Health and Care Bill

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Lords Hansard - Part 2 & Report stage
Monday 7th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)]

My Lords, I should declare that I am chairman of the Communications and Digital Select Committee. I support Amendment 151A and the others in the name of my noble friend Lord Black of Brentwood. I do so because this is a matter of fairness.

Following on from what the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, has just said, the broadcasters have accepted that a pre-watershed ban on junk food advertising is coming. They and I also understand that the online platforms face a complete ban. However, once again, the legacy or heritage media businesses are the only ones which will face serious financial penalties if they make a mistake and, for whatever reason, allow a non-compliant piece of advertising to slip through and appear on air. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister will emphasise that the difference between the online platforms and broadcasters is only therefore about regulatory burdens and sanctions, but that is the point, and it is why this is unfair.

Why should the media businesses which will be significantly disadvantaged commercially by the ad ban be the only ones fined if something goes wrong? Why should the media businesses which continue to lose ad revenue to online platforms stand by and watch as those same platforms—Google, Facebook, YouTube—are not yet subject to any statutory regulatory regime to prevent their unfair market dominance? How can it be right that they shrug their shoulders when it comes to liability for the ads they profit from? They profit from them to a much larger degree than the broadcasters profit from the ads they run.

When I spoke in Committee, the Minister said in reply that all this would be dealt with via the online advertising programme and that a consultation would start shortly. Any progress on that will be welcome, but there is a limit to how much consultation the media industry can take. What it needs is action, which means legislation to deal with these various digital market and competition issues that currently favour big online platforms and are detrimental to everyone else, including consumers. To fail to do that while prioritising legislation that hits the traditional broadcasters more harshly than online platforms is unfair.

As I have said, those of us who support the amendments in the name of my noble friend Lord Black do not want to delay the ban on junk food advertising, but in introducing it, we should make sure that liability for mistakes and failures to comply with regulations is fair. The Bill as it stands is not. I am very grateful to the Minister for the time she has given to hearing these arguments, but urge her to reconsider the merits of these amendments, especially bearing in mind that we are still a long way from new legislation that will finally level the playing field across the media sector. If my noble friend divides the House, I will vote with him.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I too am very pleased to support Amendment 151A and the following amendments. I also read the letter from the noble Lord, Lord Kamall, to Peers following the debate on this in Committee. He said that it was

“difficult for regulators to keep pace with advertising code breaches without the cooperation of platforms who hold significant data on the process, and host the services”.

That seems to me a recognition of their responsibility in the ad process. As the noble Lord, Lord Black, said, ads create the vast majority of the platforms’ revenue and so they are responsible for controlling their content.

I read a recent survey on the effect of online advertising on young people, which was carried out by the healthy living charity, Global Action Plan. It showed that the average teen sees on Instagram alone one ad every eight seconds. That is the equivalent of 444 ads per hour. The survey also revealed that Facebook’s ad manager directly targeted young people with risky and unhealthy advertising, including for fast food and alcohol. It was the platforms’ data and algorithms which directed these ads, and they need to be made responsible for any restrictions on HFSS advertising as quickly as possible. There are other, more insidious forms of online advertising, such as product placement in digital content, especially among influencers. All these should be made the responsibility of the platforms to control. I hope the amendments will do just that.

I was glad to hear that the Government are looking at the online advertising programme, but I, like many noble Lords, am concerned by the laggardly start. Can the Minister say when she thinks the consultation will conclude? I hope that will happen quickly, because every day, thousands of young people are going to be harmed by the delay. I also ask the Minister to guarantee that platform liability for hosting product placement and others sorts of insidious advertising will be in scope of the consultation.

[Baroness Barker (LD)]

My Lords, at this late hour, I simply want to express my support for the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and Amendments 154 and 155 in his name by making three simple points. First, we are learning all the time about the importance of nutrition and health. We are also understanding increasingly how poor nutrition can have a devastating effect on recovery and health inequality. It is therefore remarkable that in both hospitals and, more particularly, care homes we have no standards or training for the people involved in the preparation and delivery of food. That is a serious omission.

