Arts and Creative Industries: Freelancers and Self-employed Workers

Lord Strathcarron Excerpts

Thursday 15th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a publisher, producer and freelancer, as per the register. Boiling my contribution down to two minutes, I would like to make the following points, bearing in mind that the world of publishing may be more gentlemanly and gentlewomanly than other sectors.

Researching for this debate, I found that over the last three years my firms have used 29 different creative freelancers from around the world over 144 projects. As a creative freelancer, I have been contracted five times on five different projects, again worldwide. The conclusion is that the market is growing and global; it is a totally free and self-regulating market, where the creative freelancers set their Ts and Cs depending on their desire for the work, what the market will bear and how they choose to build their client relationships. Their clients choose either to accept these terms or not, and I see no reason at all for third parties to intervene in these private arrangements.

The disadvantage of being a creative freelancer is having to deal with that which is the very opposite of creativity: administration, form-filling and dealing with bureaucracies, whether private or public. The Question asks how the Government can help creative freelancers. The answer is: by demanding from them as little as possible. The best single way to help the UK’s freelance self-employed is to reform, or ideally abandon, IR 35 and stop nailing us through unfair NICs and other welfare policies and irregularities.

Online Safety Bill

Lord Strathcarron Excerpts

Committee stage
Tuesday 25th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 4 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley.

At Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Morrow raised the point that the Bill needs to cover all online pornography. A factsheet on the Bill, helpfully circulated to Peers last week by the Government, says:

“The Bill’s regulatory framework will cover all online sites with pornographic content, including commercial pornography sites, social media, video-sharing platforms and fora. It will also cover search engines, which play a significant role in enabling children to access pornography”.


This is a welcome commitment but I would like to explore it further.

The Government say “all”, but the definition of which services are in scope of the Bill, as set out in Clause 3(5) and Clause 71(4), requires that there are either

“a significant number of United Kingdom users, or … United Kingdom users form one of the target markets for the service (or the only target market)”.

At Second Reading, my noble friend Lord Morrow asked the Minister what will be considered as “significant”. Is it significant in terms of the total UK adult users who could use a service, or significant in terms of potential global users?

The noble Baroness, Lady Fox of Buckley, is exploring the same issue in her Amendment 4. She is proposing that the Bill’s current definition be replaced with something much easier to understand: that a site must have at least 1 million users per month in the UK to be within the scope of the Bill. That definition is certainly clear. However, I am looking forward to hearing whether it reflects the Government’s intention. For my part, I am concerned about what it might mean for clarifying which pornographic websites would fall into Part 3.

In December, the Government published an analysis carried out in January 2021 by the British Board of Film Classification on the top 200 pornographic websites. It reported that these 200 sites received 76% of the total UK visits to adult sites, based on data during August 2020. Ofcom published a similar list of the top 10 sites visited in September 2020—the site at number 10 had 3.8 million visitors. We do not know how many visitors there were to websites 100 or 200, but it is not unreasonable to speculate that it could be less than a million and would therefore fall outside the definition proposed by the noble Baroness, and nor is it clear whether those websites would fall within the Government’s original definition.

It is important for the Minister to tell the Committee quite clearly whether he expects the top 200 pornographic websites to be within the scope of Parts 3 and 5 of the Bill. If he does, I ask him to explain how that will be possible within the current definition in the Bill, not because I am trying to trip him up but as a genuine inquiry that the Bill does what we are expect it to do. If he does not expect the top 200 pornographic websites to be in scope, how many does he estimate would fall within Parts 3 and 5? Either way, it seems to me that there could be pornographic websites accessed in the United Kingdom that are not required to have age verification to protect those aged under 18 from accessing this content.

As I said, I doubt that this is what parents expect from this flagship Bill, especially as the Government set out in their factsheet that their own commissioned evidence says,

“exposure to pornography may impact children's perceptions of sex and relationships, may lead to replication of practices found in pornography, increased likelihood of engaging in sexual activities and harmful or aggressive behaviour, and reduced concern for consent from partners”.

