TV Licence Non-payment: Women

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Tuesday 5th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The Government consulted on decriminalisation of TV licence evasion in 2020, and we published our response in 2021. The appropriate time to make this decision is as part of the BBC funding model review, when we can look at the way we can get the sustainable funding for the corporation that everyone wants to see.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the urgency with which people are suggesting this is looked at is not helped by the fact that we are going through a very serious financial time and it is likely that there will be more, not fewer, people in this difficult situation. First, can the Minister take note of what the original Question said—that there is a danger of this being abused by private companies that are incentivised to prosecute women in this situation? Secondly, we are spending a lot of time doing the Victims and Prisoners Bill—well, some of us are—and it seems so wrong to criminalise people who are vulnerable and victims. This has got nothing to do with BBC bashing; it has everything to do with recognising that women are being discriminated against unfairly for something which, given the scale of the problems facing society, the Government should really just deal with now.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I hope I can reassure the noble Baroness that the number of women being prosecuted is falling. In the year ending June 2022, 35,000 women were prosecuted; in the year ending June 2023, 29,000 were. So the number is coming down, but the disparity between the sexes is indeed stark, with women still making up around three-quarters of people prosecuted. That is why we are glad the BBC has looked at this and has set out actions, and why we are looking at it as part of our future consideration of how the BBC should be funded.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Report stage
Wednesday 19th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

To answer my noble friend Lady Stowell first, it depends on the type of service. It is difficult to give a short answer that covers the range of services that we want to ensure are covered here, but we are seeking to keep this and all other parts of the Bill technology neutral so that, as services develop, technology changes and criminals, unfortunately, seek to exploit that, technology companies can continue to innovate to keep children safe while protecting the privacy of their users. That is a long-winded answer to my noble friend’s short question, but necessarily so. Ofcom will need to make its assessments on a case- by-case basis and can require a company to use its best endeavours to innovate if no effective and accurate technology is currently available.

While I am directing my remarks towards my noble friend, I will also answer a question she raised earlier on general monitoring. General monitoring is not a legally defined concept in UK law; it is a term in European Union law that refers to the generalised monitoring of user activity online, although its parameters are not clearly defined. The use of automated technologies is already fundamental to how many companies protect their users from the most abhorrent harms, including child sexual abuse. It is therefore important that we empower Ofcom to require the use of such technology where it is necessary and proportionate and ensure that the use of these tools is transparent and properly regulated, with clear and appropriate safeguards in place for users’ rights. The UK’s existing intermediary liability regime remains in place.

Amendment 255 from my noble friend Lord Moylan seeks to prevent Ofcom imposing any requirement in a notice that would weaken or remove end-to-end encryption. He is right that end-to-end encryption should not be weakened or removed. The powers in the Bill will not do that. These powers are underpinned by proportionality and technical feasibility; if it is not proportionate or technically feasible for companies to identify child sexual exploitation abuse content on their platform while upholding users’ right to privacy, Ofcom cannot require it.

I agree with my noble friend and the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, that encryption is a very important and popular feature today. However, with technology evolving at a rapid rate, we cannot accept amendments that would risk this legislation quickly becoming out of date. Naming encryption in the Bill would risk that happening. We firmly believe that the best approach is to focus on strong safeguards for upholding users’ rights and ensuring that measures are proportionate to the specific situation, rather than on general features such as encryption.

The Bill already requires Ofcom to consider the risk that technology could result in a breach of any statutory provision or rule of law concerning privacy and whether any alternative measures would significantly reduce the amount of illegal content on a service. As I have said in previous debates, Ofcom is also bound by the Human Rights Act not to act inconsistently with users’ rights.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

Will the Minister write to noble Lords who have been here in Committee and on Report in response to the fact that it is not just encryption companies saying that the demands of this clause will lead to the breaching of encryption, even though the Minister and the Government keep saying that it will not? As I have indicated, a wide range of scientists and technologists are saying that, whatever is said, demanding that Ofcom insists that technology notices are used in this way will inadvertently lead to the breaking of encryption. It would be useful if the Government at least explained scientifically and technologically why those experts are wrong and they are right.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am very happy to put in writing what I have said from the Dispatch Box. The noble Baroness may find that it is the same, but I will happily set it out in further detail.

I should make it clear that the Bill does not permit law enforcement agencies to access information held on platforms, including access to private channels. The National Crime Agency will be responsible for receiving reports from in-scope services via secure transmission, processing these reports and, where appropriate, disseminating them to other UK law enforcement bodies and our international counterparts. The National Crime Agency will process only information provided to it by the company; where it determines that the content is child sexual abuse content and meets the threshold for criminality, it can request further information from the company using existing powers.

I am glad to hear that my noble friend Lord Moylan does not intend to divide on his amendment. The restrictions it sets out are not ones we should impose on the Bill.

Amendments 256, 257 and 259 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, require a notice to be approved by a judicial commissioner appointed under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 and remove Ofcom’s power to require companies to make best endeavours to develop or source new technology to address child sexual exploitation and abuse content.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Report stage
Monday 17th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I will write on Schedule 12 as well.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

Before the Minister sits down, to quote the way the Minister has operated throughout Report, there is consensus across the House that there are some concerns. The reason why there are concerns outside and inside the House on this particular amendment is that it is not entirely clear that those protections exist, and there are worries. I ask the Minister whether, rather than just writing, it would be possible to take this back to the department, table a late amendment and say, “Look again”. That has been done before. It is certainly not too late: if it was not too late to have this amendment then it is certainly not too late to take it away again and to adopt another amendment that gives some safeguarding. Seriously, it is worth looking again.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I had not quite finished; the noble Baroness was quick to catch me before I sat down. I still have some way to go, but I will certainly take on board all the points that have been made on this group.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight, asked about Schedule 12. I will happily write with further information on that, but Schedule 12 is about UK premises, so it is probably not the appropriate place to deal with this, as we need to be able to access services in other countries. If there is a serious security risk then it would not necessarily be proportionate. I will write to him with further details.

