diminution of jobs, of locally based services and of immediate contact with local communities, and can produce and customise in faraway places, with no reporters on site, things that sound as if they are near. Do the Government think that that is really what is behind the slackening of regulation affecting this sector of our life?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The basic issue is that commercial analogue radio faces an enormous challenge from digital services, both online and terrestrial. The changes that have been made by Ofcom to localness were in accordance with listeners’ views. For example, only 17% of respondents to the survey and the consultation thought that locally based presenters were a factor which helped make their station feel local. Ofcom has a requirement to have content made in approved areas, which are local ITV areas, and local news must be produced either hourly or twice a day. If stations have local news only twice a day, they have to produce more locally made content. The greatest factor in whether people listen to local radio is—shock, horror—that it plays the music the listeners like; 72% of respondents said so.

Huawei

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Noble Lords]

Front Bench!

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I am quite sure that the noble Lord would have asked a very pertinent and searching question, and no doubt he will do it eventually. The fact that much of what is happening is hidden behind this question of a leak limits the Minister’s ability to answer some of the questions, but no doubt the time will come for that. Today, £5 billion is quoted as the likely amount that Facebook will have to pay as a fine for the misappropriation of data and technological information in the last period. The Statement says that the review,

“is not about one company, or even one country”.

Are we not already in a complicated relationship with firms of this kind from America? Can we have a global set of assurances that all these sources of information will be adequately managed for the well-being of us all?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The noble Lord is exactly right. As I said, this is not just about one country. The National Security Council looks at all these issues. The problem with a global network such as the internet is that threats can come from any country, and they may originate in one but attack through another. It is complicated. In this country, we have one of the best organisations to deal with this: the National Cyber Security Centre in GCHQ. The main thing to stress is that our security is pre-eminent, but we have to strike a balance with new and emerging economies and how we deal with them—and not just with regard to cybersecurity.

Discrimination in Football

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord for repeating the Statement. I will begin a response and ask some questions by echoing the Minister’s remarks and those in the Statement that honour the remarkable courage of the three players—Zaha, Sterling and Rose—who have stood up for proper values when it is enormously difficult to do so in the environment in which they work. They are young men and their courage needs to be commended.

Secondly, I honour the work of a Member of this House, the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, who, with Kick It Out, has worked so hard for decades to address the questions implicit in the Statement. As a House, we should be proud that he is one of us. He is stepping down from the front line of those responsibilities, but his work has been very considerable.

I note from the Statement the various measures that are taken reactively to incidents that occurred in Montenegro, Chelsea or wherever. Of course, we must frame responses that are appropriate to incidents of that kind. I also note that there is every desire to create conditions and have a discussion with the appropriate people that will try to keep in check the outbursts that we all so much regret.

I have a question for those of us whose responsibilities overlap with the DCMS. We hear that some football club fans are using closed Facebook groups to promote racist ideology. With the publication of the Online Harms White Paper this week, will the use of this type of technology be looked at as it applies to football?

I was responsible for an activity that reached out to and included people from a vast variety of racial and ethnic groups—55 at one time—for a number of years. When I took up my responsibilities in that arena, I noticed that, with all the diversity in front of us, those of us running the show were about half a dozen very white people.

I knew then that a bigger job had to be done if we were to work away at the culture that we seek to change. I set myself a target: to diversify the leadership offered to this group within three or four years. In the end, we brought in a variety of faces from Fiji, Korea, various countries in west Africa and the Indian subcontinent. I noticed and can attest to—indeed, we measured it—the change in the nature of engagement on the part of those who had previously been talked to or over but now felt that they owned the operation.

That leads me to ask my question—which, apart from the Facebook one, is perhaps my only serious one: how do we change a culture? A culture in the support of our national game permits and encourages these subversive activities. I remember having a close association in the 1980s with those neo-fascist groups of hooligans that went round causing trouble at various football stadiums across the land. How do we change a culture and allow a diverse population to feel that it has ownership of this game, rather than it being in the hands of multimillionaires from other places? Seriously, how do we stop black players on the pitch being used, in a sense, as icons, heroes or puppets for people’s own prejudices? There is deep work to be done. We could apply what I have said to homophobia, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Changing a culture is difficult; in football, that seems to be the number one question to address.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating the Statement. This is one of those happy occasions when there is a great deal of consensus in this Chamber, and possibly across the whole of government, on the fact that we must address this.