It seems to me that “significant” should focus on the significant harm a website or content provider would cause if it were accessed in the UK. The number of visitors or popularity of the site should be irrelevant when considering whether or not children should be allowed to access it. My view is quite simple: if a website, social media or content provider wishes to host pornographic material, that is of potential significant harm to children and should be age-verified. I am therefore interested, given what the Government have said previously, to know whether the Minister agrees that all pornographic content must be age-verified if it is to be accessed in the UK. That is certainly what I believe most parents expect, and I will listen carefully to the Minister’s response.

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

I will speak in support of my noble friend Lord Moylan and Amendment 9. I declare an interest as an author and publisher.

Last week, we had the London Book Fair, and proposed new paragraph 10A could read almost like an executive summary of the main talking point, which was how AI will influence all aspects of the media but particularly publishing. For the sake of future-proofing, paragraph 10A would be a particularly useful step to adopt. Proposed new paragraph 10B would be in the interest of fairness because publishing, and a lot of media, is made up of micro-businesses, often one-man or one-woman companies. This is certain to happen with AI as well, as the intermediary roles are taken up by these. In the interest of future-proofing and fairness, I recommend this amendment.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

My Lords, as my name is on Amendment 9, I speak to support these amendments and say that they are worthy of debate. As your Lordships know, I am extremely supportive of the Bill and hope that it will be passed in short order. It is much needed and overdue that we have the opportunity for legislation to provide us with a regulator that is able to hold platforms to account, protect users where it can and enhance child safety online. I can think of no better regulator for that role than Ofcom.

I have listened to the debate with great interest. Although I support the intentions of my noble friend Lord Moylan’s amendment, I am not sure I agree with him that there are two cultures in this House, as far as the Bill is concerned; I think everybody is concerned about child safety. However, these amendments are right to draw attention to the huge regulatory burden that this legislation can potentially bring, and to the inadvertent bad consequences it will bring for many of the sites that we all depend upon and use.

I have not signed many amendments that have been tabled in this Committee because I have grown increasingly concerned, as has been said by many others, that the Bill has become a bit like the proverbial Christmas tree where everyone hangs their own specific concern on to the legislation, turning it into something increasingly unwieldy and difficult to navigate. I thought the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, put it extremely well when she effectively brought to life what it would be like to run a small website and have to comply with this legislation. That is not to say that certain elements of micro-tweaking are not welcome—for example, the amendment by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, on giving coroners access to data—but we should be concerned about the scope of the Bill and the burden that it may well put on individual websites.

This is in effect the Wikipedia amendment, put forward and written in a sort of wiki way by this House—a probing amendment in Committee to explore how we can find the right balance between giving Ofcom the powers it needs to hold platforms to account and not unduly burdening websites that all of us agree present a very low risk and whose provenance, if you like, does not fit easily within the scope of the Bill.

I keep saying that I disagree with my noble friend Lord Moylan. I do not—I think he is one of the finest Members of this House—but, while it is our job to provide legislation to set the framework for how Ofcom regulates, we in this House should also recognise that in the real world, as I have also said before, this legislation is simply going to be the end of the beginning. Ofcom will have to find its way forward in how it exercises the powers that Parliament gives it, and I suspect it will have its own list of priorities in how it approaches these issues, who it decides to hold to account and who it decides to enforce against. A lot of its powers will rest not simply on the legislation that we give it but on the relationship that it builds with the platforms it is seeking to regulate.

For example, I have hosted a number of lunches for Google in this House with interested Peers, and it has been interesting to get that company’s insight into its working relationship with Ofcom. By the way, I am by no means suggesting that that is a cosy relationship, but it is at least a relationship where the two sides are talking to each other, and that is how the effectiveness of these powers will be explored.

I urge noble Lords to take these amendments seriously and take what the spirit of the amendments is seeking to put forward, which is to be mindful of the regulatory burden that the Bill imposes; to be aware that the Bill will not, simply by being passed, solve the kinds of issues that we are seeking to tackle in terms of the most egregious content that we find on the internet; and that, effectively, Ofcom’s task once this legislation is passed will be the language of priorities.

Young Female Racing Drivers

Lord Strathcarron Excerpts

Tuesday 18th April 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Strathcarron]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to support young female racing drivers to ensure that they enjoy the same opportunities as their male counterparts.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government are committed to supporting women’s sport at every opportunity, pushing for greater participation, employment, commercial opportunities and visibility in the media. We warmly welcome the creation of the F1 Academy in providing opportunities for young female drivers to progress to higher levels of competition in motorsport and we support its focus on uncovering the next generation of young female drivers.

