BBC Mid-term Review and Framework Agreement
Nadine Dorries Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
The Government have today published the terms of reference for the BBC mid-term review, setting out our plans to review the governance and regulation of the BBC at the midway point of the royal charter. This will build on changes to the framework agreement with the BBC which the Government have also published today, which add new BBC reform commitments to the agreement across a range of areas.
This is the first time a Government review of the BBC has happened mid-way through the BBC charter, the 10-year agreement which forms the constitutional basis of the BBC.
The review will, in line with the parameters set out in the charter, examine the effectiveness of the BBC’s governance and the framework by which Ofcom holds the BBC to account in a range of areas. This includes impartiality, accountability and transparency, handling of complaints, and how the BBC represents the breadth of the audience it was established to serve. It will also look at how the BBC and Ofcom assess the market impact and public value of the BBC and how that relates to its role in the UK media landscape.
The review will be undertaken at pace by officials from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, on the basis of targeted engagement with a number of relevant stakeholders. We will seek to complete the review at pace, within 12 months. The Government look forward to working collaboratively with the BBC, Ofcom and the devolved Administrations throughout the course of the review.
Alongside the commencement of the mid-term review, the Government are also publishing a set of changes to the framework agreement with the BBC. The BBC has agreed a binding legal commitment to a number of ambitious reform proposals. The changes update the existing agreement to ensure it accurately reflects the BBC’s plans to deliver the corporation’s mission and public purposes for the remainder of the charter period. Changes include BBC workforce accessibility targets, increasing the proportion of BBC spend outside of London, and delivering impartiality and editorial standards reform as recommended by the Serota review. The amendments also require the BBC to report on its progress in its annual report and accounts, supporting Parliament and the public to hold the BBC to account on delivery.
Alongside this, I have also issued a direction to the BBC requiring it to promote equality of opportunity for people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. This aims to ensure the BBC becomes more accessible, and supports the career development and progression of people from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Progress against these commitments will be considered as part of the mid-term review where possible.
[HCWS67]
Oral Answers to Questions
Nadine Dorries Excerpts(2 years, 6 months ago)
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Jessica Morden (Newport East) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
The fan-led review of football governance identified financial sustainability as a core issue affecting the game, which is why the primary focus of the new independent football regulator will be to improve clubs’ financial sustainability, to protect them now and in the future. Further details will be set out in the White Paper in the summer.
Jessica Morden
Newport County AFC is a leading Fair Game club and a great example of how supporter ownership can bring about sustainable financial and governance structures and excellent community engagement; it is certainly true in the County’s case. With that in mind, will the Minister meet Fair Game to discuss its proposal for a sustainability index, which would overhaul the parachute-payments system and reward responsible clubs that demonstrate that they put their supporters first?
Ms Dorries
The regulator will be tasked with improving how clubs are financially and operationally run. Improving corporate governance and financial oversight will greatly reduce the likelihood of financial distress and make football much more resilient and sustainable for the long term. [Interruption.] The Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), who is the Minister responsible, has just whispered to me that he would be happy to meet the hon. Lady.
Mike Wood (Dudley South) (Con)
I think the whole country is looking forward to the women’s European football championships being held in England this summer. That will provide a further boost for one of the fastest growing sports in the country. Will my right hon. Friend join me in welcoming the agreement that the FA has reached to redistribute money from the Premier League to the women’s game, and the fact that that will support grassroots football for women and girls?
Ms Dorries
I am absolutely delighted to endorse my hon. Friend’s comments. It will be a fantastic summer, with not just the Euro 22 women’s finals, but the Commonwealth games; it will be a summer of sport. It is a fantastic decision. Women in sport do not get enough sponsorship, enough time on television, enough support, or enough money. Pushing women in sport is a key priority of my Department, and this is a great decision. We want to see more decisions like that moving forward.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
We operate hybrid working, whereby staff are expected to spend, on average, two days a week in the office, recognising that some roles require more office-based work than others. This is designed to maximise the use of our office capacity, as we currently have 800 desks for 2,000 staff in London. There are huge advantages to working in the office, but also to working at home, including fostering a sense of community and belonging. I am fully supportive of the hybrid approach.
Mr Hollobone
Figures released in April showed that 43% of staff in the Department were working on departmental premises. Can the Secretary of State tell me what proportion of staff in her Department were working from home before the pandemic; what the proportion is now; and what steps she is taking with the Minister for Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency to encourage more civil servants to work in the Department?
Ms Dorries
Before covid-19, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport followed a “smarter working” operating model where occasional working from home was an option. This enabled us to reduce our desk capacity to save money, and, typically, we expected about 40% of staff to be working from home, or from another location, on any given day. Since covid regulations were relaxed, staff in my Department have been returning to the office as part of a hybrid working operating model, with an expectation of some working from home. As I said, we have 800 desks for 2,000—well, 2,180—staff in our London office. The occupancy levels continue to increase, with an almost 80% occupancy on some days, but those figures are of the capacity that we have available to actually sit staff down in the Department. Due to our desk ratio, we now expect about 60% of our London-based staff to be working from home, or from another location, such as Manchester, on any given day.
Peter Grant (Glenrothes) (SNP)
Mr Gagan Mohindra (South West Hertfordshire) (Con)
Ms Dorries
I am here. We are investing almost £600 million in Birmingham and the west midlands for the 2022 Commonwealth games, which will deliver a world-class event and provide a wide range of services, including safety and security, health services, traffic management, visas, customs and inspection provisions, creating 30,000 games-time employment opportunities in the process. We are working hard to ensure that the games leave a lasting legacy for the city, the region and the country.
Mr Mohindra
In this platinum jubilee year, the Birmingham Commonwealth games will give us the perfect opportunity to celebrate Her Majesty’s enduring and dutiful commitment throughout her reign to maintaining relationships throughout the Commonwealth. I have had first-hand experience of that through my work with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Does the Secretary of State agree that the Commonwealth games will give us a global stage to remind our friends and allies of the continued importance of strong relationships between like-minded nations?
Ms Dorries
That is a very good point and reiterates what I said earlier. This is the year of the Queen’s platinum jubilee as well as of the Commonwealth games and the women’s Euro 2022. It is a year for the whole of the UK to come together to celebrate everything that the UK has to offer and to enjoy events such as the Commonwealth games. In this year of all years, at such a difficult time in the world, upholding the Commonwealth’s shared values, the development of free and democratic societies and the promotion of peace and prosperity are more important than ever.
Rob Roberts (Delyn) (Ind)
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
My Department has a wide-ranging and comprehensive legislative programme announced as part of the Queen’s Speech. The Online Safety Bill and the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Bill are making great progress on digital connectivity across the UK. Our data reform Bill will reduce the burdens on scientists and businesses and will truly take advantage of Brexit. Our draft digital markets Bill will rebalance power from big tech to business and consumers and we will shortly set out our plans to legislate for an independent regulator of English football. We will boost our public service broadcasters through our upcoming media Bill.
I am also planning to announce today that we will publish the terms of reference for the BBC mid-term charter review, setting out our plans to review the governance and regulation of the BBC.
Rob Roberts
The House of Commons Library confirms that the majority of my Delyn constituency is in the worst 30% for connectivity in the UK, with more than 10% of my constituents still receiving less than 10 megabits per second broadband speeds. It is not a devolved matter and should be delivered by DCMS, so I hope that my right hon. Friend can confirm what the UK Government specifically are doing to help my constituents out.
Ms Dorries
Responses to the recent Welsh market review are being assessed to determine which premises require Government subsidy through Project Gigabit. We will then work out with the Welsh Government how to provide gigabit coverage to as many premises as possible. Further support is available through our gigabit broadband voucher scheme and those unable to access at least 10 megabits per second may be able to request an upgrade through the universal service obligation. As of January, Ofcom reported that 0.3% of premises in Delyn may be eligible for a broadband universal service obligation connection.
Gavin Newlands (Paisley and Renfrewshire North) (SNP)
I congratulate St Johnstone on their emphatic premiership play-off win last week and wish Scotland good luck next week against Ukraine, for if we win we will move on to Wales the following weekend when we will surely cuff them. That game next week, which I am sure you are looking forward to, Madam Deputy Speaker, will be broadcast live on Sky Sports. With the awarding of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish TV rights to Premier Sports and Viaplay, Scottish fans will have to subscribe to four different platforms to follow the game. England fans are able to watch their men’s national team free to air through ITV and now Channel 4. Will the Secretary of State meet me to discuss how we can address this inequity without harming Scottish football’s financial situation?
Ms Dorries
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that question. The Minister for Sport, the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), and, I think, probably the Minister for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure would be happy to meet him to discuss that. As the hon. Gentleman may know, the broadcasting White Paper has just been published and the media Bill is coming forward shortly. I am sure his comments can be considered, and he may want to contribute to the process.
Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)
Ms Dorries
Some 53% of people in a public poll actually thought that Channel 4 was already privately owned. They did not realise—[Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Minister for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure has already said, we have to address a rapidly changing broadcasting landscape in the UK at the moment. It is a bad business model for any organisation to depend on one form of revenue. As we know, linear advertising is decreasing and Channel 4 is dependent on that advertising. It is a decision we have to take for the benefit of Channel 4. As I have already said, Channel 4 itself—[Interruption.]
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)
Order. Stop shouting at the Secretary of State, because we cannot hear her answer these important questions.
Ms Dorries
As Channel 4 highlighted in its own document, “4: The Next Episode”, it wants to raise investment and invest in more content, and we are setting Channel 4 free to be able to do that. If Channel 4 does that while state-owned, it is offset against the public balance sheet. We cannot allow that, because Governments do not own money—we only have taxpayers’ money—so we have to enable Channel 4 to be set free to raise investment and to continue to make the amazing and distinctive British content and edgy, diverse programmes that it does.
Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
Ms Dorries
We have targeted in the Online Safety Bill the platforms that create the most harm and where the most harm happens. We have done that in consultation with a number of stakeholders, including the Children’s Commissioner, but we do understand the problem that the hon. Member talks about. The Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), is taking the Bill through Committee. We are looking at other platforms where harm exists and the practices that the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) talks about. What I will say is that the Online Safety Bill cannot fix absolutely everything on the internet—we cannot fix the internet, but we can do as much as possible within that Bill to reduce as much harm as possible, because keeping children safe is at the heart of the Bill and is the core principle that runs through it. We are open to discussions about anything we can do to improve the Bill, but we think we have gone as far as we can in protecting freedoms of speech and democratic content and protecting children, who are the most important part of the Bill. I am sure my hon. Friend will have discussions with the hon. Member.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)
Like the hon. Member for Edinburgh West (Christine Jardine), I have worked in the broadcast industry. Subject to certain conditions, I support the sale of Channel 4. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that any sell-off will be subject to requirements to make minimum British content, news content and the innovative programming that we so much enjoy on that station?
Ms Dorries
I thank my hon. Friend for enabling me to lay out some important points. Channel 4 is being sold as a public service broadcaster and the criteria that he has outlined will absolutely be in there. If anybody cares to read the broadcasting White Paper, we have put a number of things into the media Bill—not just the sale of Channel 4—that will help Channel 4, including provisions on prominence and the introduction of a code that will put all public service broadcasters and streamers on a level playing field in terms of what they can broadcast in the UK. It will be sold as a public service broadcaster and there will be a requirement to continue to make distinctive British content, such as “Derry Girls”, “Gogglebox” and all those programmes that are distinctly British. There will be a requirement to do that, as well as what he has listed.
Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab)
Consultation Response: a New Pro-competition Regime for Digital Markets
Nadine Dorries Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
This is a joint statement with the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
Last week, we published the response to the consultation on a new pro-competition regime for digital markets. As we move to build back better from the pandemic and level up opportunities throughout the UK, unlocking growth in the digital economy has never been more important or urgent.
Digital technologies make an enormous contribution to the UK economy and are positively transforming our daily lives. However, weak competition in digital markets is stifling economic growth and imposing unnecessarily high costs on British businesses and consumers. That is why the Government have committed to establishing a new pro-competition regime for these markets. This will boost competition, drive innovation, and protect those people and businesses that rely on a very small number of immensely powerful tech firms.
Our regime will be able to place obligations on these firms to make it easier for users to communicate across different platforms, switch to smaller providers and deliver new, better alternatives for consumers. The Digital Markets Unit will also introduce clear rules on how the most powerful tech firms should treat businesses and consumers when delivering key services such as social media and online search. These rules will make sure these tech firms are transparent and trade on fair and reasonable terms.
Competition is key to unlocking the full potential of the digital economy as more choice will lower prices for everyday goods and services that rely on online advertising. Countries around the world are developing their policy and regulatory approaches. Now that we have left the EU, we have the freedom to take a bold new approach to regulation in order to ease burdens for businesses, boost competition and help drive a new era of productivity and prosperity for all the UK’s communities and nations. The UK is leading the global debate, as demonstrated during our G7 presidency last year where countries agreed to deepen international co-operation. Last week’s publication set out how the new regime will deliver a world-leading, innovation-friendly approach to driving up competition in digital markets.
The set-up of the Digital Markets Unit last year was a major milestone in delivering the regime. We want to maintain this momentum. We set out the design of the regime in our public consultation which closed on 1 October 2021. We received a large number of submissions to our consultation including from trade associations, the tech sector, SMEs, academics, consumers and representative groups. There is strong support for the regime and growing calls for it to be delivered urgently.
This response builds on the consultation and sets out how the regime will work. In particular:
The new pro-competition regime will be overseen and enforced by the Digital Markets Unit (DMU), housed within the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The regime’s core objective will be to promote competition in digital markets for the benefit of consumers, lowering prices and increasing transparency and fairness. The DMU will work closely with other regulators through a statutory duty to consult them where proportionate and relevant.
A small number of the most powerful firms with entrenched and substantial market power that affords them a strategic position in the market will be designated, by the CMA, as having strategic market status and will fall within scope of the regime; these designation parameters, including a minimum revenue threshold, will be outlined in legislation and supported by guidance.
Once designated, firms will be subject to new and binding conduct requirements to manage the effects of their market power by shaping their behaviour and rebalancing the power between big tech and those who rely on them. The regime will give the regulator the ability to tailor these requirements for firms, to account for the most relevant harms and risks. These requirements will be limited by a set of categories set out in legislation. Rules may include giving consumers clear and transparent information on how their data is used, or preventing a firm ranking its own products more highly in a search result where it harms consumers.
The DMU will also proactively tackle the root cause of market power by making targeted and proportionate pro-competitive interventions. These will ensure that businesses across the economy that rely on very powerful tech firms, including the news publishing sector, are treated fairly and can succeed without having to comply with unfair terms. The DMU will have broad discretion to design and implement remedies, including trials, after an evidence-based investigation.
To ensure the regime’s effectiveness, the DMU will have robust enforcement powers. This includes the ability to impose financial penalties of up to 10% of a firm’s global turnover for breaches. There will also be the option to hold individual senior managers accountable.
The costs of the regime will be partially recouped by levy funding, providing smooth and predictable resourcing for the DMU while ensuring best value for money for the taxpayer.
Finally, designated firms will also be subject to new merger reporting requirements, ensuring greater transparency over their impacts on competition.
2022 is a landmark year for shaping the rules that govern digital technologies around the world. The UK is at the forefront of this, driving forward groundbreaking work, including on online safety, digital competition, data protection, and cybersecurity. Our outcomes-focused and proportionate regulatory approach will be tailored to maximise benefits to the UK economy.
The new pro-competition regime also complements the BEIS-led “Reforming Consumer and Competition Policy” consultation, which considered broader competition reforms and made a number of proposals which will also help to improve competition in markets more widely and fair treatment of consumers in digital markets. The response to this consultation was published in April.
The CMA and Ofcom last week published advice on how the regime would govern the relationship between platforms and content providers including news publishers. The DMU must be able to intervene to ensure fair and reasonable contractual terms, and we are considering the use of binding final offer arbitration as a backstop enforcement mechanism to resolve disputes where needed.
I will be placing copies of the response in the Libraries of both Houses, and it is also available on gov.uk.
[HCWS5]
Broadcasting White Paper
Nadine Dorries Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
Our TV and radio industry is the envy of the world. Production studios across the country are booming, and British-made shows like “I May Destroy You” and the “Great British Bake Off” are celebrated all over the globe.
Our public service broadcasters (PSBs) are absolutely central to that success. Sitting at the heart of our broadcasting system, they help to develop skills and talent across the country; they drive growth right across the creative industries; and they deliver distinctive, instantly recognisable British content that you would not find anywhere else.
But broadcasting has changed dramatically over the past few decades. The last time broadcasting regulation was overhauled, in 2003, Netflix was a DVD rental business. Today, it is one of several American streaming giants offering viewers a daily selection of new content—from Amazon Prime to Disney+ to Hulu to Apple TV and beyond. Viewers increasingly watch programmes on their laptops, phones or smart TVs, choosing what to watch, and when to watch it.
In this new broadcasting world, the competition for audience share is fiercer than ever. In recent years, as streaming services have enjoyed a 19% rise in subscribers, the share of total viewers for “linear” TV channels like the BBC and ITV has fallen by more than 20%.
The Government are focused on ensuring British broadcasters can not only hold their own in this fight, but also flourish in projecting the best of British across the world. Today, I am therefore publishing a White Paper that proposes major reforms to the sector that will update our analogue rules, and enable our broadcasters to thrive in the streaming age.
The White Paper contains a number of key proposals.
First, we want to ensure that in a world of smart TVs and online platforms, our PSBs continue to receive the exposure they deserve. On a traditional TV, our PSBs are given “prominence”: they hold exclusive rights to the first five channels on every television set in the UK. We plan to update those rules for the digital age, by passing legislation that will ensure public service content is always carried and easy to find on all major platforms—including on smart TVs and Fire sticks.
Secondly, while the UK boasts a vibrant and diverse broadcasting system, we need to ensure consumers are protected in this fast changing landscape. We are therefore proposing a new video-on-demand code that will hold streaming services to similar standards as traditional broadcasters like the BBC and ITV—particularly when it comes to protecting audiences from harmful material.
We also plan to overhaul and simplify the complicated public service remit so that our PSBs can focus on the things they do best—such as creating distinctively British programmes and providing impartial and accurate news.
We are also proposing reforms to the listed events regime, so that PSBs have exclusive rights to bid first for the crown jewels of the sporting calendar—including the FIFA World Cup and Wimbledon.
Finally, over the past year we have been carefully considering the future of one broadcaster in particular: Channel 4.
Channel 4 is a key part of our national, economic and cultural life. Since the broadcaster was established in the early 1980s, it has more than fulfilled the original aim for setting it up—shaking up the TV schedules with original, disruptive programming and boosting our independent production sector. In the last few decades, the independent production sector has grown six-fold—from a £500 million industry in 1995 to £3 billion in 2019.
But the broadcasting world around Channel 4 has changed immeasurably during that same period. Like every other broadcaster, it now faces huge competition for audience share— and many of its competitors have incredibly deep pockets. Streamers such as Amazon Prime spent £779 million on UK original productions in 2020—more than twice as much as Channel 4.
In addition, Channel 4 faces a series of unique challenges. Challenges that other public service broadcasters with different ownership models do not face. While other PSBs such as the BBC and Channel 5 have the freedom to make and sell their own content, Channel 4 has no in-house production studio and its ownership model restricts it from borrowing money or raising private sector capital. It is left almost entirely reliant on advertising revenues. Those revenues were already shifting rapidly online. As seen last week, the competition is only set to heat up now that Netflix has confirmed it intends to enter the advertising market.
It is our view that, under its current form of ownership, Channel 4’s options to grow are currently restricted, with fewer options to invest and compete. Those are serious challenges, and anyone who chooses to dismiss them is burying their head in the sand.
As a responsible Government, we are prepared to acknowledge those challenges head on, and do what is needed to protect one of our most important broadcasters not just today, but in the years to come.
The Government therefore believe it is time to unleash Channel 4’s full potential, and open the broadcaster up to private ownership—while, crucially, protecting its public service broadcasting remit.
The sale of Channel 4 will not just benefit the broadcaster. Channel 4 was originally established to help boost independent production and it has been successful in that mission—so successful in fact, that we face a new and very positive challenge: production studios across the country are booming. They are so in-demand, in fact, that we need more and more people to work in them. I therefore intend to funnel some of the proceeds of the sale of Channel 4 into addressing that new challenge, and giving people up and down the UK the skills and opportunity to fill those jobs—delivering a creative dividend for all.
I want Channel 4’s next chapter to be one in which it goes above and beyond what it has already done regionally, and plays a starring role in levelling up our creative industries.
But the sale of Channel 4 is just one part of a major piece of broadcasting reform. As set out in the White Paper I am publishing today, it is a reflection of the transformation that broadcasting has undergone in the last few years—and the need to make sure that our PSBs can keep pace with those changes.
Our TV and radio industry is already the envy of the world. Today, we are giving British broadcasters the backing and support they need to rule the airwaves for years to come.
In connection with the above, my Department has made the following documents available on gov.uk:
“Up next—the government’s vision for the broadcasting sector”
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/up-next-the-governments-vision-for-the-broadcasting-sector
“Decision rationale and sale impact analysis for a change of ownership of Channel 4”
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-a-change-of-ownership-of-channel-4-television-corporation/outcome/decision-rationale-and-sale-impact-analysis-for-a-change-of-ownership-of-channel-4
“Government response to the consultation on a potential change of ownership of Channel 4 Television Corporation”
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/consultation-on-a-change-of-ownership-of-channel-4-television-corporation/outcome/government-response-to-the-consultation-on-a-potential-change-of-ownership-of-channel-4-television-corporation
“Government response to the consultation on audience protection standards on video-on-demand services”
https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/audience-protection-standards-on-video-on-demand-services/outcome/government-response-to-the-consultation-on-audience-protection-standards-on-video-on-demand-services
“Government response to the Digital Radio and Audio Review”
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/digital-radio-and-audio-review/government-response-to-the-digital-radio-and-audio-review
I will also deposit copies of these documents in the Libraries of both Houses.
[HCWS802]
Media Policy Update
Nadine Dorries Excerpts(2 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) has today written to Newsquest Media Group and Archant Community Media, to inform them that I am “minded to” issue an intervention notice. This relates to concerns I have that there may be public interest considerations—as set out in section 58 of the Enterprise Act 2002—that are relevant to the recent acquisition of Archant Media by Newsquest Media and that these concerns warrant further investigation.
A “minded to” letter has therefore been issued to the parties on one public interest ground specified in section 58 of the Enterprise Act 2002:
(2B) The need for, to the extent that it is reasonable and practicable, a sufficient plurality of views in newspapers in each market for newspapers in the United Kingdom or a part of the United Kingdom.
It is important to note that I have not taken a final decision on intervention at this stage. In line with the statutory guidance on media mergers, the “minded to” letter invites further representations in writing from the parties and gives them until 29 April to respond. I will then make my final decision, which needs to be made on a quasi-judicial basis, on whether to issue an intervention notice.