We are not talking about a new thing; we are talking about something that many of us hoped was at least in terminal decline. In fact, we are hearing an unpleasant echo of the culture of abuse in football that was a regular part of the cheering of the crowds when I was growing up. I remember being in Scotland when the first black player played in the Old Firm game and Glasgow market sold out of bananas. There is nothing new here—which is probably one of the most worrying things.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths. It strikes me that we will have to get co-operation between bodies that, shall we say, cherish their independence very strongly. The Premiership, the Football League and the FA will have to work with government closely and consistently if we are to achieve the identification of those taking care of this. Indeed, the noble Lord mentioned something I had not thought about but should have done: social media. These issues are all related in making sure that things go forward.

When it comes to international groups—club football at the top level is an international game now—we will have to work with our neighbours. I hate to bring discord to the debate by echoing the previous one, but what steps are being taken to make sure that, under any circumstances, we have good links to ensure that someone cannot simply run away from the game until they get to a big international stage and then carry on this activity? If we start with racism, nationalism will not be far behind. Skin colour first, language second; it will happen. What are we doing to identify the problem? As the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, pointed out, what are we doing to make sure that anybody who takes action when they feel that they are not being protected will not suffer huge penalties?

The Premiership is one of the biggest invisible earners in this country. Billions of pounds are involved. If a manager feels that his players are under threat and removes them from that environment, what are we going to do to protect him? Ultimately, it will be a manager who will do this, even if an individual player walks off. It will be a manager who has to take the brunt of it, and the club. What are we doing to protect them—what are we doing to work towards it? Until we start to take questions like that very seriously and to make sure that the whole of football—FIFA, UEFA, everybody—works together, we are not going to do this. The Government’s role in this is to co-ordinate that.

Electronic Communications (Amendment etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Lords Chamber

With those few questions, I just say that I very much hope that this short debate will have been wasted.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I looked behind me in vain for interventions from our side of the House. I am happy to provide as short a contribution to this debate as others, and very happy that my noble friend Lord Foster—if I may call him that—has made some of his usual penetrating comments that leave me free to look at things at another level. As the Minister said, this SI seems a simple matter of tidying up an area that had not been previously dealt with in full. I cannot comment on why some of this was not done earlier, but it is being done now. When I got it and saw the pages and pages of sheer drudgery that our very talented Civil Service has had to give its best time to, my heart sank.

It also occurred to me that debating it today is very ironical because the Prime Minister does not want a no-deal exit—neither do the Lords or the Commons. Nobody wants it, but we look as if we might be in danger of drifting into it. Once upon a time, a Roman emperor played the violin while the city around him burned. Now, our contemporary empress is fiddling in European capitals and burning our boats while she does it. We must ask ourselves very seriously whether this exercise of 500 or more statutory instruments being pushed through our procedures in this way has been beneficial to anybody.

I note the substantive point that the statutory instrument intends to deal with the,

“notification of personal data breaches by providers of publicly available electronic communications service”.

I have learned so many acronyms in reading for this debate—indeed, it has been on a par with “Line of Duty”, which I watch rather assiduously when I can. The replacing of “competent national authority” references with references to the “Information Commissioner” seems to tidy everything up. I looked and, as has been mentioned by others already, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee drew attention to the facts about these calls. Indeed, it added an appendix to one of its committee meetings to ask technical questions of the Minister. He has answered those and I need not therefore repeat them.

With the ground adequately covered and tidiness brought to a fundamentally futile exercise, I am happy to rest the case there. I invite the Minister to say some reassuring words and answer our questions so that we can move on to other business.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their points and detailed questions on a detailed SI.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster, castigated us for bringing these small changes forward at a late stage and asked why we did not bring them forward earlier. The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, looked at the details, a substantial number of which need to be addressed, not only in legislation but in EU decisions, regulations and directives. That takes time, and we want to get it right. He also asked whether I can categorically assure him that he will not have to deal with these matters again. Of course I cannot give him that assurance, as he well knows, but the point is made and I accept it.