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for his reply. While the UK remains the £9 billion-a-year epicentre of world motorsport and Formula 1 itself and seven out of 10 of the Grand Prix teams are based in the UK, and while three out of five of the fastest male drivers in the world are British and the fastest female driver in the world is British, last year the women’s W Series championship was curtailed through a lack of funding. Should the same fate befall the F1 Academy series, which my noble friend the Minister mentioned, would he use his legendary powers of persuasion to convince the motorsport hierarchy that investing in women’s motorsport is a good idea, not just in itself but to maintain the UK’s position as the premier leader in world motorsport?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I certainly agree with my noble friend that it is definitely a worthwhile investment. As recent achievements in football, rugby and tennis have shown, women’s successes in sport not only bring delight to the viewing public but inspire women and girls to take part and to get more active. As a Formula 1 fan myself, I warmly welcome the creation of the F1 Academy and look forward to its first race in Austria later this month. I am also pleased by the news that its races will align next season with Formula 1 race weekends. It is run by Susie Wolff, who is an inspiring role model. At the British Grand Prix in 2014, she became the first woman to take part in a Formula 1 race weekend in 22 years. With a British team taking part, and with British drivers including Chloe Grant, Abbi Pulling and Jessica Edgar hoping to follow hot on the heels of the three-time W Series winner Jamie Chadwick, it is clear that there are many reasons for British fans to be especially excited.

CCTV

Lord Strathcarron Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Strathcarron]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to commission an independent review of the (1) scale, (2) capabilities, (3) ethics, and (4) impact on rights, of CCTV in the United Kingdom.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay) (Con)]

My Lords, His Majesty’s Government have no plans to commission an independent review of the use of closed circuit television. The Government support the appropriate use of technologies such as CCTV to tackle crime and give the public greater confidence about using our public spaces, provided that its use is lawful, transparent and fair and in accordance with relevant guidelines.

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

I thank my noble friend the Minister for the reply. The noble Lord, Lord Alton of Liverpool, has already highlighted to the House the dangers posed by Chinese state-owned facial recognition companies Hikvision and Dahua. Is the Minister aware that this technology is now openly available on a far more intrusive smartphone level from other Chinese state-owned companies such as PimEyes? Is he also aware of the very real threats this will pose—and not just to politically exposed persons such as your Lordships? Absolutely anybody can be tracked and traced anywhere at any time. It is not hyperbolic to say that, if left unchecked, these applications will entirely alter our concept of privacy and be open sesame to snoopers, stalkers, blackmailers, cybercriminals and bad actors of every kind.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

All organisations in the UK that possess personal data have to comply with the requirements of our data protection legislation. The Information Commissioner’s Office is our independent regulator for data protection and is responsible for providing advice and guidance on compliance with the law. The ICO is currently considering whether PimEyes’ practices may raise data protection concerns. I hope that my noble friend will understand that it is not appropriate for me to comment on an ongoing ICO investigation.

Online Safety Bill

Lord Strathcarron Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 1st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

My Lords, it has been well observed that the social media companies and YouTube are now the public square—only, of course, they are not public at all but privately owned companies whose primary concern is to earn profits for their shareholders in the normal way. Against this, the reality is that we have effectively outsourced our censorship to Silicon Valley AI bots, and, faced with the prospect of enormous fines for breaching the new laws, these private companies are going to programme the AI bots on the side of caution. The bots, after all, have no way of knowing the legal cut-off point of mature teenagers and immature adults, and, of course, the censoring bot has no sense of irony or satire or parody or context.

The threat to free speech will therefore now come from two sources. First, as we have seen from the Twitter files, from Big Brother Watch’s Ministry of Truth report and from Matt Hancock’s diaries, Governments covertly lean on the platforms to suppress dissent from the official line. Secondly, the threat will come from these private companies instructing the bots not to go anywhere near anything that might upset the Governments. In this sense, both have crossed the line between attacking disinformation and attacking dissent, and the ability to express dissent is at the core of freedom of speech. We therefore now have the reality of big government and big tech working together to suppress freedom of expression.