Therefore, it is time for us to move away from the traditional way in which care catering has developed, which is by scandal and omission, turning it round into a positive by developing new standards of training. We also need to try to get particularly teachers in colleges to get young people to understand that catering in care settings is far more complex then catering in restaurants. Within the NHS we have the opportunity to drive some world-beating standards on nutrition and care, and that is all that we are asking for by asking for this framework and these amendments.

Health and Care Bill

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Committee stage
Friday 4th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to follow the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, and pay tribute to the work he has done in this area. I shall speak to Amendment 257C, but I shall first make just one general comment on something to which he alluded, and which follows from the earlier remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott. We are working in a vacuum at the moment, and it would be extremely helpful if the Government could say when they will publish their food strategy, drawing on the excellent work done by Henry Dimbleby, who is the main adviser to the Government on this.

I support and have appended my name to Amendment 257C in the name of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hope of Craighead. He is unable to be here today, which he regrets greatly. The offending part of the Bill in this regard is on page 241, in proposed new Section 368Z18 on the guidance the Government intend to draw up from time to time. Subsection (2) states:

“The appropriate regulatory authority must consult the Secretary of State before drawing up or revising the guidance.”


Subsection (3) states:

“The appropriate regulatory authority must publish the guidance and any revised guidance in such manner as they consider appropriate for bringing it to the attention of the persons who, in their opinion, are likely to be affected by it.”


I draw the Committee’s attention to the Constitution Committee’s report on the Bill, and the following statement on Clause 144:

“This is a Henry VIII clause, enabling the Secretary of State to modify an Act of Parliament, an Act of the Scottish Parliament, a Measure or an Act of the Senedd Cymru, or Northern Ireland legislation. The Secretary of State is required to consult those he or she considers appropriate before making regulations via the affirmative resolution procedure.”


The Constitution Committee concludes:

“The House should consider amending Schedule 17 to require either the consultation of the relevant devolved administration or the consent of the relevant devolved legislature if the Secretary of State were to use this power to enact regulations modifying devolved legislation.”


I speak as a non-practising member of the Faculty of Advocates and must say that it is a source of concern to all of us who have an interest north of the border, west of the border in Wales or in Northern Ireland that, sadly, the Government are developing a history of not consulting the devolved Administrations where appropriate.

Regarding Amendment 257C, which is, in my view, a probing amendment, I put it to the Minister that the clause gives the Secretary of State the power to alter the legislation of devolved Administrations by regulations, as set out in the guidance to which I referred. The Committee will be aware that the Sewell convention does not apply to the exercise of delegated powers, so there is no obligation on the Government to seek consent. In its very helpful report on the Bill, the Constitution Committee suggests that, given the nature and extent of this power, consent should nevertheless be sought. There is nothing in the Bill to respect the spirit of the convention, not even a duty to consult. How do the Government square that with the respect they should give to the devolved Administrations, especially in view of my right honourable friend Minister Gove’s initiative on intergovernmental relations and the levelling-up agenda, to which the noble Lord, Lord Krebs, referred and which I, for one, support?

I conclude by asking my noble friend what precisely the Government intend to do, or what action they would be willing to take, to address this issue when the power in the guidance is being exercised.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a freelance television producer. I speak in support of Amendments 253ZA, 255A, 255B and 257B, which all attempt to give some parity in HFSS advertising restrictions between broadcasters and platforms. I apologise for having not been able to speak on Second Reading.

The noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has already spoken about the reduction in broadcasters’ advertising revenue as the platforms take an ever-increasing share of the market. The restriction in the Bill on television advertising further tilts the playing field in their favour. What concerns me is that this part of Schedule 17 is about the media which disseminate HFSS advertising taking responsibility for it, yet once again the platforms are allowed off scot free. My concern is the complete absence of tech companies’ responsibility for the content of ads appearing on their video-sharing platforms—mainly YouTube, but also Facebook video and Snapchat’s vertical video service. This is the media to which children are migrating. Enders Analysis estimates that by 2027, children will spend more than half their viewing time looking at content on these platforms—an average of 85 minutes per day per child. Clearly, this is where advertisers and brands are going to push HFSS products.