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[Lord Allan of Hallam (LD)]

We established in our last debate that the notion of a recognised news publisher will go much broader than a broadcaster. I put it to the Minister that we could end up in an interesting situation where one bit of the Bill says, “You have to protect content from these people because they are recognised news publishers”. Another bit, however, will be a direction to the Secretary of State saying that, to deal with this crisis, we are going to give a media literacy direction that says, “Please get rid of all the content from this same news publisher”. That is an anomaly that we risk setting up with these different provisions.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

On the previous group, I raised the issue of legal speech that was labelled as misinformation and removed in the extreme situation of a public health panic. This was seemingly because the Government were keen that particular public health information was made available. Subsequently, we discovered that those things were not necessarily untrue and should not have been removed. Is the Minister arguing that this power is necessary for the Government to direct that certain things are removed on the basis that they are misinformation—in which case, that is a direct attempt at censorship? After we have had a public health emergency in which “facts” have been contested and shown to not be as black and white or true as the Government claimed, saying that the power will be used only in extreme circumstances does not fill me with great confidence.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am happy to make it clear, as I did on the last group, that the power allows Ofcom not to require platforms to remove content, only to set out what they are doing in response to misinformation and disinformation—to require platforms to make a public statement about what they are doing to tackle it. In relation to regulating news providers, we have brought the further amendments forward to ensure that those subject to sanctions cannot avail themselves of the special provisions in the Bill. Of course, the Secretary of State will be mindful of the law when issuing directions in the exceptional circumstances that these clauses set out.

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[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

Before the Minister sits down, I think that it is entirely appropriate for him to say—I have heard it before—“Oh no, nothing was taken down. None of this is believable. No individuals were targeted”. However, that is not the evidence I have seen, and it might well be that I have been shown misinformation. But that is why the Minister has to acknowledge that one of the problems here is that indicated by Full Fact—which, as we know, is often endorsed by government Ministers as fact-checkers. It says that because the Government are avoiding any scrutiny for this unit, it cannot know. It becomes a “he said, she said” situation. I am afraid that, because of the broader context, it would make the Minister’s life easier, and be clearer to the public—who are, after all, worried about this—if he accepted the ideas in the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Moylan. We would then be clear and it would be out in the open. If the FOIs and so on that have been constantly put forward were answered, would that not clear it up?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I have addressed the points made by the noble Baroness and my noble friend already. She asks the same question again and I can give her the same answer. We are operating openly and transparently here, and the Bill sets out further provisions for transparency and accountability.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Report stage
Wednesday 12th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am very grateful to everyone for the support they have expressed for this amendment both in the debate now and by adding their names to it. As I said, I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lady Morgan, with whom we have worked closely on it. I am also grateful for her recognition that men and boys also face harm online, as she rightly points out. As we discussed in Committee, this Bill seeks to address harms for all users but we recognise that women and girls disproportionately face harm online. As we have discussed with the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, women and girls with other characteristics such as women of colour, disabled women, Jewish women and many others face further disproportionate harm and abuse. I hope that Amendment 152 demonstrates our commitment to giving them the protection they need, making it easy and clear for platforms to implement protections for them across all the wide-ranging duties they have.

The noble Baroness, Lady Burt of Solihull, asked why it was guidance and not a code of practice. Ofcom’s codes of practice will set out how companies can comply with the duties and will cover how companies should tackle the systemic risks facing women and girls online. Stipulating that Ofcom must produce specific codes for multiple different issues could, as we discussed in Committee, create duplication between the codes, causing confusion for companies and for Ofcom.

As Ofcom said in its letter to your Lordships ahead of Report, it has already started the preparatory work on the draft illegal content and child sexual abuse and exploitation codes. If it were required to create a separate code relating to violence against women and girls, this preparatory work would need to be revised, so there would be the unintended—and, I think, across the House, undesired—consequence of slowing down the implementation of these vital protections. I am grateful for the recognition that we and Ofcom have had on that point.

Instead, government Amendment 152 will consolidate all the relevant measures across codes of practice, such as on illegal content, child safety and user empowerment, in one place, assisting platforms to reduce the risk of harm that women and girls disproportionately face.

On timing, at present Ofcom expects that this guidance will be published in phase 3 of the implementation of the Bill, which was set out in Ofcom’s implementation plan of 15 June. This is when the duties in Part 4 of the Bill, relating to terms of service and so on, will be implemented. The guidance covers the duties in Part 4, so for guidance to be comprehensive and have the most impact in protecting women and girls, it is appropriate for it to be published during phase 3 of the Bill’s implementation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, mentioned the rights of trans people and the rights of people to express their views. As she knows, gender reassignment and religious or philosophical belief are both protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. Sometimes those are in tension, but they are both protected in the law.

With gratitude to all the noble Lords who have expressed their support for it, I commend the amendment to the House.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

The Minister did not quite grasp what I said but I will not keep the House. Would he be prepared to accept recommendations for a broader consultation—or who do I address them to? It is important that groups such as the Women’s Rights Network and others, which suffer abuse because they say “I know what a woman is”, are talked to in a discussion on women and abuse, because that would be appropriate.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am sorry—yes, the noble Baroness made a further point on consultation. I want to reassure her and other noble Lords that Ofcom has the discretion to consult whatever body it considers appropriate, alongside the Victims’ Commissioner, the Domestic Abuse Commissioner and others who I mentioned. Those consultees may not all agree. It is important that Ofcom takes a range of views but is able to consult whomever. As I mentioned previously, Ofcom and its officers can be scrutinised in Parliament through Select Committees and in other ways. The noble Baroness could take it up directly with them but could avail herself of those routes for parliamentary scrutiny if she felt that her pleas were falling on deaf ears.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Report stage
Thursday 6th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I certainly will think about it, but the difficulty is the scale of the material and the speed with which we want these assessments to be made and that light to be lit, in order to make sure that people are properly protected.

My noble friend Lord Moylan asked about differing international terminology. In order for companies to operate in the United Kingdom they must have an understanding of the United Kingdom, including the English-language terms used in our legislation. He made a point about the Equality Act 2010. While it uses the same language, it does not extend the Equality Act to this part of the Bill. In particular, it does not create a new offence.

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox, also mentioned the Equality Act when she asked about the phraseology relating to gender reassignment. We included this wording to ensure that the language used in the Bill matches Section 7(1) of the Equality Act 2010 and that gender reassignment has the same meaning in the Bill as it does in that legislation. As has been said by other noble Lords—

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I clarify that what I said was aimed at protecting children. Somebody corrected me and asked, “Do you know that this says ‘abusive’?”—of course I do. What I suggested was that this is an area that is very contentious when we talk about introducing it to children. I am thinking about safeguarding children in this instance, not just copying and pasting a bit of an Act.

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[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

As was pointed out by others in the debate, the key provision in Amendment 172 is subsection (2) of the proposed new clause, which relates to:

“Content which is abusive and which targets any of the following characteristics”.


