Online Safety Bill

Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 1st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the intriguing suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, about December—which I will not repeat at this moment. I declare my interest as a former head of public affairs at the BBC who heavily lobbied this House in 1995 and 1996 to bring about the Broadcasting Act which set BBC online on its way. I am proud to say that BBC online remains a beacon of responsible content to show the rest of the world. I am also co-chair of the all-party group on media literacy and patron of Student View, which works in over 100 schools around the country to deliver media literacy.

In the original draft Bill, media literacy was not a central point but an important point of commitment. It has since been removed from the final legislation in front of us. As the Minister said in his introduction, there are multiple provisions in the legislation which cater for enabling adults to make sensible use of their media journey. However, there is very little, other than protections for children, to enable children to make intelligent understanding of their media journey.

According to the National Literacy Trust, in its assessment a few years ago, only 2% of children had the critical thinking skills necessary to be able to distinguish between fact and fiction online, and 90% of teachers say they are in favour of media literacy but feel that they do not have the skills to be able to teach it. They also feel that the vast majority of children they teach who discuss media issues consistently in the classroom do not understand the difference between truth and misinformation.

I want to keep it simple and say two things to the Minister and one to the Opposition. First, to the Minister, given the level of fines which should become apparent as a response to abuse of this legislation, money will be available to empower media literacy programmes inside and outside of schools. There should be no excuse that there is no money; the money in fines should go not just towards Ofcom’s costs but towards improving the capability of the next generation to navigate the media landscape. Will the Minister and the Government consider that?

It is obvious that media literacy is not in this Bill now because the Government argued it was essentially an education matter. In that case, will the Minister commit the Government—as he speaks for the Government —to bringing forward a media literacy education Bill before the next election? If it is not possible and there is to be a Labour Government after the next election, will the Labour Front Bench commit to bringing forward a media literacy education Bill, rather than simply letting this issue drift into the long grass? The noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, can answer that directly at the end and make a commitment on behalf of the Labour Front Bench we can all hold him to account on.

There also needs to be substantial support for teaching teachers to understand and navigate a forest that they do not necessarily know how to enter or exit. That should be part of teacher development and support. Can we also consider the costs of misinformation and how it is damaging our social fabric? Can the Minister request of the Treasury that it brings forward cost assessments of the damage of misinformation?

Public Service Broadcasting (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to this debate and I declare my interest as the BBC’s former head of public affairs from 1996 to 2003, notably from one year after the famous broadcast in question. I noted that this report—vital as ever—underlined the two key themes that democracy and culture are fundamental to the existence of the BBC, let alone that of public broadcasting.

Although the committee’s report is 18 months old and the debate has been held back, perhaps for obvious reasons, the issues are similar to those on which I contended, fought and debated—even with your Lordships before I became a Member—on behalf of the BBC between 1996 and 2003. In many ways, little has changed. I contended on: three successful licence fee campaigns and two successful charter renewals; critical legislation on public service broadcasting’s “must-carry” cable provisions from Baroness O’Cathain, who is no longer with us; and, of course, listed sports events, to which the noble Lord, Lord Smith, referred, along with the special engagement back in 1996 of the noble Lord, Lord Archer.

Those who were excoriated and shamed in the past week by the Dyson report—senior executives and correspondents—exposed something that was clearly a major difficulty at the time and which has some shavings of it currently. The BBC back then sought to trivialise and tantalise to get younger and more populous audiences. It is exactly the kind of attitude in the news dimension of the BBC that caused the extremely expensive and invasive attack on Sir Cliff Richard, which was endorsed by the previous director-general as legitimate journalism but then thrashed in the courts as an abuse of judgment and an unacceptable waste of public money. It gave us the appalling realities that the Dyson report considered.

However, let us look at the other side. In the past year, all of us have depended extensively—yes, my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Hannan—on local radio and local news. We have depended extensively on coverage to inform us of what is going on in the coronavirus pandemic in the UK and internationally, and now, of course, on vaccination detail. I am grateful to the wonderful Julia Harris, public affairs manager at the BBC’s World Service division. Her exceptional brief on domestic BBC interests and those of the World Service is compelling reading.