Yet, as noble Lords know, the digital space is the Wild West. Last year, the digital task force produced its excoriating report on the near-monopoly control of digital advertising by the big platforms. The report also mentioned the opacity of the programmatic interface, which allows advertisers to target products at specific users. Of course advertisers are themselves responsible for where they place their ads. This marketplace is the basis of the platforms’ wealth, but it is where they shirk any possibility for the content of ads. I am sure that, if platforms were made legally responsible for imposing restrictions on HFSS advertising, they would soon insert filters—or, better still, humans—into the process, much in the same way as we are seeing them do in content mediation.

Coronavirus Bill

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Committee stage & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard) & Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 25th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, my right honourable friend Ed Davey prompted an important statement from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury yesterday. In doing so, he acknowledged the way the Chancellor and the Treasury have given support to businesses and employees so far, but emphasised that this will remain incomplete and inadequate until we see proper measures for the 5 million self-employed across the country who are excluded from current financial support for businesses and employees.

That is the motive behind this amendment, which seeks to replicate the Government’s support scheme for those in employment, both in the 80% of gross monthly earnings and in reference to their average earnings over the past three years, with a cap of £2,500. As my old friend Munira Wilson said when introducing a similar amendment in the Commons,

“5 million self-employed and freelancers feel that they have been completely overlooked.”—[Official Report, Commons, 23/3/20; col. 145.]

They are under real stress as a result of the coronavirus crisis. Freelancers and the self-employed are deeply worried, and the rather confused messages coming out of government about when they should go to work do not help.

In his response to my right honourable friend Ed Davey’s Question, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Stephen Barclay, used the phrase “further help is coming”. But while we all understand that there are complications, the Government must move as fast as possible to meet these people’s concerns, because in many cases they are simply running out of money. As my right honourable friend said,

“80% of the 5 million self-employed are sole traders. They are our neighbours, our friends, our family. The vast majority are not wealthy people. They are cleaners, taxi drivers, plumbers, hairdressers; they are musicians, tutors, journalists; and they are builders, electricians and child minders.”—[Official Report, Commons, 24/3/20; col. 208.]

Most of the self-employed have very modest incomes and are not well off. The majority have taxable incomes of less than £10,000 a year, compared with just 15% of employees on incomes that low. Without help, they will not be able to pay their mortgages, rent and bills, and will face financial ruin.

As the Minister may know, I have a particularly strong connection with the creative sector. Freelance work and self-employment is the predominant pattern in the sector. For instance, 73% of those working in the music industry are freelance. A Creative Industries Federation survey last week revealed that 60% of creative freelancers estimate that their income will more than halve in 2020 due to the coronavirus outbreak and that almost 50% of freelancers who responded to the poll had already had 100% of their work cancelled. They, along with 50 creative bodies, Equity, the MU and the Writers’ Guild, have called for an emergency fund that gives a time-limited and carefully targeted cash grant to the self-employed workers and freelancers who need it most.

Other European countries have put in place similar schemes; Norway, for example, has guaranteed temporary income protection for 80% of average self-employed earnings from the past three years, with an annual cap of the equivalent of £45,000. So have France, Belgium and Denmark. An urgent package of help is needed now, which needs to be at least the equivalent of that which has been offered to employees. As I said yesterday in relation to journalists, but it applies across the board for the self-employed and freelancers, they may be forced to ignore government guidance to stay home and plough on with what work is available or face real hardship.

In closing, I was surprised, when I asked the Labour Front Bench to support and sign this amendment yesterday, to be told that it was not a priority in light of the time available for discussion on the Bill. I am glad that they have now changed their tune, especially given the helpful statements of the Mayor of London and John McDonnell yesterday. I urge the Government to be generous and conscious of the necessary urgency in their response. I beg to move.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I put my name to this amendment, because I too am about the need for economic support for the self-employed, freelancers and workers on zero-hour contracts. Yesterday, the noble Earl, Lord Courtown, told the House that compensation for these people must be part of a package that is comprehensive, co-ordinated and coherent. However, he was not prepared to put a timetable to that announcement.