It must both be abusive and target the listed characteristics. It does not preclude legitimate debate about those things, but if it were abusive on the basis of those characteristics—rather akin to the debate we had in the previous group and the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, about people making oblique threats, rather than targeting a particular person, by saying, “People of your characteristic should be abused in the following way”—it would be captured.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I will keep this short, because I know that everyone wants to get on. It would be said that it is abusive to misgender someone; in the context of what is going on in sixth forms and schools, I suggest that this is a problem. It has been suggested that showing pictures of the Prophet Muhammad in an RE lesson—these are real-life events that happen offline—is abusive. I am suggesting that it is not as simple as saying the word “abusive” a lot. In this area, there is a highly contentious and politicised arena that I want to end, but I think that this will exacerbate, not help, it.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Report stage
Thursday 6th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am happy to acknowledge and recognise what the Government did when they created user empowerment duties to replace legal but harmful. I think they were trying to counter the dangers of over-paternalism and illiberalism that oblige providers to protect adult users from content that allegedly would cause them harm.

At least the new provisions brought into the Bill have a different philosophy completely. They enhance users’ freedom as individuals and allow them to apply voluntary content filters and freedom of choice, on the principle that adults can make decisions for themselves.

In case anyone panics, I am not making a philosophical speech. I am reminding the Government that that is what they said to us—to everybody—“We are getting rid of legal but harmful because we believe in this principle”. I am worried that some of the amendments seem to be trying to backtrack from that different basis of the Bill—and that more liberal philosophy—to go back to the old legal but harmful. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, that the cat is distinctly not dead.

The purpose of Amendment 56 is to try to ensure that providers also cannot thwart the purpose of Clause 12 and make it more censorious and paternalistic. I am not convinced that the Government needed to compromise on this as I think Amendment 60 just muddies the waters and fudges the important principle that the Government themselves originally established.

Amendment 56 says that the default must be no filtering at all. Then users have to make an active decision to switch on the filtering. The default is that you should be exposed to a full flow of ideas and, if you do not want that, you have to actively decide not to and say that you want a bowdlerised or sanitised version.

Amendment 56 takes it a bit further, in paragraph (b), and applies different levels of filtering in terms of content of democratic importance and journalistic content. In the Bill itself, the Government accept the exceptional nature of those categories of content, and this just allows users to be able to do the same and say, “No; I might want to filter some things out but bear in mind the exceptional importance of democratic and journalistic content”. I worry that the government amendments signal to users that certain ideas are dangerous and must be hidden. That is my big concern. In other words, they might be legal but they are harmful: that is what I think these amendments try to counter.

One of the things that worries me about the Bill is the danger of echo chambers. I know we are concentrating on harms, but I think echo chambers are harmful. I started today quite early at Blue Orchid at 55 Broadway with a big crowd of sixth formers involved in debating matters. I complimented Keir Starmer on his speech on the importance of oracy and encouraging young people to speak. I stressed to all the year 12 and year 13 young people that the important thing was that they spoke out but also that they listened to contrary opinions and got out of their safe spaces and echo chambers. They were debating very difficult topics such as commercial surrogacy, cancel culture and the risks of contact sports. I am saying all that to them and then I am thinking, “We have now got a piece of legislation that says you can filter out all the stuff you do not want to hear and create your own safe space”. So I just get anxious that we do not inadvertently encourage in the young—I know this is for all adults—that antidemocratic tendency to not want to hear what you do not want to hear, even when it would be good to hear as many opinions as possible.

I also want to press the Minister on the problem of filtering material that targets race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, disability and gender reassignment. I keep trying to raise the problem that it could lead to diverse philosophical views around those subjects also being removed by overzealous filtering. You might think that you know what you are asking to be filtered out. If you say you want to filter out material that is anti-religion, you might not mean that you do not want any debates on religious tolerance. For example, there was that major controversy over the “The Lady of Heaven” film. I know the Minister was interested, as I was, in the dangers of censorship in relation to that. You would not want, because you said, “Don’t target me for my religion”, to not be able to access that debate.

I think there is a danger that we are handing a lot of power to filterers to make filtering decisions based on their values when we are not clear about what they are. Look at what has happened with the banks in the last few days. Their values have closed down people’s bank accounts because they disagree on values. Again, we say “Don’t target on race”, but I have been having lots of arguments with people recently who have accused the Government, through their Illegal Migration Bill, of being racist. I think we just need to know that we are not accepting an ideological filtering of what we see.

Amendment 63 is key because it requires providers’ terms of service to include provisions about how content to which Clause 12(2) applies is identified, precisely to try to counter these problems. It imposes a duty on providers to apply those provisions consistently, as the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, explained. The point that providers have to set out how they identify content that is allegedly hostile, for example, to religion, or racially abusive, is important because this is about empowering users. Users need to know whether this will be done by machine learning or will it be a human doing it. Do they look for red flags and, if so, what are the red flags? How are these things decided? That means that providers have to state clearly and be accountable for their definition of any criteria that could justify them filtering out and disturbing the flow of democratic information. It is all about transparency and accountability in that sense.

Finally, in relation to Amendment 183, I am worried about the notion of filtering out content from unverified users for a range of reasons. It indicates somehow that there is a direct link between being unverified or anonymous and harm or being dodgy, which I think that is illegitimate. It has already been explained that there will be a detrimental impact on certain organisations —we have talked about Reddit, but I like to remember Mumsnet. There are quite a lot of organisations with community-centred models, where the structure is that influencers broadcast to their followers and where there are pseudonymous users. Is the requirement to filter out those contributors likely to lead to those models collapsing? I need to be reassured on this because I am not convinced at all. As has been pointed out, there will be a two-tier internet because those who are unable or unwilling to disclose their identity online or to be verified by someone would be or could be shut out from public discussions. That is a very dangerous place to have ended up, even though I am sure it is not what the Government intend.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for the broad, if not universal, support for the amendments that we have brought forward following the points raised in Committee. I apologise for anticipating noble Lords’ arguments, but I am happy to expand on my remarks in light of what they have said.

My noble friend Lord Moylan raised the question of non-verified user duties and crowdsourced platforms. The Government recognise concerns about how the non-verified user duties will work with different functionalities and platforms, and we have engaged extensively on this issue. These duties are only applicable to category 1 platforms, those with the largest reach and influence over public discourse. It is therefore right that such platforms have additional duties to empower their adult users. We anticipate that these features will be used in circumstances where vulnerable adults wish to shield themselves from anonymous abuse. If users decide that they are restricting their experience on a particular platform, they can simply choose not to use them. In addition, before these duties come into force, Ofcom will be required to consult effective providers regarding the codes of practice, at which point they will consider how these duties might interact with various functionalities.