I am looking forward to initiating or supporting any amendments that will check the power of government or big tech to shut down legitimate questioning voices, which, from the Great Barrington declaration to the Wuhan lab-leak theory to the ineffectiveness of masks to the collateral damage caused by the lockdowns, over and over again have often proved to be closer to the truth than the official government line at the time.

I would like to use the few moments left to support resistance to restricting end-to-end encryption, to support the initiatives of the noble Lord, Lord Bethell, on age verification, and to follow the lead of the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, on child safety initiatives.

Freedom of Expression (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Lord Strathcarron Excerpts

Thursday 27th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathcarron (Con)]

My Lords, as I am the last of the Back-Bench speakers, in the interests of catching up on time and because so many other noble Lords have expressed more eloquently than I could my own concerns about the unworkability of the “legal but harmful” duties and the need to protect children with proper age verification, I will make just one point that the report did not make.

As is well known, the Online Safety Bill has been five years in the making, during which time the tech world has moved on considerably. The report makes no mention of virtual private networks, yet with just two clicks on a VPN app, any user who wants to post to other adults freely outside of UK Government-censured social media can easily post to the rest of the world. That is, the rest of the world except China, whose outsourcing censorship methodology the Government are proposing to copy. In other words, those of us who value freedom of speech between adults over hurt feelings are reassured that technology has made whole sections of the Online Safety Bill redundant and irrelevant. However, we must improve age verification, as has already been mentioned, to protect children.

Cultural Objects (Protection from Seizure) Bill

Lord Strathcarron Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Strathcarron (Con) (Maiden Speech)]

My Lords, I am most honoured and grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the Second Reading today. I must declare several levels of interest. First, I am a trustee of the National Motor Museum in Beaulieu and a director of two of its trading companies. Secondly, I am a cultural realm mediator and a founding member of the ADR panel Art Resolve, which was established to mediate in exactly the kind of dispute which this Bill is trying to prevent, and I am vice-chair of the Society of Mediators. Thirdly, my publishing company publishes with the Art Loss Register, the world’s leading resource and database for lost and stolen art, to which any disputes about provenance that the Bill envisages will certainly be referred. Fourthly, the same publishing company has among its publishing partners the National Gallery in London, the Imperial War Museum, Royal Museums Greenwich and the Royal Armouries, all of which could actively benefit by the provisions in this Bill.

While I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate, I am equally grateful to the many kind and courteous people who have helped me over the last month while I settle into your Lordships’ House. As noble Lords will recall, it is a humbling and daunting experience for a new arrival, geographically as much as procedurally. I am particularly grateful to my noble friend Lord Borwick who, apart from being my Whip, has taken a considerable amount of time and trouble to show me around the Palace of Westminster and explain many of the House’s more esoteric ways and means.

Likewise, Black Rod and the Clerk of the Parliaments found time in their busy days to explain their roles, my role and the workings of the House. The Registrar of Lords’ Interests was endlessly patient in explaining into which categories my interests should be registered. I must also thank the numerous attendants for redirecting me when lost around the endless red corridors and, most importantly, the doorkeepers, who seem to recognise me before I even arrive and who are, at this moment, keeping your Lordships captive in here while I finish this maiden speech.

The instructions for a maiden speech are that it should be short and uncontroversial. The brevity side of the requirement will soon, I hope, become apparent, and it is hard to think of any Bill less controversial than the one before us. Having consulted the interested parties already mentioned, all are in total agreement that this is a welcome proposal, which will only strengthen England and Scotland’s ability to attract loans from the world’s most significant collections, many of which are appreciated by hundreds of thousands of visitors.

After hearing my noble friend Lord Vaizey extol the virtues of the Bill far better than I can, I would still like to draw attention to a significant benefit of it not so far mentioned. The Bill directly contributes to a cultural environment whereby British and overseas museums and galleries can, with great confidence, contribute to displaying each other’s exhibitions. It is well known that UK soft power plays a major ambassadorial role in promoting British values around the world, and I believe the Bill will succeed in ways which have so far not been envisaged. The Bill can only help to foster the kind of international cultural collaboration which benefits everyone who participates in it—from schoolchildren to curators, from visitors to guides and all the many specialist staff it takes to organise a major international exhibition.