If I decide to issue an intervention notice, the next stage would be for Ofcom to assess and report to me on the public interest concerns and for the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to assess and report to me on whether a relevant merger situation has been created and any impact this may have on competition. Following these reports, I will decide whether to refer the matter for a more detailed investigation by the CMA under section 45 of the Enterprise Act 2002.
I will keep Parliament updated on progress with this media merger case.
[HCWS785]
Online Safety Bill
Nadine Dorries ExcerptsTuesday 19th April 2022
(2 years, 7 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.
Given the time and the number of people indicating that they wish to speak, and given that we will have my speech, the shadow Minister’s speech and the two winding-up speeches, there might be 10 minutes left for people to speak. I will therefore take only a couple of interventions and speak very fast in the way I can, being northern.
Almost every aspect of our lives is now conducted via the internet, from work and shopping to keeping up with our friends, family and worldwide real-time news. Via our smartphones and tablets, we increasingly spend more of our lives online than in the real world.
In the past 20 years or so, it is fair to say that the internet has overwhelmingly been a force for good, for prosperity and for progress, but Members on both sides of the House will agree that, as technology advances at warp speed, so have the new dangers this progress presents to children and young people.
Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will know that, last Wednesday, the man who murdered our great friend Sir David Amess was sentenced to a whole-life term. David felt very strongly that we need legislation to protect MPs, particularly female MPs, from vile misogynistic abuse. In his memory, will she assure me that her Bill will honour the spirit of that request?
Ms Dorries
Sir David was a friend to all of us, and he was very much at the forefront of my mind during the redrafting of this Bill over the last few months. I give my right hon. Friend my absolute assurance on that.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
A number of constituents have contacted me over the last few months about eating disorders, particularly anorexia and bulimia, and about bullying in schools. Will the Secretary of State assure me and this House that those concerns will be addressed by this Bill so that my constituents are protected?
Ms Dorries
They will. Inciting people to take their own life or encouraging eating disorders in anorexia chatrooms—all these issues are covered by the Bill.
Several hon. Members rose—
Jonathan Gullis (Stoke-on-Trent North) (Con)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend, and I thank her for her written communications regarding Angela Stevens, the mother of Brett, who tragically took his own life having been coerced by some of these vile online sites. The Law Commission considered harmful online communications as part of the Bill’s preparation, and one of its recommendations is to introduce a new offence of encouraging or assisting self-harm. I strongly urge my right hon. Friend to adopt that recommendation. Can she say more on that?
Ms Dorries
Yes. Exactly those issues will be listed in secondary legislation, under “legal but harmful”. I will talk about that further in my speech, but “legal but harmful” focuses on some of the worst harmful behaviours. We are talking not about an arbitrary list, but about incitement to encourage people to take their own life and encouraging people into suicide chatrooms—behaviour that is not illegal but which is indeed harmful.
Several hon. Members rose—
Ms Dorries
I am going to whizz through my speech now in order to allow people who have stayed and want to speak to do so.
As the Minister for mental health for two years, too often, I heard stories such as the one just highlighted by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis). We have all sat down with constituents and listened as the worst stories any parents could recount were retold: stories of how 14-year-old girls take their own life after being directed via harmful algorithms into a suicide chatroom; and of how a child has been bombarded with pro-anorexia content, or posts encouraging self-harm or cyber-bullying.
School bullying used to stop at the school gate. Today, it accompanies a child home, on their mobile phone, and is lurking in the bedroom waiting when they switch on their computer. It is the last thing a bullied child reads at night before they sleep and the first thing they see when they wake in the morning. A bullied child is no longer bullied in the playground on school days; they are bullied 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Childhood innocence is being stolen at the click of a button. One extremely worrying figure from 2020 showed that 80% of 12 to 15-year-olds had at least one potentially harmful online experience in the previous year.
We also see this every time a footballer steps on to the pitch, only to be subjected to horrific racism online, including banana and monkey emojis. As any female MP in this House will tell you, a woman on social media—I say this from experience—faces a daily barrage of toxic abuse. It is not criticism—criticism is a fair game—but horrific harassment and serious threats of violence. Trolls post that they hope we get raped or killed, urge us to put a rope around our neck, or want to watch us burn in a car alive—my own particular experience.
All this behaviour is either illegal or, almost without exception, explicitly banned in a platform’s terms and conditions. Commercially, it has to be. If a platform stated openly that it allowed such content on its sites, which advertisers, its financial lifeblood, would knowingly endorse and advertise on it? Which advertisers would do that? Who would openly use or allow their children to use sites that state that they allow illegal and harmful activity? None, I would suggest, and platforms know that. Yet we have almost come to accept this kind of toxic behaviour and abuse as part and parcel of online life. We have factored online abuse and harm into our daily way of life, but it should not and does not have to be this way.
This Government promised in their manifesto to pass legislation to tackle these problems and to make the UK the
“safest place in the world to be online”
especially for children. We promised legislation that would hold social media platforms to the promises they have made to their own users—their own stated terms and conditions—promises that too often are broken with no repercussions. We promised legislation that would bring some fundamental accountability to the online world. That legislation is here in the form of the ground- breaking Online Safety Bill. We are leading the way and free democracies across the globe are watching carefully to see how we progress this legislation.
The Bill has our children’s future, their unhindered development and their wellbeing at its heart, while at the same time providing enhanced protections for freedom of speech. At this point, I wish to pay tribute to my predecessors, who have each trodden the difficult path of balancing freedom of speech and addressing widespread harms, including my immediate predecessor and, in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), who worked so hard, prior to my arrival in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, with stakeholders and platforms, digging in to identify the scope of the problem.
Let me summarise the scope of the Bill. We have reserved our strongest measures in this legislation for children. For the first time, platforms will be required under law to protect children and young people from all sorts of harm, from the most abhorrent child abuse to cyber-bullying and pornography. Tech companies will be expected to use every possible tool to do so, including introducing age-assurance technologies, and they will face severe consequences if they fail in the most fundamental of requirements to protect children. The bottom line is that, by our passing this legislation, our youngest members of society will be far safer when logging on. I am so glad to see James Okulaja and Alex Holmes from The Diana Award here today, watching from the Gallery as we debate this groundbreaking legislation. We have worked closely with them as we have developed the legislation, as they have dedicated a huge amount of their time to protecting children from online harms. This Bill is for them and those children.
The second part of the Bill makes sure that platforms design their services to prevent them from being abused by criminals. When illegal content does slip through the net, such as child sex abuse and terrorist content, they will need to have effective systems and processes in place to quickly identify it and remove it from their sites. We will not allow the web to be a hiding place or a safe space for criminals. The third part seeks to force the largest social media platforms to enforce their own bans on racism, misogyny, antisemitism, pile-ons and all sorts of other unacceptable behaviour that they claim not to allow but that ruins life in practice. In other words, we are just asking the largest platforms to simply do what they say they will do, as we do in all good consumer protection measures in any other industry. If platforms fail in any of those basic responsibilities, Ofcom will be empowered to pursue a range of actions against them, depending on the situation, and, if necessary, to bring down the full weight of the law upon them.
Several hon. Members rose—
Ms Dorries
I will take just two more interventions and that will be it, otherwise people will not have a chance to speak.
Sir John Hayes (South Holland and The Deepings) (Con)
I am very grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. The internet giants that run the kind of awful practices that she has described have for too long been unaccountable, uncaring and unconscionable in the way they have fuelled every kind of spite and fed every kind of bigotry. Will she go further in this Bill and ensure that, rather like any other publisher, if those companies are prepared to allow anonymous posts, they are held accountable for those posts and subject to the legal constraints that a broadcaster or newspaper would face?
Ms Dorries
These online giants will be held accountable to their own terms and conditions. They will be unable any longer to allow illegal content to be published, and we will also be listing in secondary legislation offences that will be legal but harmful. We will be holding those tech giants to account.
Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)
I thank the Secretary of State for giving way. She talked about how this Bill is going to protect children much more, and it is a welcome step forward. However, does she accept that there are major gaps in this Bill? For instance, gaming is not covered. It is not clear whether things such as virtual reality and the metaverse are going to be covered. [Interruption.] It is not clear and all the experts will tell us that. The codes of practice in the Bill are only recommended guidance; they are not mandatary and binding on companies. That will encourage a race to the bottom.
Ms Dorries
The duties are mandatory; it is the Online Safety Bill and the metaverse is included in the Bill. Not only is it included, but, moving forward, the provisions in the Bill will allow us to move swiftly with the metaverse and other things. We did not even know that TikTok existed when this Bill started its journey. These provisions will allow us to move quickly to respond.
Several hon. Members rose—
Damian Green (Ashford) (Con)
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. One of the most important national assets that needs protecting in this Bill and elsewhere is our reputation for serious journalism. Will she therefore confirm that, as she has said outside this House, she intends to table amendments during the passage of the Bill that will ensure that platforms and search engines that have strategic market status protect access to journalism and content from recognised news publishers, ensuring that it is not moderated, restricted or removed without notice or right of appeal, and that those news websites will be outside the scope of the Bill?
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
Will my right hon. Friend give way?
Ms Dorries
No, I have to continue.
Not only will the Bill protect journalistic content, democratic content and democratic free speech, but if one of the tech companies wanted to take down journalistic content, the Bill includes a right of appeal for journalists, which currently does not exist. We are doing further work on that to ensure that content remains online while the appeal takes place. The appeal process has to be robust and consistent across the board for all the appeals that take place. We have already done more work on that issue in this version of the Bill and we are looking to do more as we move forward.
As I have said, we will not allow the web to be a hiding place or safe space for criminals and when illegal content does slip through the net—such as child sex abuse and terrorist content— online platforms will need to have in place effective systems and processes to quickly identify that illegal content and remove it from their sites.
The third measure will force the largest social media platforms to enforce their own bans on racism, misogyny, antisemitism, pile-ons and all the other unacceptable behaviours. In other words, we are asking the largest platforms to do what they say they will do, just as happens with all good consumer-protection measures in any other industry. Should platforms fail in any of their basic responsibilities, Ofcom will be empowered to pursue a range of actions against them, depending on the situation, and, if necessary, to bring down upon them the full weight of the law. Such action includes searching platforms’ premises and confiscating their equipment; imposing huge fines of up to 10% of their global turnover; pursuing criminal sanctions against senior managers who fail to co-operate; and, if necessary, blocking their sites in the UK.
We know that tech companies can act very quickly when they want to. Last year, when an investigation revealed that Pornhub allowed child sexual exploitation and abuse imagery to be uploaded to its platform, Mastercard and Visa blocked the use of their cards on the site. Lo and behold, threatened with the prospect of losing a huge chunk of its profit, Pornhub suddenly removed nearly 10 million child sexual exploitation videos from its site overnight. These companies have the tools but, unfortunately, as they have shown time and again, they need to be forced to use them. That is exactly what the Bill will do.
Before I move on, let me point out something very important: this is not the same Bill as the one published in draft form last year. I know that Members throughout the House are as passionate as I am about getting this legislation right, and I had lots of constructive feedback on the draft version of the Bill. I have listened carefully to all that Members have had to say throughout the Bill’s process, including by taking into account the detailed feedback from the Joint Committee, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee and the Petitions Committee. They have spent many hours considering every part of the Bill, and I am extremely grateful for their dedication and thorough recommendations on how the legislation could be improved.