My noble friend and the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, raised the potential for being bombarded with pop-ups because of the forced-choice approach that we have taken. These amendments have been carefully drafted to minimise unnecessary prompts or pop-ups. That is why we have specified that the requirement to proactively ask users how they want these tools to be applied is applicable only to registered users. This approach ensures that users will be prompted to make a decision only once, unless they choose to ignore it. After a decision has been made, the provider should save this preference and the user should not be prompted to make the choice again.

The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, talked further about his amendments on the cost of user empowerment tools as a core safety duty in the Bill. Category 1 providers will not be able to put the user empowerment tools in Clause 12 behind a pay wall and still be compliant with their duties. That is because they will need to offer them to users at the first possible opportunity, which they will be unable to do if they are behind a pay wall. The wording of Clause 12(2) makes it clear that providers have a duty to include user empowerment features that an adult user may use or apply.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Committee stage
Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am mindful of the examples the noble Lord gave in his speech. Looking at some of the provisions set out in subsection (2) about a body being

“subject to a standards code”

or having

“policies and procedures for handling and resolving complaints”,

I think on first response that those examples he gave would be covered. But I will certainly take on board the comments he made and those the noble Baroness, Lady Gohir, made as well and reflect on them. I hope—

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

On a final point of clarification, in contrast, I think the exemption may be too narrow, not too broad. With the emergence of blogs and different kinds of news organisations—I think the noble Lord, Lord Allan, described well the complexity of what we have—and some of the grimmer, grosser examples of people who might play the system, does the Minister acknowledge that that might be dealt with by the kind of exemptions that have been used for RT? When somebody is really an extremist representative of, I do not know, ISIS, pretending to be a media organisation, the sensible thing to do would be to exempt them, rather than to overtighten the exemptions, so that new, burgeoning, widely read online publications can have press freedom protection.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I will certainly take on board the points the noble Baroness raises. Hearing representations in both directions on the point would, on first consideration, reassure me that we have it right, but I will certainly take on board the points which the noble Baroness, the noble Lord and others have raised in our debate on this. As the noble Lord, Lord Allan, suggests, I will take the opportunity to discuss it with Ofcom, as we will do on many of the issues which we are discussing in this Committee, to make sure that its views are taken on board before we return to these and other issues on Report.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Committee stage
Tuesday 9th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I will come on to say a bit more about how Ofcom goes about that work.

The Bill will ensure that providers have the information they need to understand whether they are in compliance with their duties under the Bill. Ofcom will set out how providers can comply in codes of practice and guidance that it publishes. That information will help providers to comply, although they can take alternative action if they wish to do so.

The right reverend Prelate’s amendments also seek to provide greater transparency to Ofcom. The Bill’s existing duties already account for this. Indeed, the transparency reporting duties set out in Schedule 8 already enable Ofcom to require category 1, 2A and 2B services to publish annual transparency reports with relevant information, including about the effectiveness of the user empowerment tools, as well as detailed information about any content that platforms prohibit or restrict, and the application of their terms of service.

Amendments 159, 160 and 218, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, seek to require user-to-user services to create and abide by minimum terms of service recommended by Ofcom. The Bill already sets detailed and binding requirements on companies to achieve certain outcomes. Ofcom will set out more detail in codes of practice about the steps providers can take to comply with their safety duties. Platforms’ terms of service will need to provide information to users about how they are protecting users from illegal content, and children from harmful content.

These duties, and Ofcom’s codes of practice, ensure that providers take action to protect users from illegal content and content that is harmful to children. As such, an additional duty to have adequate and appropriate terms of service, as envisaged in the amendments, is not necessary and may undermine the illegal and child safety duties.

I have previously set out why we do not agree with requiring platforms to set terms of service for legal content. In addition, it would be inappropriate to delegate this much power to Ofcom, which would in effect be able to decide what legal content adult users can and cannot see.

Amendment 155, tabled by my noble friend Lord Moylan, seeks to clarify whether and how the Bill makes the terms of service of foreign-run platforms enforceable by Ofcom. Platforms’ duties under Clause 65 apply only to the design, operation and use of the service in the United Kingdom and to UK users, as set out in Clause 65(11). Parts or versions of the service which are used in foreign jurisdictions—

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

On that, in an earlier reply the Minister explained that platforms already remove harmful content because it is harmful and because advertisers and users do not like it, but could he tell me what definition of “harmful” he thinks he is using? Different companies will presumably have a different interpretation of “harmful”. How will that work? It would mean that UK law will require the removal of legal speech based on a definition of harmful speech designed by who—will it be Silicon Valley executives? This is the problem: UK law is being used to implement the removal of content based on decisions that are not part of UK law but with implications for UK citizens who are doing nothing unlawful.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Baroness’s point gets to the heart of the debate that we have had. I talked earlier about the commercial incentive that there is for companies to take action against harmful content that is legal which users do not want to see or advertisers do not want their products to be advertised alongside, but there is also a commercial incentive to ensure that they are upholding free speech and that there are platforms on which people can interact in a less popular manner, where advertisers that want to advertise products legally alongside that are able to do so. As with anything that involves the market, the majority has a louder voice, but there is room for innovation for companies to provide products that cater to minority tastes within the law.

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[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The content which we have added to Clause 12 is a targeted approach. It reflects input from a wide range of interested parties, with whom we have discussed this, on the areas of content that users are most concerned about. The other protected characteristics that do not appear are, for instance, somebody’s marriage or civil partnership status or whether they are pregnant. We have focused on the areas where there is the greatest need for users to be offered the choice about reducing their exposure to types of content because of the abuse they may get from it. This recognises the importance of clear, enforceable and technically feasible duties. As I said a moment ago in relation to the point made by my noble friend Lady Buscombe, we will keep it under review but it is right that these provisions be debated at length—greater length than I think the Equality Bill was, but that was long before my time in your Lordships’ House, so I defer to the noble Lord’s experience and I am grateful that we are debating them thoroughly today.

I will move now, if I may, to discuss Amendments 43 and 283ZA, tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley. Amendment 43 aims to ensure that the user empowerment content features do not capture legitimate debate and discussion, specifically relating to the characteristics set out in subsections (11) and (12). Similarly, her Amendment 283ZA aims to ensure that category 1 services apply the features to content only when they have reasonable grounds to infer that it is user empowerment content.

