Deregulation Bill

Debate between Lord Macdonald of Tradeston and Lord Stevenson of Balmacara

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I am always grateful for comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, whose expertise and knowledge are legendary in this House, but, of course, prospective Ministers might also be wise to think about what civil servants are advising.

[Lord Macdonald of Tradeston]

On the question of our perhaps not discussing this matter because it has been in the courts for some four years already, is my noble friend aware of the Interpretation Act 1978, which speaks of this very issue? It provides that,

“where an Act repeals an enactment, the repeal does not … affect any investigation, legal proceeding or remedy”.

Just to rub in the irony, when the copyright Act came in, in 1988, it was despite related ongoing legislation at that time.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I am not as well briefed as my noble friend Lord Macdonald, but it is also true that the Digital Economy Act suffered from similar problems, which have not allowed it to emerge from the purdah in which it has been placed.

As I was trying to explain before I was accused of being too craven towards the Minister, which is a very unlikely position for me to be in, if a review is already ongoing then we should at least do the decent thing and wait for that. I think that the review will be forthcoming and give us the results.

I still worry about whether we are being told the whole story about this. The noble Lord, Lord Grade, the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and other noble Lords have suggested that we could expect savings from this area; figures of about £100 million have been mentioned. If that were reinvested in British original content, that must be a good thing—there is no question about that—but what exactly would we see for it? Where has anybody specified in detail what that would be? It would be helpful to have some knowledge of that. Would it be more children’s programming or regional programming, better local news or better investigative work? We do not see quite so much of that as we used to on the commercial channels, and they have PSB ratings and should therefore perhaps be expected to move up to the mark. They need to be a bit more forward about that. I say this because, in September, media analysts at the Bank of America said on this issue that an extra £100 million of revenue for ITV could add about 15% to profits and could be worth 40p a share. I am not saying that that is what is driving this issue, but we might wish to bear it in mind.

I am sure that this issue needs to be resolved. We need a review, which I think has started. It is not right simply to put down an amendment at this stage. We should do this in a proper process, and I hope that the Government will push ahead with their review.