On a serious note, it is important to get these things right. I pay tribute to the civil servants in my department, who have worked very hard to try to do that. Most of the provisions in this statutory instrument are genuinely technical, changing the language so that it makes sense in the event that we leave the EU. Of course, this is a no-deal Brexit SI, so it is contingent on that.

The noble Lord, Lord Foster, asked some specific questions about his favourite subject—the BEREC regulations—such as why we did not bring them forward. The reason is that this SI repeals the 2018 BEREC regulation, which replaced the 2009 BEREC regulation. That regulation was repealed and replaced in December 2018, so it is now necessary to revoke the new 2018 BEREC regulation. It was not ready at the time of the previous SI, which is why we are doing that now. I hope that he can feel happy with that.

As far as the GDPR is concerned, we agreed the data SI in this House some weeks ago. The noble Lord referred to Article 81 on the suspension of proceedings, which is omitted from the UK GDPR. In a UK-only context, that provision becomes redundant, because it is right that breaches of the UK GDPR are brought before UK courts. Of course, amendments to the retained GDPR were debated by this House in February 2019.

Online Harms

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, it is with pleasure and a great deal of relief that I speak to this Statement and the White Paper that lies behind it. Having sat through endless hours of the previous debates and the acrimony generated by them, and having found ourselves in places where I suspect none of us wanted to be, it is a pleasure to come to proper business again and to look at something that affects the whole of our society. We must find remedies and seek a legislative way forward that deals with the problems that we know are part and parcel of this innovative and brilliant thing that we call the internet and the technological advances that go with it.

Having read the White Paper and listened to the Statement, I am convinced that, across the Benches of this House, we must see this as unique in a party-political system in that we must act together. Consensual approaches and sensible resolutions to the problem are a duty that falls upon all of us. After all, the internet affects every part of our society—all of us have felt the questions it raises and enjoyed the wonderful opportunities it affords—so I hope that we can approach this in a consensual and cross-party way.

I congratulate the Government—is it not wonderful to hear someone from these Benches saying that?—on generating a report that is lucid and clear and will generate the kind of discussion that the consultative period, now beginning, will need. It is well laid out; my son is a printer, and he constantly beleaguers me about layout as I understand it and layout as he understands it, and he would be pleased with this. I can give no higher commendation. Congratulations are in order.

I know that we will have detailed, forensic debates when the results of the consultation are before us. At the moment, highlighting some of the headline aspects will have to do. The duty of care has been spoken to already and we must emphasise it; after all, we are all aware of those who are harmed by the abuse of the internet. Some well-publicised cases leave their images constantly before our eyes, especially when we think that some of them, indeed a lot of them, are children. In previous legislation that we have debated on the Floor of the House, we have talked about designing the internet in such a way that the interests and rights of children are protected. I am quite sure that we will take all that forward in the outworking of the further proposals in this White Paper.

We want to protect people from harms, and we will no doubt want to discuss what we think constitutes harms in the proper sense. There are indeed in this White Paper, rather conveniently, tabulated harms: those that are illegal, that are dangerous; that deserve attention. These are indicative lists, and no doubt we will want to move things from here to there and there to here, and add to and subtract from as time goes on, but it is a pretty good starting point to show us the range of conducts and activities that we will need to give attention to.

It is a bold White Paper. It claims to be bold and boasts of being bold. For me, there is one aspect that teases me, and I hope the Minister can give us some reassurance on it. It is the whole idea that while the internet and online activity affects us locally—in our homes and elsewhere—this has to be balanced against the fact that the companies, across whose platforms the material that generates these problems come, are global. We have seen how difficult it is to deal with the taxation aspects of these global companies. It will be equally difficult to think about legislation that could bring them all into line, and a word about that would be very helpful as we steer our way into the consideration of these proposals.