With regard to both amendments, I can reassure the noble Baroness that upholding users’ rights to free expression is an integral principle of the Bill and it has been accounted for in drafting these duties. We have taken steps to ensure that legitimate online discussion or criticism will not be affected, and that companies make an appropriate judgment on the nature of the content in question. We have done this by setting high thresholds for inclusion in the content categories and through further clarification in the Bill’s Explanatory Notes, which I know she has consulted as well. However, the definition here deliberately sets a high threshold. By targeting only abuse and incitement to hatred, it will avoid capturing content which is merely challenging or robust discussion on controversial topics. Further clarity on definitions will be provided by Ofcom through regulatory guidance, on which it will be required to consult. That will sit alongside Ofcom’s code of practice, which will set out the steps companies can take to fulfil their duties.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

I appreciate the Minister’s comments but, as I have tried to indicate, incitement to hatred and abuse, despite people thinking they know what those words mean, is causing huge difficulty legally and in institutions throughout the land. Ofcom will have its work cut out, but it was entirely for that reason that I tabled this amendment. There needs to be an even higher threshold, and this needs to be carefully thought through.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

But as I think the noble Baroness understands from that reference, this is a definition already in statute, and with which Parliament and the courts are already engaged.

The Bill’s overarching freedom of expression duties also apply to Clause 12. Subsections (4) to (7) of Clause 18 stipulate that category 1 service providers are required to assess the impact on free expression from their safety policies, including the user empowerment features. This is in addition to the duties in Clause 18(2), which requires all user-to-user services to have particular regard to the importance of protecting freedom of expression when complying with their duties. The noble Baroness’s Amendment 283ZA would require category 1 providers to make judgments on user empowerment content to a similar standard required for illegal content. That would be disproportionate. Clause 170 already specifies how providers must make judgments about whether content is of a particular kind, and therefore in scope of the user empowerment duties. This includes making their judgment based on “all relevant information”. As such, the Bill already ensures that the user empowerment content features will be applied in a proportionate way that will not undermine free speech or hinder legitimate debate online.

Amendment 45, tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, would require the Secretary of State to lay a Statement before Parliament outlining whether any of the user empowerment duties should be applied to children. I recognise the significant interest that noble Lords have in applying the Clause 12 duties to children. The Bill already places comprehensive requirements on Part 3 services which children are likely to access. This includes undertaking regular risk assessments of such services, protecting children from harmful content and activity, and putting in place age-appropriate protections. If there is a risk that children will encounter harm, such as self-harm content or through unknown or unverified users contacting them, service providers will need to put in place age- appropriate safety measures. Applying the user empowerment duties for child users runs counter to the Bill’s child safety objectives and may weaken the protections for children—for instance, by giving children an option to see content which is harmful to them or to engage with unknown, unverified users. While we recognise the concerns in this area, for the reasons I have set out, the Government do not agree with the need for this amendment.

I will resist the challenge of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, to talk about bots because I look forward to returning to that in discussing the amendments on future-proofing. With that, I invite noble Lords—

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Committee stage
Thursday 27th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I did, and I am happy to say it again: yes.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

Perhaps I might go back to an earlier point. When the Minister said the Government want to make sure, I think he was implying that certain companies would try to avoid obligations to keep their users safe by threatening to leave or whatever. I want it to be clear that the obligations to the users of the service are, in the instance of encrypted services, to protect their privacy, and they see that as keeping them safe. It would be wrong to make that a polar opposite. I think that companies that run unencrypted services believe that to be what their duties are—so that in a way is a clash.

Secondly, I am delighted by the clarity in the Minister’s “yes” answer, but I think that maybe there needs to be clearer communication with people outside this Chamber. People are worried about whether duties placed on Ofcom to enact certain things would lead to some breach of encryption. No one thinks that the Government intend to do this or want to spy on anyone, but that the unintended consequences of the duty on Ofcom might have that effect. If that is not going to be the case, and that can be guaranteed by the Government, and they made that clear, it would reassure not just the companies but the users of messaging services, which would be helpful.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The points the noble Baroness has just made bring me neatly to what I was about to say in relation to the question raised earlier by the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth. But first, I would say that Ofcom as a public body is subject to public law principles already, so those apply in this case.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight, asked about virtual private networks and the risk of displacing people on to VPNs or other similar alternatives. That is a point worth noting, not just in this group but as we consider all these amendments, particularly when we talk later on about age verification, pornography and so on. Services will need to think about how safety measures could be circumvented and take steps to prevent that, because they need to mitigate risk effectively. There may also be a role in enforcement action, too; Ofcom will be able to apply to the courts to require these services where appropriate to apply business disruption measures. We should certainly be mindful of the incentives for people to do that, and the example the noble Lord, Lord Knight, gave earlier is a useful lesson in the old adage “Caveat emptor” when looking at some of these providers.

I want to say a little bit about Amendments 205A and 290H in my name. Given the scale of child sexual abuse and exploitation that takes place online, and the reprehensible nature of these crimes, it is important that Ofcom has effective powers to require companies to tackle it. This brings me to these government amendments, which make small changes to the powers in Clause 110 to ensure that they are effective. I will focus particularly, in the first instance, on Amendment 290H, which ensures that Ofcom considers whether a service has features that allow content to be shared widely via another service when deciding whether content has been communicated publicly or privately, including for the purposes of issuing a notice. This addresses an issue highlighted by the Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall, and Professor Stuart Macdonald in a recent paper. The separate, technical amendment, Amendment 205A, clarifies that Clause 110(7) refers only to a notice on a user-to-user service.

Amendment 190 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, seeks to introduce a new privacy duty on Ofcom when considering whether to use any of its powers. The extensive privacy safeguards that I have already set out, along with Ofcom’s human rights obligations, would make this amendment unnecessary. Ofcom must also explicitly consult persons whom it considers to have expertise in the enforcement of the criminal law and the protection of national security, which is relevant to online safety matters in the course of preparing its draft codes. This may include the integrity and security of internet services where relevant.

Amendments 202 and 206, in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, and Amendments 207, 208, 244, 246, 247, 248, 249 and 250 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, all seek to deliver privacy safeguards to notices issued under Clause 110 through additional review and appeals processes. There are already strong safeguards concerning this power. As part of the warning notice process, companies will be able to make representations to Ofcom which it is bound to consider before issuing a notice. Ofcom must also review any notice before the end of the period for which it has effect.