As a result of that feedback process, over the past three months or so I have strengthened the legislation in a number of important ways. There were calls for cyber-flashing to be included; cyber-flashing is now in the Bill. There were calls to ensure that the legislation covered all commercial pornography sites; in fact, we have expanded the Bill’s scope to include every kind of provider of pornography. There were concerns about anonymity, so we have strengthened the Bill so that it now requires the biggest tech platforms to offer verification and empowerment tools for adult users, allowing people to block anonymous trolls from the beginning.
I know that countless MPs are deeply concerned about how online fraud—particularly scam ads—has proliferated over the past few years. Under the new version of the Bill, the largest and highest-risk companies—those that stand to make the most profit—must tackle scam ads that appear on their services.
We have expanded the list of priority offences named on the face of the legislation to include not just terrorism and child abuse imagery but revenge porn, fraud, hate crime, encouraging and assisting suicide, and organised immigration crime, among other offences.
If anyone doubted our appetite to go after Silicon Valley executives who do not co-operate with Ofcom, they will see that we have strengthened the Bill so that the criminal sanctions for senior managers will now come into effect as soon as possible after Royal Assent— I am talking weeks, not years. We have expanded the things for which those senior managers will be criminally liable to cover falsifying data, destroying data and obstructing Ofcom’s access to their premises.
In addition to the regulatory framework in the Bill that I have described, we are creating three new criminal offences. While the regulatory framework is focused on holding companies to account, the criminal offences will be focused on individuals and the way people use and abuse online communications. Recommended by the Law Commission, the offences will address coercive and controlling behaviour by domestic abusers; threats to rape, kill or inflict other physical violence; and the sharing of dangerous disinformation deliberately to inflict harm.
This is a new, stronger Online Safety Bill. It is the most important piece of legislation that I have ever worked on and it has been a huge team effort to get here. I am confident that we have produced something that will protect children and the most vulnerable members of society while being flexible and adaptable enough to meet the challenges of the future.
Let me make something clear in relation to freedom of speech. Anyone who has actually read the Bill will recognise that its defining focus is the tackling of serious harm, not the curtailing of free speech or the prevention of adults from being upset or offended by something they have seen online. In fact, along with countless others throughout the House, I am seriously concerned about the power that big tech has amassed over the past two decades and the huge influence that Silicon Valley now wields over public debate.
We in this place are not the arbiters of free speech. We have left it to unelected tech executives on the west coast to police themselves. They decide who is and who is not allowed on the internet. They decide whose voice should be heard and whose should be silenced—whose content is allowed up and what should be taken down. Too often, their decisions are arbitrary and inconsistent. We are left, then, with a situation in which the president of the United States can be banned by Twitter while the Taliban is not; in which talkRADIO can be banned by YouTube for 12 hours; in which an Oxford academic, Carl Heneghan, can be banned by Twitter; or in which an article in The Mail on Sunday can be plastered with a “fake news” label—all because they dared to challenge the west coast consensus or to express opinions that Silicon Valley does not like.
It is, then, vital that the Bill contains strong protections for free speech and for journalistic content. For the first time, under this legislation all users will have an official right to appeal if they feel their content has been unfairly removed. Platforms will have to explain themselves properly if they remove content and will have special new duties to protect journalistic content and democratically important content. They will have to keep those new duties in mind whenever they set their terms and conditions or moderate any content on their sites. I emphasise that the protections are new. The new criminal offences update section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and section 127 of the Communications Act 2003, which were so broad that they interfered with free speech while failing to address seriously harmful consequences.
Without the Bill, social media companies would be free to continue to arbitrarily silence or cancel those with whom they do not agree, without any need for explanation or justification. That situation should be intolerable for anyone who values free speech. For those who quite obviously have not read the Bill and say that it concedes power to big tech companies, I have this to say: those big tech companies have all the power in the world that they could possibly want, right now. How much more power could we possibly concede?
That brings me to my final point. We now face two clear options. We could choose not to act and leave big tech to continue to regulate itself and mark its own homework, as it has been doing for years with predictable results. We have already seen that too often, without the right incentives, tech companies will not do what is needed to protect their users. Too often, their claims about taking steps to fix things are not backed up by genuine actions.
I can give countless examples from the past two months alone of tech not taking online harm and abuse seriously, wilfully promoting harmful algorithms or putting profit before people. A recent BBC investigation showed that women’s intimate pictures were being shared across the platform Telegram to harass, shame and blackmail women. The BBC reported 100 images to Telegram as pornography, but 96 were still accessible a month later. Tech did not act.
Twitter took six days to suspend the account of rapper Wiley after his disgusting two-day antisemitic rant. Just last week, the Centre for Countering Digital Hate said that it had reported 253 accounts to Instagram as part of an investigation into misogynistic abuse on the platform, but almost 90% remained active a month later. Again, tech did not act.
Remember: we have been debating these issues for years. They were the subject of one of my first meetings in this place in 2005. During that time, things have got worse, not better. If we choose the path of inaction, it will be on us to explain to our constituents why we did nothing to protect their children from preventable risks, such as grooming, pornography, suicide content or cyber-bullying. To those who say protecting children is the responsibility of parents, not the job of the state, I would quote the 19th-century philosopher John Stuart Mill, one of the staunchest defenders of individual freedom. He wrote in “On Liberty” that the role of the state was to fulfil the responsibility of the parent in order to protect a child where a parent could not. If we choose not to act, in the years to come we will no doubt ask ourselves why we did not act to impose fundamental online protections.
However, we have another option. We can pass this Bill and take huge steps towards tackling some of the most serious forms of online harm: child abuse, terrorism, harassment, death threats, and content that is harming children across the UK today. We could do what John Stuart Mill wrote was the core duty of Government. The right to self-determination is not unlimited. An action that results in doing harm to another is not only wrong, but wrong enough that the state can intervene to prevent that harm from occurring. We do that in every other part of our life. We erect streetlamps to make our cities and towns safer. We put speed limits on our roads and make seatbelts compulsory. We make small but necessary changes to protect people from grievous harm. Now it is time to bring in some fundamental protections online.
We have the legislation ready right now in the form of the Online Safety Bill. All we have to do is pass it. I am proud to commend the Bill to the House.
Several hon. Members rose—
Oral Answers to Questions
Nadine Dorries Excerpts(2 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Richard Fuller (North East Bedfordshire) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
We are delivering the biggest broadband upgrade in UK history. National gigabit broadband coverage has rocketed from 6% to 66% in the past three years. Over 80 different companies are extending coverage further, investing more than £30 billion between them. Through Project Gigabit, we are investing £5 billion to ensure coverage in hard-to-reach areas across the UK.
Richard Fuller
My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about the Government’s commitment, but as my constituency neighbour she will know that in parts of North East Bedfordshire gigabit coverage is already well below the national average. There are plans to increase it, but may I request a meeting with her or the Minister directly responsible to discuss those rural areas just outside major urban areas or towns but not in the most remote districts, which seem to be being missed by current plans?
Ms Dorries
I declare an interest. My hon. Friend is not only my constituency neighbour, but due to various boundary changes over the years we have swapped various parts of our constituency and I feel like we are joint Members for some parts of our constituencies. I would like to reassure him that premises in his constituency that are not included in the commercial providers plan will be eligible for gigabit-capable subsidy through Project Gigabit. The Project Gigabit procurement covering North East Bedfordshire is due to start by October this year, with a contract in place by September 2023. Eligible premises in North East Bedfordshire can also receive gigabit-capable connections through the broadband voucher scheme. I would very much like to meet him to talk about this matter, along with the Minister for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornchurch and Upminster (Julia Lopez).
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Digital exclusion is not just a rural phenomenon. In parts of Ealing Broadway, despite the road being dug up and cable laid, businesses report cripplingly slow times to send an email or download attachments—basic stuff that is like running water or electricity in this day and age—and don’t get me started on people working from home north of the A40. Can the Secretary of State please give us a date for when all my constituents will be levelled up internet-wise? If not, will she come with me and speak to those businesses and homes, so we can hurry it along?
Ms Dorries
We were never going to go from 0% to 100% overnight. It has always been a roll-out programme. It is a huge infrastructure investment project, and it is not possible for network builders and telecoms providers to deliver everything at once. Priority is given to where the need is greatest—that includes the businesses she mentions and hard-to-reach communities—but I will take the hon. Lady’s constituency concerns away with me and raise them with Building Digital UK. I will get back to her as soon as I can with a response.
Selaine Saxby (North Devon) (Con)
Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
I congratulate Channel 5 on its 25th anniversary, and I was delighted to attend the parliamentary reception this week to celebrate that significant milestone. Channel 5 has played an important and award-winning role in our public service broadcasting system, through its provision of new programming, and its unique focus on children’s television. Thanks to its significant investment in the regions, it is the levelling-up broadcaster, and I look forward to another successful 25 years.
Rob Butler
As my right hon. Friend says, Channel 5 is 25 years old this month. I was a news presenter on the channel at the beginning and for the next eight years, and our aim was to make the news more accessible to a wider audience, ensuring that everybody in the country could understand what was going on. Will my right hon. Friend join me in celebrating Channel 5’s team who had the imagination and confidence to do that then, and the current team who continue to bring understandable, relevant, and relatable news to people in all parts of the UK today?
Ms Dorries
I will—I congratulate and applaud them. My hon. Friend was there on Channel 5’s opening night, and so were the Spice Girls. Some of us in this House are old enough to remember that evening. Channel 5 does a huge amount for independent production companies, and one fifth of all its commissioning spending goes to those smaller companies. That is a larger spend than the BBC, Channel 4 and ITV. It also does a huge amount in the regions, and it far exceeds its Ofcom quota every year. As I said in my first reply, it is the levelling-up broadcaster, and I think those statistics alone bear that out. I wish it another 25 years, and I congratulate everybody working there.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
I warmly congratulate Channel 5 on turning 25, along with Channel 4 on turning 40 and, of course, one of our greatest institutions, the BBC, which is celebrating its centenary in 2022. This is becoming, without doubt, a milestone year for public sector broadcasting in the United Kingdom. While the Government have been playing games with the future of the BBC and Channel 4—and we welcome the extra funding for the World Service—their journalists have risked their lives to report the facts on the front line in Ukraine. Will the Secretary of State give an assurance that any future ownership decisions that she makes on Channel 4 will ensure that its in-depth, independent journalism will be protected beyond 2022?
Ms Dorries
As I have said a number of times at the Dispatch Box, a decision has not yet been reached on the future of Channel 4. This week I met its chief executive, Alex Mahon, and its chair, Dawn Airey, and discussions are still taking place. I have yet to reach a decision, but when I do, all will be considered, including news broadcasting, the future, and the public service broadcasting remit to the nation. I have not made a decision, but when I do I will be here at the Dispatch Box and the hon. Gentleman will know the details.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
As Putin continues his brutal assault on Ukraine, we have led the way in making the Russian regime a sporting and cultural pariah, convening Ministers from across the world to form a united response against the Russian dictator. We have helped to protect a historic football club while pursuing severe sanctions against Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich. I have also met the Ukrainian Culture Minister. In fact, we talk every day to discuss what other support we can give. I am also pleased to announce that the Government are providing the BBC with an additional £4.1 million in emergency funding to help the World Service continue broadcasting directly into Ukraine and Russia. This will ensure that audiences in the region can continue to access independent news reporting in the face of systemic Russian propaganda.
Felicity Buchan
Chelsea football club is supported by many Kensington residents. I welcome the new ticketing arrangements announced last night. Can my right hon. Friend update the House on the sale process? What the fans and the community are looking for is certainty, and of course victory over Real Madrid.