As the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, just said, this amendment will give support straightaway to the 5 million self-employed workers, four-fifths of whom fall below the £2,500 a month threshold suggested in subsection (4)(b) of the proposed new clause, which is about the medium wage. It would be in line with the job retention package for employees announced last Friday.

However, I cannot emphasise enough that the scheme needs to be enacted very quickly. Failure to do so is threatening the lives of workers and those they serve. The great fear is that many self-employed workers have to decide between self-isolating and having no money coming into the house. That is particularly so in the care sector. I talked to a support worker on a zero-hours contract at a private residential home in Somerset run by a charitable trust. At best, she works two 15-hour night shifts a week for minimum wage. Together with her husband’s state pension, it is hardly enough to cover her rent and food bills as it is. Her husband is in bad health and vulnerable to the virus. Eventually, after some soul-searching, she decided that in the present crisis she could not threaten his health by continuing to go to work and has gone into self-isolation.

That support worker has done the right thing, even though she will now start running up debts that could take a long time to pay off. But this is a very real dilemma for many lowly paid self-employed people and workers on zero-hours contracts. There are real fears in the care industry that some workers who look after some of the most vulnerable people in this country will ignore any symptoms of the virus and continue going to work because they cannot afford not to. As a country, we cannot take that risk. I urge the Minister to accept the amendment. If he is not prepared to do so, at least will he tell the House when the Chancellor will come forward with a package of help for the self-employed, freelancers and workers on zero-hours contracts? Time is of the essence.

[Lord Adonis]

My Lords, the proposals that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has put forward commend themselves to the House. Essentially, he proposes that the Danish system be introduced here. The Resolution Foundation published a paper this morning that applies considerable expertise and global knowledge to this issue and proposes something similar.

I slightly regretted that the noble Lord made party-political points towards the end, because I do not believe that there is any party-political difference on this at all. We are all looking to the Government—indeed, many Conservatives take the same view. I hope that we can address all these things as a House together and not make party points on them.

However, my concern about this amendment is exactly the same as on the previous one. What we are talking about here is one of the most important decisions that the Government will take in dealing with this crisis. The noble Viscount was completely right about the social impact; 5 million gig workers in the economy, all of whom are self-employed but have been dependent on income from services that have been reasonably predictable in their provision, face their livelihoods being decimated at the moment. Unless provisions of this kind are put in place, they will face serious hardship. Unless a Statement is made today by the Chancellor, Parliament will not have the slightest impact on what is proposed, because we will have no opportunity to question Ministers about it—neither the Chancellor in the other place or Ministers in this place—and we will not get to give any views on this issue again until, I understand, 21 April.

That is not satisfactory. These issues are costing billions of pounds to the taxpayer and will have a huge social impact, but Parliament will be entirely irrelevant to the discussion and the announcement of those proposals. I therefore hope that the noble Earl can give us some indication of how Parliament will be involved in both the announcement and the assessment of the package in respect of the self-employed when it is made. It is not satisfactory that we will play no part in this for another month.

Broadcasting: Digital Radio

Viscount Colville of Culross Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Viscount Colville of Culross]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they will provide a timetable for the switchover of digital radio.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble (Con)]

My Lords, the Government support a digital future for radio, but we are clear that listeners’ needs are at the heart of the transitional process. We set three benchmarks: listening via digital should be at 50%; national digital coverage should be comparable with FM; and local digital coverage should reach 90% of the population. Once these criteria have been reached, the Government will be in a position to take decisions on a potential future switchover and its timing.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his Answer. I declare an interest as a producer working at the BBC.

A few years ago, a clear timetable was set out for the switchover to digital television. It was very successful. Surely the same should be done for radio. It gives consumers certainty that they will need to engage with digital radio when buying new radio sets, and it gives the industry clarity. Does the Minister agree that without a government lead on this matter, a switchover will never take place, denying millions of listeners the opportunity to listen to a huge range of radio stations in much better quality?

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, it is clearly important that a positive momentum is maintained. Indeed, the Digital Radio Action Plan has been working extremely effectively over the past three years. In addition, on 16 December last year, the Government announced a package of measures on coverage, content and cars to support the next phase of the development of digital radio and provide consumers with greater choice.