Amendment 202 proposes mirroring the safeguards of the investigatory powers Act when issuing notices to encrypted messaging services under this power. First, this would be inappropriate, because the powers in the investigatory powers Act serve different purposes from those in this Bill. The different legal safeguards in the investigatory powers Act reflect the potential intrusion by the state into an individual’s private communications; that is not the case with this Bill, which does not grant investigatory powers to state bodies, such as the ability to intercept private communications. Secondly, making a reference to encryption would be—

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The Bill creates a substantial new role for Ofcom, but it has already substantially recruited and prepared for the effective carrying out of that new duty. I do not know whether my noble friend was in some of the briefings with officials from Ofcom, but it is very happy to set out directly the ways in which it is already discharging, or preparing to discharge, those duties. The Government have provided it with further resource to enable it to do so. It may be helpful for my noble friend to have some of those discussions directly with the regulator, but we are confident that it is ready to discharge its duties, as set out in the Bill.

I was about to say that we have already had a bit of discussion on Wikipedia. I am conscious that we are going to touch on it again in the debate on the next group of amendments so, at the risk of being marked down for repetition, which is a black mark on that platform, I shall not pre-empt what I will say shortly. But I emphasise that the Bill does not impose prescriptive, one-size-fits-all duties on services. The codes of practice from Ofcom will set out a range of measures that are appropriate for different types of services in scope. Companies can follow their own routes to compliance, so long as they are confident that they are effectively managing risks associated with legal content and, where relevant, harm to children. That will ensure that services that already use community moderation effectively can continue to do so—such as Wikipedia, which successfully uses that to moderate content. As I say, we will touch on that more in the debate on the next group.

Amendment 9, in the name of my noble friend Lord Moylan, is designed to exempt small and medium sized-enterprises working to benefit the public from the scope of the Bill. Again, I am sympathetic to the objective of ensuring that the Bill does not impose undue burdens on small businesses, and particularly that it should not inhibit services from providing valuable content of public benefit, but I do not think it would be feasible to exempt service providers deemed to be

“working to benefit the public”.

I appreciate that this is a probing amendment, but the wording that my noble friend has alighted on highlights the difficulties of finding something suitably precise and not contestable. It would be challenging to identify which services should qualify for such an exemption.

Taking small services out of scope would significantly undermine the framework established by the Bill, as we know that many smaller services host illegal content and pose a threat to children. Again, let me reassure noble Lords that the Bill has been designed to avoid disproportionate or unnecessary regulatory burdens on small and low-risk services. It will not impose a disproportionate burden on services or impede users’ access to value content on smaller services.

Amendment 9A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, is designed to exempt “sector specific search services” from the scope of the Bill, as the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, explained. Again, I am sympathetic to the intention here of ensuring that the Bill does not impose a disproportionate burden on services, but this is another amendment that is not needed as it would exempt search services that may pose a significant risk of harm to children, or because of illegal content on them. The amendment aims to exempt specialised search services—that is, those that allow users to

“search for … products or services … in a particular sector”.

It would exempt specialised search services that could cause harm to children or host illegal content—for example, pornographic search services or commercial search services that could facilitate online fraud. I know the noble Lord would not want to see that.

The regulatory duties apply only where there is a significant risk of harm and the scope has been designed to exclude low-risk search services. The duties therefore do not apply to search engines that search a single database or website, for example those of many retailers or other commercial websites. Even where a search service is in scope, the duties on services are proportionate to the risk of harm that they pose to users, as well as to a company’s size and capacity. Low-risk services, for example, will have minimal duties. Ofcom will ensure that these services can quickly and easily comply by publishing risk profiles for low-risk services, enabling them easily to understand their risk levels and, if necessary, take steps to mitigate them.

The noble Lord, Lord McCrea, asked some questions about the 200 most popular pornographic websites. If I may, I will respond to the questions he posed, along with others that I am sure will come in the debate on the fifth group, when we debate the amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Morrow, and the noble Baroness, Lady Ritchie of Downpatrick, because that will take us on to the same territory.

I hope that provides some assurance to my noble friend Lord Moylan, the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, and others, and that they will be willing not to press their amendments in this group.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I thank people for such a wide-ranging and interesting set of contributions. I take comfort from the fact that so many people understood what the amendments were trying to do, even if they did not fully succeed in that. I thought it was quite interesting that in the first debate the noble Lord, Lord Allan of Hallam, said that he might be a bit isolated on the apps, but I actually agreed with him—which might not do his reputation any good. However, when he said that, I thought, “Welcome to my world”, so I am quite pleased that this has not all been shot down in flames before we started. My amendment really was a serious attempt to tackle something that is a real problem.

The Minister says that the Bill is designed to avoid disproportionate burdens on services. All I can say is, “Sack the designer”. It is absolutely going to have a disproportionate burden on a wide range of small services, which will not be able to cope, and that is why so many of them are worried about it. Some 80% of the companies that will be caught up in this red tape are small and micro-businesses. I will come to the small business point in a moment.

The noble Baroness, Lady Harding, warned us that small tech businesses become big tech businesses. As far as I am concerned, that is a success story—it is what I want; is it not what we all want? Personally, I think economic development and growth is a positive thing—I do not want them to fail. However, I do not think it will ever happen; I do not think that small tech businesses will ever grow into big tech businesses if they face a disproportionate burden in the regulatory sense, as I have tried to describe. That is what I am worried about, and it is not a positive thing to be celebrated.

I stress that it is not small tech and big tech. There are also community sites, based on collective moderation. Wikipedia has had a lot of discussion here. For a Bill that stresses that it wants to empower users, we should think about what it means when these user-moderated community sites are telling us that they will not be able to carry on and get through. That is what they are saying. It was interesting that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, said that he relies on Wikipedia—many of us do, although please do not believe what it says about me. There are all of these things, but then there was a feeling that, well, Reddit is a bit dodgy. The Bill is not meant to be deciding which ones to trust in quite that way, or people’s tastes.

I was struck that the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, said that small is not safe, and used the incel example. I am not emphasising that small is safe; I am saying that the small entities will not survive this process. That is my fear. I do not mean that the big ones are nasty and dangerous and the small ones are cosy, lovely and Wikipedia-like. I am suggesting that smaller entities will not be able to survive the regulatory onslaught. That is the main reason I raised this.

The noble Baroness, Lady Merron, said that these entities can cause great harm. I am worried about a culture of fear, in which we demonise tens of thousands of innocent tech businesses and communities and end up destroying them when we do not intend to. I tried to put in the amendment an ability for Ofcom, if there are problematic sites that are risky, to deal with them. As the Minister kept saying, low-risk search engines have been exempted. I am suggesting that low-risk small and micro-businesses are exempted, which is the majority of them. That is what I am suggesting, rather than that we assume they are all guilty and then they have to get exempted.