Ms Dorries
And we wish them well with that. There are certain principles that apply to Chelsea within the Department and with myself. We applied the sanctions to Roman Abramovich, and obviously he cannot benefit in any way from the club, but it was important to maintain the integrity in the club and enable the club to continue to play and the fans to continue to enjoy football. With regard to the sale, I believe that there has been a huge amount of interest. All I will say here is that anyone who is interested in buying Chelsea football club should please go straight to the club. The Government are not handling that side of—
Mr Speaker
Order. We only have seven minutes, and we are on topical questions. We need to be short and punchy, just to get some more Members in.
Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)
Perhaps I ought first to declare an interest as a Manchester City fan who plans to attend the FA cup semi-final against Liverpool, but is it not wrong to hold that match between two north-west teams at Wembley on a weekend when there are no trains running from the north-west to London? What influence will the Government use to get the FA to sort this problem out, ideally by moving the semi-final to another venue? Is this not just further evidence that we need the voice of fans in football decision making, and that the fan-led review needs to be urgently implemented in full?
Ms Dorries
There were a number of questions there. We are working with the Department for Transport and trying to ameliorate that situation. It is an FA decision, so we are also discussing it with the FA. It is important that we get the fan-led review in place. We have agreed in principle to a regulator, and we hope to bring that forward as soon as possible.
Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)
Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)
I have been told by several credible sources that DCMS is briefing that the Secretary of State still wants to introduce a new Joint Committee, by a motion of this House, to monitor the regulation of online harms—even the name of its Chair and for how long it will sit have been briefed. Given there is no collective agreement and that paragraph 104 of the Government’s response to the Select Committee’s report expressly rules out such a new Joint Committee to scrutinise digital regulation, what is the Secretary of State’s actual position on this?
Ms Dorries
We ruled out wider legislation in statute, but a Joint Committee to undertake post-legislative scrutiny of the Online Safety Bill would be established by a Standing Order and is under consideration. This is a groundbreaking, globally leading Bill, and there is expertise in both Houses. There cannot be too much ongoing scrutiny of this Bill.
Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)
Online Safety
Nadine Dorries Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
Written StatementsRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
Today the Government are introducing the Online Safety Bill. For most people, the internet has transformed relationships and working environments, but illegal and harmful content appearing online is a growing problem. This groundbreaking Bill will keep users safe while protecting freedom of expression and democratic debate online. Under the new laws, in-scope services will need to:
Tackle criminal activity—There will be no safe space for criminal content online. Platforms will have to remove terrorist material or child sexual abuse and exploitation quickly, and will not be allowed to promote it in their algorithms.
Protect children—The strongest protections in our new laws are for children and young people. They will be protected from harmful or inappropriate content such as grooming, bullying, pornography and the promotion of self-harm and eating disorders.
Enforce their terms and conditions—The largest online platforms with the widest reach, including the most popular social media platforms (category 1 services) will need to set out clearly what harmful content accessed by adults is allowed on their sites, and enforce their terms of service consistently, while protecting freedom of expression and democratic debate.
The strongest provisions in our legislation are for children. All companies in scope of this legislation will need to consider the risks that their sites could pose to the youngest members of society. This Bill will require companies to take steps to protect children from inappropriate content and harmful activity online, including from content such as pro-suicide material. The Bill will also require providers who publish or host pornographic content on their services to prevent children from accessing that content, including using age-verification technology where appropriate.
Furthermore, this Bill will ensure companies take robust action against illegal content. We have included a new list of priority offences on the face of the Bill, reflecting the most serious and prevalent illegal content and activity, against which companies must take proactive measures. These will include, amongst others, revenge pornography, fraud, the sale of illegal drugs or weapons, the promotion or facilitation of suicide, people smuggling and the illegal sex trade. The Bill will also introduce a requirement on in-scope companies to report child sexual exploitation and abuse imagery detected on their platforms to the National Crime Agency. This will ensure companies provide law enforcement with the high-quality information they need to safeguard victims and investigate offenders. The updated Bill will also tackle scam adverts, by requiring the largest platforms to put in place proportionate systems and processes to prevent fraudulent adverts from being published or hosted on their service.
This legislation will not prevent adults from accessing or posting legal content. Rather, the major platforms will need to be clear what content is acceptable on their services and enforce their terms and conditions consistently and effectively. We have refined the approach to defining content that is harmful to adults, so that all types of harmful content that category 1 services (the largest online platforms with the widest reach, including the most popular social media platforms) are required to address will be set out in regulations subject to approval by both Houses. This will provide clarity about the harms that services must address and will reduce the risk of category 1 services taking an overly broad approach to what is considered harmful. In addition, these companies will not be able to remove controversial viewpoints arbitrarily, and users will be able to seek redress if they feel content has been removed unfairly. Both Ofcom and in-scope companies will have duties relating to freedom of expression, for which they can be held to account. Category 1 services will also have duties for democratic and journalistic content. They will need to set in their terms and conditions how they will protect this content on their platforms explicitly. This will ensure that people in the UK can express themselves freely online and participate in pluralistic and robust debate.
The Bill provides Ofcom with robust enforcement powers to take action when platforms do not comply. Options available to Ofcom include imposing substantial fines, requiring improvements and pursuing business disruption measures (including blocking). The Bill also includes criminal offences for senior managers who fail to ensure their company co-operates with Ofcom, and gives them the information they need to regulate effectively. The Government have also announced additional information-related offences, including ensuring employees do not give false information during interviews, which will further help ensure that companies give Ofcom full and accurate information. We will bring these criminal sanctions into force as soon as possible after Royal Assent (generally two months, in line with standard practice), to further promote strong compliance.
The threat posed by harmful and illegal content and activity is a global one and the Government remain committed to building international consensus around shared approaches to improve internet safety. Under the UK’s presidency of the G7, the world’s leading democracies committed to a set of internet safety principles. This is significant as it is the first time that an approach to internet safety has been agreed in the G7. We will continue to collaborate with our international partners to develop common approaches to this shared challenge that uphold our democratic values and promote a free, open and secure internet.
We are grateful for the extensive engagement and scrutiny of the Bill from the Joint Committee, DCMS Select Sub-committee and the Petitions Committee, which has helped us to create a framework that delivers for users and maintains the UK’s reputation as a tech leader. The Bill is sustainable, workable, and proportionate, and will create a significant step-change in the experience people have online.
We are also publishing the response to the report of the Joint Committee on the draft Online Safety Bill alongside publication of the Bill, and we thank the Committee once again for its work and its recommendations.
[HCWS691]
Russia’s Attack on Ukraine
Nadine Dorries Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Watch Debate Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
We have entered the eighth day of Ukraine’s fight for survival. In the week since Vladimir Putin launched his unprovoked, premeditated and barbaric attack on a free and peaceful neighbour, the UK has led a united Western response to his brutality. We are working with allies around the world on multiple fronts to ensure that the Russian dictator feels the full cost of his invasion. On the military front, we have provided Ukraine with the weaponry to inflict significant losses on the invading Russian forces. On the economic front, we have worked with international partners to cripple the Russian economy, but as history has shown us, there are other powerful ways of isolating rogue regimes.
Culture and sport can be as effective as economic sanctions if used in the right way, and so in the last week I have been working to mobilise the full might of the UK’s soft power against the Russian state, and applying pressure both publicly and privately across the sectors to use every lever at their disposal to entrench Putin’s position as an international pariah. Culture is the third front in the Ukrainian war. Earlier this week, I brought together governing bodies from across sport and I made the UK’s position clear: Russia should be stripped of hosting international sporting events, and Russian teams should not be allowed to compete abroad.
Across sport, the arts and entertainment, we are ostracising Putin on the global stage. The upcoming Champions League final and Formula 1 Grand Prix will no longer be held in Russia. Likewise, Russia has been banned by UEFA, FIFA, World Rugby, the International Tennis Federation and the International Olympic Committee. Venues across the country have cancelled upcoming performances by the Bolshoi and Siberian ballets. Disney and Warner Bros. have pulled their films from Russia. Netflix has stopped its projects. BBC Studios and ITV Studios have stopped trading with Russia too, and Russia has been banned from taking part in the Eurovision Song Contest.
Putin is now suffering a sporting and cultural Siberia of his own making, and it will be causing the Russian leader real pain. Ask Ukrainian tennis player Sergiy Stakhovsky, who gave a very moving interview on the radio earlier this week. A few weeks ago, he was playing at the Australian Open. Now he is back in Ukraine, preparing to fight for his country’s survival. He said that Putin loves nothing better than watching Russia’s sports teams’ glory on the world stage, his athletes draped in the Russian flag.
Putin needs the kudos of these global events to cover up his illegitimacy and the hideous acts he is perpetrating in Ukraine. The Russian despot is desperately trying to hide the grim extent of his invasion from his own people. That is why I strongly support, and continue to encourage, the kinds of emotional displays of solidarity we have seen across sporting events in the last week, including the Carabao cup final and the Six Nations. Lights and symbols cannot stop bullets and bombs, but when Russians see their favourite footballers wearing shirts emblazoned with the bright blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag, it helps to open their eyes to the cold reality of Putin’s actions. Likewise, every time an international organisation or figure publicly stands up against what Putin is doing in Ukraine, they chip away at his wall of lies. I thank and applaud all those who have done so, in this country and internationally, and I continue to push for organisations to exile Putin’s Russia from their ranks.
That is why I have called on UNESCO to bar Russia from hosting its annual world heritage conference in June. It is absolutely inconceivable that that event could go ahead in Putin’s country as he fires missiles at innocent civilians in neighbouring Ukraine. If it does go ahead, the UK will not be attending. That is also why I urged the International Paralympic Committee urgently to rethink its decision to allow athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete. Such pressure works; the IPC’s decision was the wrong call, and I welcome the fact that overnight it has listened and this morning it has reversed that decision. I wish our athletes the best of luck in Beijing over the coming days. Later today, I will be hosting a summit with countries from all over the globe to discuss how we can continue to use the power of sport to isolate Putin at home and abroad. We have to keep ratcheting up the pressure. Putin must fail.
In my Department, we have been working tirelessly to use the power of tech and the media against the Russian dictator and to shut down and counter his propaganda and lies, because they are key weapons in his arsenal. The Department’s counter-disinformation unit has been working to identify and remove Russian disinformation online. Alongside the US and others, we have been working closely with platforms to take pre-emptive action against Putin, and to demonstrate the consequences of his brutality in real time to the Russian people. Apple has paused all sales in Russia, Google has added new safeguarding features to Google Maps and Search, and WhatsApp is hosting a helpline for Ukraine’s state emergency service that sends people information and critical news about the local situation.
While big tech has stepped up in a really positive way, we are also encouraging and supporting platforms to go even further to tackle certain challenges, including disinformation, service disruptions and the humanitarian crisis triggered by the conflict.
In this digital age, the Ukrainian war is being fought on the ground and online, so we need to use tech wherever we can as a force for good to counter Putin’s aggression, to expose his weaknesses and to bolster the people fighting for their survival in Ukraine.
From the very moment that Putin began his invasion, I was very clear that he must not be allowed to exploit our open and free media to spread poisonous propaganda into British homes. RT’s own editor-in-chief has called the network an “information weapon” of the Russian state. That is why I wrote to Ofcom last week, urging it to examine any potential breaches of the broadcasting code. Ofcom has since opened 27 investigations into RT and is now reviewing whether to revoke RT’s licence entirely.