However, I want to add three things into that brief which I feel your Lordships will benefit from noting. During the course of last year, when so much could not be done, the BBC still did Comic Relief: live public broadcasting to raise resources for those on the edges of life in the poorest parts of the world. The BBC still hosted Children in Need, for those domestic realities and pressure points—and, especially, there was the supplemented £10 million commitment to Black Lives Matter realities, rather than organisations. As a vice-president of UNICEF, I wish to thank ITV for hosting Soccer Aid, raising nearly £11 million on behalf of UNICEF. These are unique events in the BBC’s case, facilitating financial assistance in excess of £100 million from the British people because of the trusted status of the broadcaster.

The Government’s response says that the organisations called public service broadcasters, including the BBC, must adapt, but what does it mean to adapt in this new, comprehensively platformed age in which everything is available in an instant? Certainly, to adapt does not mean to be populist and trashy. It has been my long-held conviction, from my times of responsibility at the BBC to now, that the BBC is an outstanding national and international asset, and its value is like that of our own homes, if we have one, fine wines, if we invest in them, or jewellery, museums, libraries, galleries and universities. Assets grow in value not by lowering their value to attract greater interest, but by protecting their value through the relentless pursuit of excellence and exceptionalism.

I firmly believe it is time to call out what has to be one of the most essential changes for the BBC for the future: to keep faith with its long-established public purposes. Over the last year we have all suffered the endless amount of news called “fears”: “scientists fear”, “officials fear”, “the public fears”. Fears are not facts. News should be about facts, data and information, hence the need to put right the agenda of the BBC’s news organisation by letting it be led by the World Service. We need to see the quality of World Service news in our domestic news following; that way, we will be truly informed and educated. I will give just two examples. Today, the Times newspaper refers to Russian nuclear bombers being placed in Assad’s Syria to hold up the regime. There is no mention of that on the BBC. Alternatively, with an interest in the Black Lives Matter realities of the US, there has been no mention on the BBC over the last week of America’s black middle-class. These perspectives come from having a wider, deeper knowledge, and I encourage the BBC in future to abandon the trashy attitudes of fear-thinking and appealing to popular audiences, and to go back to detail.

Office of Communications: Chair

Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is right that it will be extremely important in future for Ofcom to co-ordinate its activities with other digital regulators, including the new digital markets unit being set up in the CMA. We are working at pace to prepare the online harms legislation, which will be ready later this year. In December, the Government received advice from the CMA on design and implementation of the new regime. We are carefully considering this and will consult on it as soon as possible.

[Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB)]

My Lords, we all remember the foundation of Ofcom, when all it was about was spectrum allocations and channel licensing—and now it has the BBC as well. However, the biggest elephant in the communications room is the urgent need for social media regulation, given its regularised misinformation and distortion of reality. Will the new chair and the ever-expanding Ofcom take on this duty, and should media literacy better fit with Ofcom than Ofsted?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Ofcom is the Government’s preferred regulator for the new online harms regime and the new legislation, which will be introduced later this year. The Government will announce their media literacy strategy later this year.

Charitable and Voluntary Sector

Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick Excerpts

Thursday 30th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for allowing us to engage in this important conversation together to seek answers. I declare my known interest as chancellor of Regent’s University London, which is a UK registered charity.

In the next academic year, all UK universities expect a major reduction in fee income from international students, both EU and non-EU. For Regent’s University in particular, as a registered charity, where 80% of our student population is international and comes from 140 different countries, this will obviously have a massive impact on our finances. It is a major blow to our positioning as an educational flag-carrier for Britain’s place in the world.

For the sector as a whole, even a 50% fall in international fee income, combined with the degree of deferral for home students, will result in the loss of over £3.1 billion of income in the next year. Some UK universities, as the Office for Students will know, have high levels of external borrowing and low levels of cash reserves. Regent’s is fairly typical in having about five to six months of liquidity. We know that all universities will be affected by the drop-off of international students, but those universities that have charitable status do not have the opportunity to act as commercial or public universities may do, with the same breadth. I have written to Ministers in the Department for Education on these matters and have not had the courtesy of a reply. Could the Minister inquire of Ministers in the department whether they might respond?

Universities may be able to take account of some of the Government’s coronavirus job retention schemes. However, the money that may be required to hold universities together, particularly international support universities, will be substantial and some kind of support programme for the next six months will be essential to preserve our vital university education sector.