Interestingly, the noble Lord, Lord McCrea, asked how many pornography sites are in scope and which pornographic websites have a million or fewer users. I am glad I do not know the answer to that, otherwise people might wonder why I did. The point is that there are always going to be sites that are threatening or a risk to children, as we are discussing. But we must always bear in mind—this was the important point that the noble Lord, Lord Moylan, made—that in our absolute determination to protect children via this Bill we do not unintendedly damage society as a whole. Adult access to free speech, for example, is one of my concerns, as are businesses and so on. We should not have that as an outcome.

CCTV

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I not aware that that is being done, but that is a matter for the Department for Education. I will refer the noble Lord’s point to the department.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, just to clarify the answers to some of the questions, I think all of us can understand that using CCTV to catch criminals and help victims is something that has become the norm. But the Minister has been asked whether the new technology changes things. Secondly, is there not a danger of a creep towards the surveillance of innocent people, which would not be something that the Government would endorse or condone?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

There is a hugely important role for CCTV in providing assurance for people that our streets are safe, that our public spaces are being monitored and that, if crimes are committed, the people who commit them will be captured and brought to justice. That is a great reassurance to people as they go about their lawful business.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Monday 7th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her words of welcome. She will appreciate that her final point is one for business managers rather than for me but I reiterate, having been there at the genesis of the discussions that led to the Bill, that I am very keen to see it in your Lordships’ House and to give it that thorough scrutiny. It has already been well improved because of the work of the Joint Committee of both Houses, but it needs to come to your Lordships’ House so that we can scrutinise it properly.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, the original aim of the Bill was to tackle harm to children, which we can all agree on, but it has expanded enormously and some say represents a real threat to freedom of speech for adults. Will the Minister ensure that he not only sees stakeholders working with those interested in online safety for children but meets free speech organisations and civil liberty campaigners to ensure the Bill does not become a legislative piece of censorship?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The Bill contains strong safeguards for freedom of expression. No platforms will be required to remove legal content and all services will need to have regard to freedom of expression when implementing their safety duties. Of course, although Ministers have met such groups throughout the passage of the Bill so far, I would be very happy to continue to do so to ensure that aspect of the Bill gets proper scrutiny too.

Ofcom: Appointment of Chair

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Wednesday 24th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, regardless of his suitability for the job, Paul Dacre’s stinging critique of the blob rang true with many of us, especially as only yesterday Dame Kate Bingham accused the Civil Service of groupthink and risk aversion. Does the Minister agree that, whoever is recruited, they will need to be sufficiently independent of mind to face down the blob? They should break Ofcom out of any sort of groupthink—the sort that led one of the most powerful regulators in the land to so unwisely be captured by the gender ID lobbying group Stonewall, perilously threatening impartiality in the media in the coverage of women’s sex-based rights.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

On the first part of the noble Baroness’s question, yes, this underlines the importance of having independent people appointed to oversee such important regulators. It also underlines the need for boards with a broad and diverse range of views. All government departments and regulators such as Ofcom benefit from that breadth of experience and views.

Sport: Transgender Inclusion

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Tuesday 9th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Yes, increasing everybody’s participation in sport is the main aim of the Government’s strategy, Sporting Future, so I certainly support the message from the sports councils to individual governing bodies to think in innovative and creative ways to ensure that no one is left out. As the noble Baroness says, that might involve novel or modified versions of their sport. Creating the right environment is important so that everybody, whoever they are, can take part and get active.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, it is clear that trans women cannot belong in the female sports category because they have a male performative advantage, however they identify, which is inherently unfair. Obviously, trans women should be able to compete fairly in sport. Will the Minister meet Dr Nicola Williams and colleagues from Fair Play for Women, which has some excellent, detailed proposals for including trans people in sport without disadvantaging women, and is courageous enough to open up the debate, not close it down?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, this varies from sport to sport. I took part in your Lordships’ full-bore rifle shooting match against the other place, which I regret to say that we lost. That is a sport on which men and women already compete on an equal basis. Some sports are games of skill, some of stamina and some of strength. That is why it is right that there is a case-by-case approach for each sport. I will take forward the meeting suggestion, as I did for the noble Lord, Lord Triesman.

Ofcom: Appointment of Chair

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

Now that I have my glasses on, I offer my sincere apologies to my friend, the noble Lord, Lord McNally. Now I am sure that it is the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

Will the Minister note that one specific issue that the new Ofcom chair needs to urgently address is an egregious example of compromised media impartiality due to the powerful lobby group Stonewall, as revealed by the superb BBC Sounds 10-part podcast series “Stephen Nolan Investigates” on the influence of Stonewall’s gender identity on the output of the BBC, skewing impartiality? Perhaps the Minister can comment on the content of episode 9 revealing that Ofcom itself was using its judgments on audience complaints as evidence to Stonewall, as though it was judge and jury, to prove its LGBT credentials. That is not comforting from a neutral regulator.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I have not heard that episode but the example that the noble Baroness points to underlines the importance of a free and fair media that scrutinises everyone in power, whether that is those in government or in lobby groups. It also reflects the importance of the BBC broadcasting a range of views in fulfilling that important role.

Public Service Broadcasting (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Thursday 27th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, one premise of the report that I found very stimulating is that public service broadcasters are

“struggling to achieve their mission to serve all audiences in the face of increased competition”

from streaming services

“and changing viewing habits.”

This could identify the wrong problem, and it ignores the elephant in the room. There is a serious issue of broadcasters failing to serve all audiences, but I do not think it has much to do with video on demand. There is a much more profound identity crisis, and I am glad that the Government’s public service broadcasting advisory panel has tried to dig a bit deeper and ask whether, as has already been mentioned, the concept of public service is needed and, if so, what a modern PSB should look like.

That is a bit more like it, because it seems to me that, especially in the last five to six years, there has been a growing chasm between public service broadcasters and the public. More and more of the public feel alienated from mainstream media and often feel that they are being done a disservice by PSB channels. It seems significant that we are about to see the launch of a new channel, GB News, which has already been maligned and demonised in this place. It is being launched on 13 June. The director of news, John McAndrew, described GB News’s aims as free, fair, impartial and Ofcom-regulated, arguing:

“We can sense a real hunger for something fresh and different in television news and debate.”


He is right.