In the meantime, those investigations have been overtaken by events. I was very glad to see yesterday that the channel is now officially off the air on British televisions, after it was shut down on Sky, Freeview and Freesat. I have also written to Meta and TikTok asking them to do everything that they can to prevent access to RT in the UK, as they have done in Europe. I am glad that YouTube has already answered this call and done so.
We are on the side of free media. That is why it was brilliant to see that the audience for the BBC’s Russian language news website has gone up from 3.1 million to 10.7 million in the past week. Despite his best efforts to censor reporting in Russia, Putin’s own citizens are turning to factual, independent information in their millions.
At this point, I would like to offer my heartfelt thanks and admiration to all those journalists, working for the BBC, ITV and other news outlets, who are risking their lives to bring us unbiased and accurate news from a live war zone. We will keep ratcheting up the pressure on Putin, and I will use all the levers in my Department to ensure that he is fully ostracised from the international community.
Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement. I associate myself and the official Opposition with the comments that the Secretary of State has made about the courage of the Ukrainian people and those who are returning to fight for their country. I add my support to all the journalists who have travelled from the UK and around the world to report—free reporting, challenging Putin’s agenda and countering his disinformation. Those journalists are heroes and we owe them a great debt.
We are in agreement. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell), who cannot be here today, has long been calling on the Government and sporting and cultural bodies to take tough action against Russian aggression and Belarusian complicity.
Our thoughts today are with the Ukrainian people and armed forces. We see acts of heroism day after day and courage beyond words in the face of Putin’s illegal invasion. Only a few hours ago, Russian troops took control of the city of Kherson, a stepping stone to the port of Odesa, where Ukraine’s main naval port and navy reside. With each passing day, the situation continues to escalate. This situation requires the fullest and strongest possible international response.
Across this House, we all recognise the importance that Putin and Russia place on participating and succeeding in sporting and cultural events, from chess to ballet, to football. Indeed, in 2010, when Russia won its bid to host the 2018 World cup, Putin spoke enthusiastically about the impact that football had had on his native Leningrad during the second world war and how
“it helped people to stand tall and survive.”
Success in sport buoys a nation, boosts national pride, and offers an unrivalled feel-good factor, bringing people together. Indeed, sport can offer a cloak of legitimacy and deflection. Despots such as Putin crave this international attention and spotlight. We know the value that Putin places on hosting international tournaments and on Russia competing in international competitions. That is why we have been calling for full and immediate sporting and cultural sanctions against Russia and Belarus from the start, and for those countries to be banned from international competitions.
UEFA and Formula 1 moved quickly to cancel events in Russia. Others have now followed suit. Regrettably, though, some have dragged their feet, or are hedging their bets. International sporting and cultural bodies must hit Putin where it hurts and send a clear, immediate and unequivocal message to the Russian people that Putin has turned their country into a pariah state. We welcome this morning’s decision by the Paralympic committee to ban Russia from competing in the winter Paralympics. We should see no fudges, no ifs, no buts—outright bans must be the norm.
We fully support what the Secretary of State has announced today, but we have some questions. What further discussions is she having with sporting bodies on the complete and total boycott of Russia and Belarus? I understand that some, such as FINA, have said that Russian athletes and officials can take part, but with neutral status. She rightly raises tennis, but Russian and Belarusian players will still be able to play at upcoming grand slams, including Wimbledon, under a neutral flag—
Chris Elmore
I can see the Secretary of State shaking her head, so does she agree with me and the Opposition that we must do more to ensure a total ban from tennis tournaments, ensuring that no Russian or Belarusian will play at Wimbledon?
On culture, we have seen British institutions, many of them recovering from covid, left with no clear guidance regarding the cancellation of the Russian touring ballet, for example. It should not be for individual organisations, teams or nations to boycott Russia alone. What guidance will the Secretary of State provide to UK organisations and institutions to ensure that they speak with one voice, and what pressure will she place on international bodies that do not ban Russia and Belarus outright?
What is the Secretary of State doing about those who have bought their way into the fabric of British life, such as Abramovich and others, buying football clubs and gifting to arts and other valued institutions? What is the advice for arts and cultural institutions that have received and do receive gifts from oligarchs and those who prop up Putin’s regime? What about football and sport more widely? Will she act quickly on Abramovich and other oligarchs to ensure that they cannot profit from Putin’s war? Why are the Government allowing oligarchs such as Abramovich time and notice to sort out their affairs and divest any assets that would otherwise be subject to sanctions?
We stand ready to support the Government’s actions, but we want to see them go further and faster on international bans. We also want to see the Government take Russian money out of our world-renowned institutions such as the Premier League and our arts and cultural scene. We have seen sportwashing, culturewashing and artwashing of dirty Kremlin-linked Russian money. We need action to tackle that now.
Finally, on disinformation, we welcome Ofcom’s investigation into RT. Online disinformation and fake news is rife. Russian bot factories are spouting lies and trying to distort the truth of Putin’s atrocities in Ukraine. We welcome the Secretary of State’s announcements this morning, but I ask her to go further. The online safety Bill should include additional measures on tackling that disinformation before it is put to the House for Second Reading. Can she give that commitment today?
It is right that the international response to Putin’s aggression should be exclusion from sporting and cultural events. Words must become deeds, and Putin should feel the consequences of his actions.
Ms Dorries
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. He has raised some valid points, all of which are being addressed. He spoke about athletes competing under neutral flags, tennis players coming to Wimbledon and other sporting events. As I said in my statement, I am holding a summit this afternoon with in excess of 20 of my ministerial opposites in countries around the world, and I hope we can take a joint position on this matter. It is important that we take a global approach as far as possible, because that will have more impact and will be a sustainable position for the long term.
Some of these issues are very difficult, involving athletes who have trained all their lives to compete in certain events. As the Prime Minister said at the Dispatch Box on Wednesday, we are not anti the Russian people; we are anti-Putin and his regime. However, the actions of Putin have consequences, and at this afternoon’s summit I hope we will reach a position on many of the issues the hon. Gentleman has raised, and release a statement afterwards.
Sir Iain Duncan Smith (Chingford and Woodford Green) (Con)
I welcome my right hon. Friend to the Dispatch Box. In line with her brief, I point out that we now know today that US intelligence has made it clear that President Xi knew about the invasion before it took place—in fact, he had asked the Russians to delay their invasion so that it would not affect the Beijing Olympics. We also know that when the Russian 4G system was attacked, hacked and brought down, it was Huawei, based in Cambridge, that helped to repair the system for the Russians.
I hear that the Government are thinking about a trade deal with China and that they think that China can be an interlocutor with Russia. May I remind my right hon. Friend and the Government that a similar argument was advanced in 1940, whereby Mussolini was going to be the interlocutor with Hitler, and Churchill refused that? When will the lesson be learned?
Ms Dorries
I thank my right hon. Friend for his points. Obviously most of them are not in my brief and I cannot comment, but I am sure his comments have been heard. I cannot comment on his assertion that the invasion was held for the Beijing Olympics, because I do not know that is the case. As I said in my answer to the hon. Member for Ogmore (Chris Elmore), we are holding an international summit this afternoon with world leaders —20-plus, I hope, by the time we get to this afternoon—to reach a position, and we will release a statement after that.
Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)
I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of her statement.
Last night people throughout Ukraine were once again subjected to vicious aerial bombardment from Russian forces, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has now confirmed that over 1 million people have fled Ukraine, with countless more displaced within the country. I urge the Government again to reconsider their position, as often we are not remembered for what we have done but for what we have not done, and so far every country in the EU has opened its borders and we are still arguing over that.
This morning, Putin’s propaganda machine was in full force, with schoolchildren throughout Russia to be given a virtual lesson on
“why the liberation mission in Ukraine is a necessity”.
Regrettably, this Government’s inaction has allowed the Russian state-owned Sputnik and Russia Today to spread Putin’s lies into every home across our islands. It is of course welcome that RT is now officially off-air on British televisions after it was shut down on Sky, Freeview and Freesat. However, this is not an action of the UK Government; it is because of sanctions imposed by the EU. I have asked twice this week already and got pithy replies as to why we would not do that. Why did we have to wait for the EU to take action before Putin’s propaganda outlets were taken off TV here? Why are the UK Government waiting for the EU’s sanctions to do their job for them?
Russian state misinformation has undermined western societies’ democracy and security for almost a decade now. The Secretary of State says that we are in the eighth day of Ukraine’s fight for survival. That is not true; it has been eight long years, and we have stood aside and allowed this misinformation on our television stations and our radio channels every single day during that time. Two years on from the Russia report, no action has yet been taken on misinformation and Russian state influence in the UK. Does the Secretary of State not agree that failure to act on Russian misinformation and influence over the past years has left the UK less able to respond to Putin’s aggression now? It is clear that more needs to be done to counter its effect throughout society and it must be done now, so what steps is she taking to crack down on Russian state misinformation online?
Ms Dorries
I do not think the hon. Gentleman actually listened to my statement. We have been very strong in leadership right from day one—from the day Putin launched his illegal action. It is not the case that all roads lead back to Brexit, particularly in war. We, as politicians, are not able to control the free press in the UK, and that is a good thing, and all the organisations and companies that operate the infrastructure and the network that streams Russia Today are based in the EU. Therefore, the EU was able to use its sanctions quite rightly to close down that network of companies and the satellite used, which was over Luxembourg. It is not the case that Russia Today is streamed into British homes. As a result of concerted effort and discussions, Russia Today is no longer streamed into British homes, whether via TV, Sky, Freesat or Freeview. As I said in the statement, we have contacted Meta and TikTok to implore them to stop streaming Russia Today via their online platforms. It is my position that we will not stop until we have persuaded every organisation, based in the UK or not, that it is wrong to stream Russian propaganda into British homes.
Mr David Jones (Clwyd West) (Con)
Yesterday, the General Assembly of the United Nations voted overwhelmingly to condemn Russia for its aggression and to call for it to withdraw its forces from Ukraine. It is now clearly apparent that internationally, Russia is a pariah. Vladimir Putin operates on the basis of the dissemination of lies, so it is excellent news, as my right hon. Friend has said, that as a matter of practice, it is now impossible for British viewers to watch the lies being broadcast by Russia Today. While it is right that Ofcom should be independent, can my right hon. Friend convey to Ofcom what I perceive to be the feeling of this House—that it would be deplored were Russia Today ever to be seen on British screens again?
Ms Dorries
I absolutely agree with my right hon. Friend. He may have seen that I published the letter that I wrote to Ofcom shortly after I wrote it last week. It has launched 27 live investigations into Russia Today. I hope that it expedites those investigations, and that they result in the removal of Russia Today’s licence so that it is never again able to have the platform to broadcast its propaganda into the UK.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I warmly commend the Secretary of State for the statement that she made earlier and on the tears that she was pouring out over journalists such as Clive Myrie, who are doing a fabulous job. I hope she will not be cross with me now—she likes being cross with me—but some of us are anxious about why we are not going further on the sanctioning of individuals. It is a mystery to me why Roman Abramovich has not yet been sanctioned. The Government know that he has been engaged in illicit activity and is a person of concern to the Government, which is why they have not been encouraging him to come to the UK. I do not know why Alisher Usmanov has not yet been sanctioned. He has been sanctioned by the EU, but not by us. He owns Sutton Place. I do not know why we have not seized that asset. I do not know why the UK has not yet seized a single yacht, flat or property of any kind while other countries in Europe are able to do that. Finally, I wonder whether the Minister will condemn John Terry today. I do not know whether she has seen this, but he has posted today a photo of himself with Roman Abramovich, who is one of Putin’s cronies. What will the people of Ukraine think of the former England football captain?