Statutory measures are mentioned, and I am delighted about that, of course, because these proposals and this way forward need to be underpinned by the full force of the law, and the regulator will be endowed with powers that are appropriate to the importance of the job. I wonder how we will bring a regulator to birth; some suggest that it should perhaps be an offshoot of Ofcom in the first place, that under the aegis of Ofcom we can get regulation built in to our way forward, and that it can evolve into something more complete later.

Any legislation that we bring forward will need to be nimble and flexible, because technology moves faster than the making of laws, and since the making of a law, as we know from the one we have been discussing, can be interminable, I hope that we will never be accused of tardiness in acting promptly, flexibly and nimbly to combat the downside of online activities.

So I congratulate the Government and I look forward to further debates and in greater detail.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, we, too, on these Benches welcome the fact that the Government’s proposals have come forward today, and we support the placing of a statutory duty of care on social media companies. We agree that the new arrangements should apply to any sites,

“that allow users to share or discover user-generated content, or interact with each other online”.

We think that is a fair definition.

We are all aware of the benefits of social media networks and the positive role they can play. There is, however, far too much illegal content and harmful activity on social media that goes undealt with by social media platforms and creates social harm. The self-harming material on Instagram and the footage of the Christchurch killings are perhaps the most recent examples.

Proper enforcement of existing laws is, of course, vital to protect users from harm, but, as the White Paper proposes, social media companies should have a statutory duty of care to their users—above all, to children and young people—and, as I say, we fully support the proposed duty of care. It follows that, through the proposed codes, Parliament and Government have an important role to play in defining that duty clearly. We cannot leave it to big private tech firms, such as Facebook and Twitter, to decide the acceptable bounds of conduct and free speech on a purely voluntary basis, as they have been doing to date.

It is good that the Government recognise the dangers that exist online and the inadequacy of current protections. However, regulation and enforcement must be based on clear evidence of well-defined harm, and must respect the rights to privacy and free expression of those who use social media legally and responsibly. I welcome the Government’s stated commitment to these two aspects.

We also very much welcome the Government’s adherence to the principle of regulating on a basis of risk and proportionality when enforcing the duty of care and drawing up the codes. Will the codes, as the Lords Communications Committee called for, when exercising powers of oversight, set out clearly the distinction between criminal, harmful content and antisocial content? By the same token, upholding the right to freedom of expression does not mean a laissez-faire approach. Does the Minister agree that bullying and abuse prevent people expressing themselves freely and must be stamped out? Will there be a requirement that users must be able to report harmful or illegal content to platforms and have their reports dealt with appropriately, including being kept informed of the progress and outcome of any complaint?

Similarly, there must be transparency about the reasons for decisions and any enforcement action, whether by social media companies or regulators. Users must have the ability to challenge a platform’s decision to ban them or remove their content. We welcome the proposed three-month consultation period; indeed, I welcome the Government’s intention to achieve cross-party consensus on the crucial issue of regulating online harms. I agree that with a national consensus we could indeed play an international leadership role in this area.

Then we come to the question of the appropriate regulator to enforce this code and duty. Many of us assumed that this would naturally fall to Ofcom, with its experience and expertise, particularly in upholding freedom of speech. If it is not to be Ofcom, with all its experience, what criteria will be used in determining what new or existing body will be designated? The same appears to me to apply to the question of whether the ICO is the right regulator for the algorithms used by social media. I see that the Home Office will be drawing up certain codes. Who will be responsible for the non-criminal codes? Have the Government considered the proposals by Doteveryone and the Lords Communications Select Committee for a new “Office for Internet Safety” as an advisory body to analyse online harms, identify gaps in regulation and enforcement and recommend new regulations and powers to Parliament?

At the end of the day, regulation alone cannot address all these harms. As the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, has said, children have the right to a childhood. Schools need to educate children about how to use social media responsibly and be safe online, as advocated by the PSHE Association and strongly supported by my party. Parents must be empowered to protect their children through digital literacy, advice and support. I very much hope that that is what is proposed by the online media literacy strategy.

At the end of the day, we all need to recognise that this kind of regulation can only do so much. We need a change of culture among the social media companies. They should be proactively seeking to prevent harm. The Government refer to a culture of continuous improvement being a desired goal. We on these Benches thoroughly agree that that is vital.