King’s Speech

Debate between Viscount Camrose and Lord McInnes of Kilwinning

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord McInnes of Kilwinning]

That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty as follows:

“Most Gracious Sovereign—We, Your Majesty’s most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament assembled, beg leave to thank Your Majesty for the most gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament”.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (Viscount Camrose) (Con)]

My Lords, on behalf of your Lordships’ House, I thank His Majesty the King for delivering the gracious Speech. I am grateful for the privilege of opening today’s debate on the Motion for this humble Address.

The bold, ambitious legislative agenda the Government have set out for the year ahead is testament to the fact that we are taking the right long-term decisions for a brighter future. That is because this Government recognise that, right across all the sectors we are debating today, the United Kingdom has an exceptional story to tell.

Last year we became one of only three countries in the world to boast a tech sector worth more than $1 trillion. We are a nation of scientific endeavour, home to the Jodrell Bank observatory, to the Francis Crick Institute and to pioneering businesses such as Google DeepMind, whose AlphaFold program has used AI to predict the shapes of 200 million proteins—the fundamental building blocks of human biology.

Through our Frontier AI Taskforce—soon to be our new AI safety institute—we are investing more than any other country in the safe development and deployment of this transformative technology. Indeed, earlier this month our leadership on AI was on full display as we hosted the first ever global summit on AI safety and agreed the historic Bletchley declaration.

Beyond science and technology, we all know that Britain today is a cultural powerhouse too, with a film and television industry worth more than £12 billion to our economy producing iconic, award-winning shows. In virtually every part of the globe, people can tune into the inimitable BBC World Service, which reaches an audience of more than 400 million.

But, for our many strengths, we know that there is no room for complacency. In all these sectors we want the UK to become one of the most competitive, pro-business and pro-innovation economies in the world, and in the proposed legislation we have set out in His Majesty’s most gracious Speech, we are making that vision a reality.

Through our Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill, we are delivering on our manifesto commitment to end consumer rip-offs while creating a host of growth-spurring incentives for British business. To that end, it will grant new powers to the Competition and Markets Authority to drive innovation by preventing a handful of powerful tech companies using their influence to quash competition and harm consumers. It will hand people more rights over subscription contracts to give them more control over their spending, and it will make it harder for unscrupulous traders to trap people in subscription contracts they no longer want—a practice that currently cheats consumers out of £1.6 billion every year. New powers will also enable the CMA to take tough action against other bad business practices more quickly, without needing lengthy court action.

In all this we want to strengthen the rights of the consumer, recognising that better data protection is a win-win for both businesses and individuals. That is why our Data Protection and Digital Information Bill will let us take full advantage of our post-Brexit freedoms, unleashing innovation in every corner of the UK. It will help create a flexible, common-sense data protection regime, one that takes the best elements of GDPR while cutting red tape and saving British businesses £2.2 billion in increased productivity and compliance costs over 10 years. In the public sector those savings climb to £2.5 billion over 10 years, thanks to reforms to the use of data for law enforcement, national security and digital verification services.

We are reducing the bureaucracy that has been holding us back, while delivering real benefits for the British people. That includes both cracking down on nuisance calls and reducing the number of dreaded “accept/reject cookie” buttons that freeze web pages, sometimes long after they have loaded.

We are ensuring that the rules around data and internet access are fit for the digital age, and we want to do the same for public service broadcasting, because the truth is that many broadcasters are governed by rules written 20 years ago. Our laws ought to drive growth in our creative industries, not constrain it. That is why our new Media Bill is so important—to enable our public service broadcasters to compete, to nurture talent and skills and to drive growth across the UK. The Bill will ensure that audiences, both here and around the world, can more easily enjoy quality British content, supporting our creative industries to produce the next “Killing Eve”, “Top Gear” or “Line of Duty”. It will make sure that public service content is only a click away on connected devices such as set-top boxes, fire sticks and smart TVs, which are in roughly three-quarters of homes. It is right that UK audiences have access to the content they love, be that on commercial or public service broadcasters. Thanks to the reforms in our Media Bill, they will.

We are backing British radio stations through these changes too. They require major smart speaker platforms to ensure that the likes of Gold, Magic, Classic FM and all the stations that listeners love can be played on request. Crucially, the Media Bill complements the sweeping protections we have put in place for young people in the UK through the Online Safety Act. It will mean that on-demand content will be held to the same high standards as broadcast channels so that our children can be protected from harmful material.

At the same time, we recognise that freedom of the press and of our media is sacrosanct. Through this Bill we are fulfilling our manifesto pledge to repeal Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, which could have required publishers that are not members of an approved regulator to pay costs on legal claims brought against them, regardless of the outcome. This section could have had a negative effect on freedom of speech, undermining high-quality journalism and our newspapers, which play such a vital role in our political discourse and our wider democracy.

Finally, we are modernising the listed events regime to protect British viewers’ access to major sporting events, including the FIFA World Cup. Football is another area in which we have an exceptional story to tell, not least in the tremendous success of our Lionesses at the European Championships last year. In recent times, though, our national game has suffered. We have seen that in the collapse of Bury FC, the devastating impact of the pandemic on clubs and the botched plan for a breakaway European super league. This all underscores the need for an independent football regulator, one that addresses financial sustainability in our national game and ensures that fans’ voices are heard loud and clear. That is precisely what our football governance Bill will establish: a regulator with real teeth that will require a minimum standard of fan engagement. It will hand fans veto rights over changes to team names and badges, the things that are so often part of a club’s heritage. Fans will also be consulted should their local stadium ever be put up for sale. Through the new regulator, we will strengthen owners’ and directors’ tests to help prevent a repeat of what happened at Blackpool FC and Charlton Athletic, where fans had to fight to save their own club.

We also recognise that the current distribution of revenue in the top five divisions is far from sufficient. That, in turn, is causing financial headaches for some clubs, further destabilising the football pyramid. That is why the regulator will have targeted statutory powers to, as a last resort, ensure financial sustainability in this pyramid by redistributing broadcast revenue.

As noble Lords know, the vast majority of football clubs are pillars of their community and are well run, and for these the regulator will have less of a role. Instead, it will focus its efforts on ensuring financial stability in the top five tiers of the men’s English football pyramid, with a mandatory licensing system. Through the scheme, it will have powers to monitor and enforce compliance with requirements in financial regulation, club ownership and much more.

From Liverpool to Leeds, from Wrexham to Wolverhampton, our football clubs are the beating hearts of our communities, steeped in history and inextricably linked to our national heritage. Because of the reforms we are undertaking today, I am confident that they will continue to thrive tomorrow and for decades to come.

In the Bills I have outlined, we are fulfilling our commitment to unlock the UK’s full potential in science, technology, media and sport. We are giving every entrepreneur a fair shot at success, ensuring that corporate power is not unduly concentrated in the hands of a select few. We are backing the rights of consumers, giving them greater control over spending, while clamping down on businesses that engage in drip pricing. We are backing British television, British film and British broadcasters, flying the flag for our nation’s unrivalled creativity and talent.

I look forward to further debating these key Bills in His Majesty’s most gracious Speech and discussing our plans to change our country for the better, building a brighter future for every hard-working family.