Ms Dorries
I thank my friend the hon. Gentleman for his warm words. I think I just held the tears back—I am a blubberer, as he knows—and I commend him. For Members who have not been on these Benches for many years, he is not a Johnny-come-lately to this issue; he has been campaigning on these issues for many years, including on Magnitsky, and he is a good friend of Bill Browder. He has been raising the issue of Russia for as long as I have been here, which is a very long time. I thank him. It is no surprise to me that he is like a dog with a bone on this, because it has always been one of his passionate interests, and MPs are always at their best and most effective when they campaign in their moment, and his time is here, on this.
I heard everything that the hon. Gentleman said. I heard what he said in business questions. I have heard everything he has said since this happened last Thursday, and I have been watching him carefully—that may disconcert him. Obviously I cannot name individuals in the way that he can, but I know that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is working on sanctioning. He knows that sanctions are its responsibility and that it is working on those sanctions. I also know that he knows about issues around the National Crime Agency and others, and we all know that this is the mother of Parliaments. We are a legislator, and we abide by the principle of law. He knows that, too, and I know he will find that frustrating.
In football, however, I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we have tolerated the investment of Russian kleptocrats for far too long. Yesterday’s announcement showed that we have reached a turning point. We need to ensure that football clubs remain viable—that is an important point. I will bring forward our response to the fan-led review as soon as I can, as well as an independent regulator and a fit and proper person test for owners. The fan-led review was led by my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) and it could not have come at a more opportune time. I see that as a turning point and there can be no arguments against bringing it forward.
I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman said. He knows that I am limited in what I can do in my Department. I cannot mention names. I hope that we will see the Foreign Office come forward with the sanctions that he is looking for.
Mr John Baron (Basildon and Billericay) (Con)
I, too, commend my right hon. Friend for her statement. Truth will out. Millions of Russians and Ukrainians are turning to the BBC for their news. May I suggest to her that in the battle for democracy in Ukraine and more globally, we will have to better resource our hard and soft power capabilities. Given what she has said from the Dispatch Box, does she accept that we need to spend more on some of the key components of our soft power capabilities, including the BBC World Service and the British Council, on a sustainable basis, not just a one-off basis? There is no shortage of state-on-state aggressors waiting in the wings.
Ms Dorries
I hear my hon. Friend’s points. The situation in which we find ourselves in the Department is that we are re-evaluating many policies that have been long standing for many years, not having ever believed that we would be in the situation we are in today. I have heard what he said and I can only reassure him that we are having a number of discussions on a number of fronts.
Dame Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)
I join the Secretary of State in praising our BBC and the other free independent British journalists who have been proudly providing the finest objective independent journalism and putting their lives at risk, as she noted. That is in direct contrast to the squalid work of Putin’s misinformation organ, Russia Today. I note what she said about the Government not closing down free speech, but my constituents are asking why, in these exceptional circumstances, we could not stop Russia Today being on our TV sets straightaway rather than waiting for the EU to act.
Ms Dorries
Because the infrastructure, the individual companies, the satellite that streamed Russia Today and the framework in which it operated were all sat in the EU, not the UK. The British television screens were in the UK, but the companies that operated Russia Today were in the EU.
As the right hon. Lady will know, the first thing that I tried to do, almost immediately, was to stop Russia Today streaming into UK homes. I was slightly frustrated by the fact that, of course, politicians have absolutely no influence over the free press, and nor should they. That is the responsibility of the regulator Ofcom, so the first thing I did was write to Ofcom and urge it to review the output of Russia Today. It announced that it was launching 17 investigations, which then increased to 27 investigations, but I was equally frustrated to discover that that would take some time.
In the meantime, events took over. The EU provided its own sanctions on those organisations based in the EU and on the satellite above Luxembourg. It ceased the transmission and shortly after that, transmission to Freesat, Freeview and Sky ceased. As I have said, apart from Meta and TikTok, people cannot see Russia Today on their television screens. It was purely due to the fact that those were EU-based companies, not UK-based companies.
Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
I really welcome the statement made by my right hon. Friend. I do hope we hear that UNESCO is withdrawing its conference in Russia, because that is totally inappropriate. If it needs a home, I am sure we could host the conference in Belper in Mid Derbyshire. Can my right hon. Friend confirm whether her Department is planning future cultural and sporting sanctions against this evil Kremlin regime?
Ms Dorries
We do not want to look as though we are being opportunistic in saying we could hold the conference in the UK, but I am sure many Members will have suggestions about their constituencies.
I want to make my position clear: no Russian or Belarusian athletes or sportspeople should be taking part in any sporting competitions. That is why, as I have said, I am meeting, I hope, 20-plus Ministers—my opposite numbers—this afternoon to reach a joint position with other nations, so that we can move forward on a platform of understanding that we all have the same opinion and the same approach, which will make it much easier to deal with such situations as they arise throughout this difficult period.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I want to praise the Secretary of State for what she said about our broadcast journalists, and I would perhaps add Channel 4 News and Sky News to the list she gave. I do hope she takes that into account when considering the future of Channel 4. I also want to praise what she said about my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). However, I do recall attending—and history should recall this—the best ever attended all-party parliamentary group meeting in this House when hundreds of her colleagues were mobilised to depose my hon. Friend as the chair of the all-party group on Russia because of his strong views on Vladimir Putin.
Leaving that aside, on the issue of Everton football club, Alisher Usmanov has been sanctioned by the EU for being a pro-Kremlin oligarch with particularly close ties to the Russian President, Vladimir Putin. Does the Secretary of State think it is acceptable that his assets are currently funding Everton football club?
Ms Dorries
On the hon. Member’s first point, I do not think that my colleagues hit the APPG—
Ms Dorries
Could I just finish the sentence? I do not think that my colleagues hit the APPG because of the views of the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on Putin; they did so because they wanted a different chair—and I was not one of them.
I cannot comment on the football club that the hon. Member has mentioned. As he may know, my grandfather was one of the founders of that particular football club. As I have said, we are waiting for the Foreign Office and the sanctions that the Foreign Office is working on. We have reached a turning point in football club ownership in this country, which is why I will use every power I have, in my office and the Department, to ensure that we bring forward a fit and proper person test for football club owners and that we bring forward an independent regulator as soon as possible both to regulate football clubs and to ensure that they have the right ownership in place. It is important that we also protect the viability of those football clubs that are in question at the moment to make sure they remain football clubs and are still there.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
I commend my right hon. Friend for her statement. She is absolutely right that culture is an important front in this war, as sport and the arts are part of any country’s DNA. Russia is spreading lies and disinformation through the media, so will she do all she can to ensure that media platforms counter Russian disinformation and provide the opportunity for brave independent journalists to spread their work both here and around the world?
Ms Dorries
I absolutely agree. My point is that the work of all our journalists—all British journalists—is of vital importance at this time. The work of an independent and free media—free from political interference—is of the utmost importance. We are seeing that now with journalists across all of our media outlets, including Channel 4. ITV has been doing an amazing job, as have Sky and the BBC—I cannot mention them all—and we have freelance journalists out in many countries as well. They are doing an amazing job.
The Russian Government are conducting an aggressive set of information operations against Ukraine and NATO in a transparent and shameful way to justify military action against Ukraine, and the campaign has been escalating. As I have said, this is just as much an online war as a boots-on-the-ground or a tank-stuck-in-the-mud war. Both in broadcasting and online we are doing everything we possibly can, using our disinformation unit, to minimise disinformation and the amount of propaganda that gets into people’s homes, and doing everything we can to ensure the Russian people get to hear about the true situation and what is actually happening in Ukraine.
Christine Jardine (Edinburgh West) (LD)
I also thank the Secretary of State for her comments, particularly on the journalists who are keeping us informed and ensuring the truth about what is happening in Ukraine gets out; we should never forget the threat to their own personal safety and the danger they are putting themselves in so that we can be informed. Can the Secretary of State assure us that such considerations will be taken into account when looking at the future funding of the BBC, Channel 4 and the media, particularly given that the Russian language service listenership has tripled to more than 10 million during this crisis? That shows the importance of the BBC World Service, which in its current format came into being in 1939. Can the Secretary of State assure us that the future funding of the World Service will be looked upon in the light of what has happened?
Ms Dorries
I speak as someone who ran a school in Africa for a year and waited every day to hear the words announcing the World Service. First, it is funded through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, not my Department, and also I have always said that the BBC is a great British global brand and it needs protecting. I have always said it was a polar bear on a shrinking icecap and we needed to review the funding model in order to protect the BBC and the best of the BBC, which includes the World Service.
Anna Firth (Southend West) (Con)
On behalf of everyone in the new city of Southend-on-Sea, I welcome the statement and congratulate the Secretary of State on this vital work. She is absolutely right that we must isolate Russia completely and utterly in terms of culture, media and sport, but she is also right that we must lead the international community on this and we will only be successful if we can persuade everybody to join in with her vital work. Can she elaborate on the scope of the summit she is holding this afternoon, and assure us that key players in the G20 will be joining her in this vital work?
Ms Dorries
I welcome my hon. Friend and thank her for her question and comments—and I welcome Southend to its city status, too. On the scope of the summit, we will be discussing all things sporting and relating to the war in Ukraine. There are some very difficult questions. Things are happening very quickly. Only yesterday the International Paralympic Committee issued a statement that Russian and Belarusian athletes could take part, and the change came only as a result of our leading—our pressure—and leading other nations. Rather than dealing with situations as they arise, it is important that we have a coherent position—globally if possible—towards these situations. I hope that, as a result of the summit, we will produce a statement that says, “This is our position” and that it condemns Russia and Belarus on the sporting stage. Do not be in any doubt: sport is incredibly important to Putin. It covers his illegitimacy. There is nothing he likes more than seeing Russian athletes on the world stage draped in the Russian flag. He needs it; we need to take it away from him and make sure that never happens again while this situation continues, and that is what the summit this afternoon will be about.
Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)
I join the voices urging the Secretary of State to look very seriously at how we finance the total UK media effort, which should cut across Government Departments. In particular, I want to return to the point she rightly made about the important role of our incredibly brave journalists. Underlying those incredibly brave journalists are some incredibly brave Ukrainians, people who are frightened to death and who have put up with the most atrocious circumstances of death, destruction, and violence. Will she ensure that those are the voices that are heard across Russia? In the end, they are far more important than British voices. Ukrainian voices speak very, very loudly.
Ms Dorries
I thank the hon. Gentleman for that comment, because we have not mentioned Ukrainian voices in providing information about what is happening in Ukraine via their own journalism and their own creative and inventive means of getting information out. He is also right to talk about our own journalists who are risking their lives in live war zones. We should, and we do, commend Ukrainians. Each one is a citizen journalist in their own right, doing their bit to bring to the world the horrors of what is happening in Ukraine today. They should be equally commended.
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
I commend my right hon. Friend for all the work she is doing to isolate Russia, and Putin in particular, at this time. I am sure she will join me in welcoming the decision by Formula 1, which I think has been made while she has been in the Chamber, to not only cancel the grand prix in Russia but the contract with Russia, so there will not be future grands prix in Russia. Will she send a strong message to the sporting world that sanctions will continue to ratchet up until such time as Putin’s Government are no longer in power, and the Russians are free to choose their own leaders and return to the world of sport?
Ms Dorries
Very well said. I commend my Sports Minister, the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston), who has been holding conversations day and night since last Thursday. He has been working incredibly hard, along with officials in my Department. They have had no time off since last Thursday and have all worked equally hard. It has taken a huge effort to get to Formula 1 withdrawing from Russia, when all that planning, organisation and money was in place. It takes a huge effort to get the message out from the Department that we find it unacceptable, do not condone it and think it should be withdrawn. It is not just words from me; it is the effort of the whole Department, officials and Ministers alike.