It is worth noting that this new channel is headed up by Andrew Neil. He was one of the best public service news broadcasters at the BBC—but they did not know how to use him and lost him. GB News is a start-up that has attracted presenters and production talent from across the PSB landscape, and a whole swathe of young producers and employees—diverse, passionate and eager to make a difference—recruited by an enthusiasm for the project of covering stories and voices neglected by PSB channels rather than by some special HR-designed diversity charter. I think it is exciting and although, according to one noble Lord we have heard, we should be worried because of its foreign owners—my goodness, xenophobic or what?—what is to say that GB News is not a new kind of public service broadcasting? We should at least allow it to shake up any complacency.

I want to focus especially on the problems of the BBC. The BBC is an institution whose ideals I love and want to defend, but I find it increasingly hard to do so. It feels as though somewhere along the line it lost track of its public service mission. I do not doubt the BBC’s commitment to serve and reflect communities across the country but, sadly, this is conceived in rather a technical way by focusing on regional production sites and programmes commissioned outside the M25. That is all good, but why then in the same month last year did we hear of £25 million cuts to established regional programmes while a pledge of £100 million was made to a new diversity initiative? I worry that obsessing about a particular interpretation of “diversity” does not serve all audiences and does not stress what we have in common but rather plays on differences.

My fear is that there is a balkanising of audiences going on by attempting to tailor programmes to different demographics and identity groups. It is true that this reflects one aspect of modern Britain—the divisive and essentialising identity politics so fashionable in metropolitan echo chambers. It can lead to the crassest form of programme making. Look at how broadcasters do not so much cater for 16 to 34 year-olds as chase after them, flattering and fawning to prove that PSB is relevant. It is excruciating witnessing the resulting soft bigotry of low expectations. Look at the tangle that Radio 3 and the Proms get into. “Add a bit of grime and rap and the audience will love us,” you feel them saying. Too many PSBs seem convinced that the young are an undifferentiated blob with the attention span of a gnat. The irony is that what the young are watching on streaming services are complex, nuanced, challenging long-form documentaries and drama series.

Another problem that I have with the focus on diversity is that too often it neglects diversity of opinion and thought. Even though Tim Davie, the BBC director-general, used the word “impartiality” 11 times in his inaugural speech, the most common complaint that I hear about the BBC is that it is partial by offering a narrow worldview. The problem with the present strategy is that it assumes that a Geordie or Yorkshire accent means diversity—but you can talk metropolitan orthodoxies with a northern voice, believe me. The BBC may have dumped received pronunciation, but its embrace of a suite of received opinions feels even more stifling and condescending.

Often the BBC cannot hear itself. It just does not realise that it is tone deaf about diverse values and worldviews that it does not share. This became apparent to me personally in 2016. I was a panellist on Radio 4’s “Moral Maze” for 20 years. I have done all the current affairs and news programmes that the BBC has to offer—a bit of a “BBC luvvie” if you want. No doubt I was seen as a bit of a maverick, but I was accepted on the scene. However, when I mentioned that I was going to vote leave, it was met with disbelief. “But you’re an intelligent, well-educated person, Claire,” said one senior producer—and from then on, in studios and green rooms, a growing sneer. And that sneering was even more viscerally observed by audiences.

The virtually unanimous view that Brexit was a foolish, backward and inexplicable idea meant that those called public service broadcasters did not have a clue what the public were thinking and were totally shocked at the referendum result. Many news reports before and since that democratic vote have given the impression that PSBs just do not like the public.

It is sometimes suggested—it has already been said here—that anyone who makes such criticisms is whipping up grievances and fuelling a culture war. I often think it is the other way around, and I worry that the BBC is inadvertently behaving like an activist in the culture wars. There are endless examples: the bizarre statement from “Countryfile” about the UK countryside being a “white environment”, and the “Rule Britannia” saga at the BBC Proms.

It was not the Defund the BBC campaign that clipped a section of a BBC Sounds podcast featuring two young women hectoring older white women for being “Karens” who should educate themselves about their white privilege, saying, “get out of the way” and ordering them to “basically leave”. The BBC eventually deleted the clip after a backlash, but what was it thinking? “Educate yourselves, you Karens” makes the old-fashioned, patrician Reithianism sound positively egalitarian.

The BBC is owned and paid for by the public, and it has a moral duty, not just a financial one—

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Baroness, but this is a time-limited debate.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

Do not be complacent, or public service broadcasting will not survive.

Domestic Abuse Bill

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Committee stage & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 5th sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 8th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, one salutary and useful aspect of this amendment is that it has focused our minds on false memories and false allegations. It is therefore a reminder that we must challenge what we believe to be the victim mindset that can lead to grave injustices. The amendment should remind the Government that abuse is so emotive that it becomes quite hard to challenge if it has been alleged. The reason why false memories have been so damaging over the years is that once the victims say that they have been abused while under the care, guidance, manipulation or coercive control of said “quack” counsellor, no one can challenge that because it is an accusation of abuse. This legislation bends the stick in the direction of victims far too much, in my opinion, and I urge the Minister to take great care and perhaps investigate some of the harrowing stories of false memory syndrome in order to learn lessons and not make the same mistakes here.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right to say that this area needs continued and careful thought, a point also made by the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay of Llandaff, who referred to the complexity of the issues and the matters which have to be considered. We will indeed do that.

Covid-19: University Students

Debate between Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay and Baroness Fox of Buckley

Monday 16th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, throughout the pandemic we have been working closely with universities to make sure that they have plans in place locally, shared with local directors of public health, to manage the specific risks in their area. We have been keen to keep universities open so that students and young people are not putting their lives on hold or finding that their education is disrupted. We are therefore keen for face-to-face teaching to continue as much as possible. Universities have risen to the challenge by providing a blend of online teaching and of course by working closely with students on accommodation and other issues.

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, last week, 192 academics from the University of Manchester wrote to the vice-chancellor saying that they were ashamed and humiliated at the erection of a metal fence literally locking students into their residences. The student slogan said it all: “Paid, Blamed, Caged.” This incident might be extreme, but it is not a one-off. Will the Minister explain to vice-chancellors that such invasive and heavy-handed security measures are not necessary when Covid is not a lethal risk to the lives of students? I also draw the attention of noble Lords to a letter from a student, Harry Butcher, to the UCU noting the limitations of low-quality online teaching. He says

“how impossibly demotivating it is to be educated in front of a laptop; most likely in the same room that you sleep … sat on a chair half a metre from your bed.”

Can the Minister encourage more face-to-face teaching, because it is both safe and necessary?