My hon. Friend the Member for Harrow East (Bob Blackman) is right. We will not condone any organisation that hosts sporting, cultural or creative events in Russia. We will campaign against that and push against that as much as we can. The purpose of this afternoon’s summit is to ensure that we are not just leading but are part of a wider coalition of Ministers and countries who hold the same position.
Karin Smyth (Bristol South) (Lab)
It is right that we concentrate on sanctions and ostracising the Putin regime, but we will have to look to the future. As people leave their elderly relatives, and children wave goodbye to their parents, generations and decades of hate are being sown. After the last world war, we learned to build up relationships between cities and towns, and Bristol has often led the way in twinning, cultural partnerships and relationships. May I urge the Secretary of State and her colleagues to quickly start thinking about how we can support our towns and cities across the country to build relationships with towns and cities across Ukraine—and, in future, the Russian people?
Ms Dorries
We know about those stories of people leaving their families, the harrowing pictures of fathers leaving their babies behind and mothers leaving for Poland while fathers fight, through our print media, so it is important to mention our print media. As well as our journalists broadcasting from a war zone, our print media and print journalists are telling the stories, giving us the colour, backdrop and human stories behind what is happening. That is how we know so much. Those stories from our print journalists are also disseminated online so that people can read about what is happening. It is important that they get a mention.
The hon. Member is right, but she is talking about the future and, as she will accept, Ukraine is not in a position for that today. However, that will be an important part of the rebuilding, and we will be at the forefront of that. She is right about helping those towns and cities to rebuild, but when will that day come? As I stand here today, we do not know. We can only pray and hope that it is sooner rather than later. However, I reassure her that when that day comes, as we have led in the western world’s response against Putin, we will also lead in the recovery of Ukraine.
Virginia Crosbie (Ynys Môn) (Con)
I thank the Secretary of State for her statement and work in ensuring that Putin is in a sporting and cultural Siberia of his own making. Not all heroes wear capes; many wear flak jackets. I thank all the journalists bringing unbiased news, bravely challenging disinformation and helping to make Putin an international pariah. She mentioned stories, and it is particularly pertinent on World Book Day to thank all those journalists sharing important stories. Does she agree that they are heroes?
Ms Dorries
What can I say other than yes? Absolutely. We are all watching every broadcast of the news and we are all reading the newspapers. We all know the danger that journalists in both broadcast and print media are putting themselves in every day. We in the House of Commons are protected; they are in a theatre of war, putting themselves in harm’s way. We cannot commend them enough in this House today.
John Cryer (Leyton and Wanstead) (Lab)
The Secretary of State is acutely aware, as we all are, just how spineless and pathetic football authorities are when faced with people with large amounts of money. In fact, the Football Association’s only fit and proper person test is one question: “How big is your wallet?” If they have enough money, they can buy up whatever they like. The answer to that is already in her hands: the Crouch report, which she mentioned, and it has been with us for months. We had an urgent question on Derby County and the troubles it faces weeks ago, long before the Russian invasion. Will she implement the Crouch report as quickly as possible? That would protect our clubs—the fabric of our sport—against not just Putin’s gangster friends but other international criminals.
Ms Dorries
I thank the hon. Member for his words on the Crouch report, which is incredibly valuable and opportune at this time. Its recommendations involve the establishment of a regulator, which is no easy feat and involves the Treasury and funding. Since the report was published in, I believe, December, my first statement was that, in principle, I accepted the role of an independent regulator. Given the situation that we are in now, we are looking to introduce the Crouch report as soon as possible, which will involve the establishment of an independent regulator and a fit-and-proper-person test. That work is being evaluated. I hope to do it as soon as possible. It is not that we do not want to do it; we are trying to do it as fast as we can.
Mark Logan (Bolton North East) (Con)
Not that I ever watched it, but 206 was the channel number for Russia Today in my office in Westminster—obviously, it is no longer “Russia tomorrow”. Will the Secretary of State give us words of resolve to say that Putin may be Russia today, but he will not be Ukraine tomorrow?
Ms Dorries
What a fabulous statement—well said. What can I say? I can only agree. I cannot top that.
Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)
We are all completely indebted to our British journalists in Ukraine who are serving not just us but the Russian people who are tuning in to hear the truth—often for the first time—about what is happening. For that to continue, we need to ensure that the digital and telecoms infrastructure is intact. What is the Secretary of State doing to ensure that we make our contribution to keeping that infrastructure in place?
Ms Dorries
My officials have been holding conversations day and night—many operators are based in the US, not the UK—since Putin launched his horrendous war on Ukraine. We are doing everything that we can to assist both with telecoms structure and with ensuring that the messaging gets through to the people in Russia as people in Ukraine about what Putin is actually doing. As I said, as a result of some of those conversations, WhatsApp has launched an end-to-end encryption service that the Ukrainian people can access to find out what is happening in their location on a minute-by-minute, real- time basis and where they can get emergency support and help. All such services happen as a result of international discussions that are ongoing on an hour-by-hour basis.
Felicity Buchan (Kensington) (Con)
The Science Museum in my constituency has decided not to proceed with an exhibition relating to the trans-Siberian railway. Does my right hon. Friend agree that our cultural institutions have shown great leadership in ostracising Putin and his cronies?
Ms Dorries
I absolutely do. I commend every institution that has taken what some feel is a brave line, but it is the right line and the right position: not to engage with, not to display, not to interact with and not to provide facilities for any Russian cultural institution or exhibition. With all consequences come costs, and we will feel the pain of some of that, but that is nothing compared with the pain that the Ukrainian people are experiencing minute by minute. I urge all cultural organisations across the UK to take that hard line against Russia, knowing that, in doing so, that will help to expediate the end of this illegal occupation of Ukraine and get to a position where we can open those cultural pathways and start to help to build a Ukraine for the future.
Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (Ind)
Russia’s attack on Ukraine is unacceptable and must not be tolerated. The House has heard frequently about the financial difficulties facing the entertainment industry in the last two years. The Russian state ballet has had performances cancelled around the UK, with ticket holders to be refunded by venues. What support will the Government provide for venues that are now out of pocket due to cancelled performances?
Ms Dorries
Hopefully, those organisations’ insurance policies will kick in as a result, because this is war. At the moment, all of our efforts are focused on helping the people of Ukraine and helping to beat Putin.
Scott Benton (Blackpool South) (Con)
I commend my right hon. Friend for the way in which she has worked with cultural and sporting bodies to ostracise Russia. The premier league is one of this country’s best cultural and economic exports around the world. Does she agree that ending the broadcasting of premier league games in Russia and Belarus will help to expose the horrific extent of this barbaric invasion to the people of those countries?
Ms Dorries
Yes, I absolutely agree. That is our leadership—don’t do it, don’t promote Russia, don’t broadcast Russia. Sadly, local Russians will suffer and pay the cost as a result, but I am afraid that Putin’s actions have consequences. We are holding conversations this afternoon—we have ongoing conversations—with officials and sporting organisations to take that hard line of not broadcasting, not facilitating and not displaying Russian football, Russian goods and Russian shows—anything. We must not do it.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
I commend the Secretary of State for her statement, her resilience, her courage and her clear and strong leadership, which we all admire in this Chamber. Some say that politics and sport should never mix, but this is not about politics; it is about life and death. Every way we can, in every aspect of life, we must get the message across that we will not overlook, we will not forget and we will not accept Russia—that is the only way forward. Does she believe that in the present situation, as this House is saying clearly, the art world must consider its exhibitions? Will she allow it to make its own determinations whether those should continue, or will she issue guidance on what should and must be done?
Ms Dorries
The hon. Gentleman is right that sport and politics should never mix, but we are in the theatre of war and it is very different. Sport is a very useful tool in the theatre of war, particularly against someone like Putin—which is why sport and politics will very much be mixing. We are providing, we hope, the clearest leadership we can in our messages to sporting, cultural and creative institutions about what we expect of them.
Will we publish guidance? I hope that over the coming days and weeks, all those institutions will hear the message, heed the guidance that we are giving and make the right decisions themselves. A statement will be issued this afternoon as a result of the summit, and I am sure that more will be forthcoming over the coming weeks, but we hope that everyone gets the message loud and clear.
Andy Carter (Warrington South) (Con)
I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s statement. I very much agree with her approach of allowing the independent regulator to make decisions about who broadcasts in this country, because they are not decisions for politicians. However, may I say gently that next time she speaks to the chair of Ofcom, she might want to suggest that when a mad dictator declares war on a sovereign country, Ofcom could perhaps be a little more proactive in its approach to broadcasting in this country?
May I ask what steps the Department is taking to support UK media broadcasters and print journalists in the theatre of war to ensure that they are kept safe? It is highly likely that Russia will take steps to disrupt the World Service. What is my right hon. Friend doing to ensure that that free service is available to people in Ukraine and Russia?
Ms Dorries
I am sure that the chair of Ofcom has heard my hon. Friend’s words loud and clear. On his second question, we cannot make any guarantees—it is a theatre of war. We cannot guarantee that the Russians will allow the BBC and British-based journalists in Russia to remain there; we cannot guarantee that we will be allowed to continue to broadcast; we cannot guarantee that we will continue to get messages to the people of Ukraine. The only promise I can make to the House is that we will do our very best to ensure that that is the situation for as long as possible.
Culture in England: Levelling Up
Nadine Dorries Excerpts(2 years, 9 months ago)
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The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Ms Nadine Dorries)
The “Levelling Up” White Paper outlined the Government’s intention to tackle cultural disparities and ensure that everyone, wherever they live, has the opportunity to enjoy the incredible benefits of culture in their lives. I am therefore pleased to announce a series of measures which will transform the landscape for arts and culture, to ensure that it benefits everyone. These measures build on a range of funding provided by the Government to support culture, including the unprecedented culture recovery fund—the largest investment in the arts in this country’s history—and are as follows:
Increased funding for Arts Council England to support Levelling Up
The “Levelling Up” White Paper explained that additional funding announced at spending review 2021 for Arts Council England will be invested in creativity and culture. This extra funding will be invested in levelling up areas over the next three years, including via the Arts Council’s 2023-26 national portfolio funding round. The national portfolio is a group of organisations that gets regular funding from taxpayers via the Arts Council.
Levelling Up for Culture Places
DCMS and Arts Council England have identified over 100 Levelling Up for Culture Places, based on areas of historically low cultural engagement and spending. Where possible, Arts Council England will prioritise its increased spending in these places over the spending review period, April 2022 to March 2025. This will ensure that more people and places have access to cultural and creative opportunities. A list of these places will be published on Arts Council England’s website.
Increasing support for Levelling Up
The organisations which receive the greatest level of public subsidy, all of which are nationally and internationally renowned, will be expected to increase the total proportion of their combined impact in Levelling Up for Culture Places by 15% by March 2026.
Support for expansion outside London
Arts Council England will detail plans to support London-based applicants which wish to move, expand, or establish new activity outside London. For some organisations, this will be an opportunity to establish themselves in some of the many other brilliantly creative parts of the country. It is right that organisations which constitute the national portfolio help to deliver a truly national cultural offering.
We want arts and culture to be open and accessible to everybody. Cultural funding comes from taxpayers across the country, so people across the country should all have the opportunity to enjoy it—whether as artists, audiences, educators, or the new generations of talented people who will help to sustain and extend the creative brilliance for which our country is rightly renowned. The measures we are announcing today will help to make that happen.
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