Media Bill

Debate between Viscount Colville of Culross and Baroness Berridge

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, first, I need to apologise to noble Lords that I was not present at Second Reading. I am grateful to a number of local radio stations, and especially to Rob Persani of Rutland radio, which is where the Vale of Catmose is, for bringing to my attention the issue in Amendment 72. I am also grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, and the noble Lord, Lord Foster, who have put their names to the amendment. I also want to thank my noble friend the Minister for the meeting yesterday with the Secretary of State and the MP for Rutland and Melton, Alicia Kearns.

I support Amendments 71 and 73 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey. The purpose of Amendment 72, however, is to ensure that Ofcom issues licences where there is no digital coverage. I accept that the wording of the amendment would need redrafting on Report to more clearly define the test needed where there are areas of no coverage. Applying for licences needs to be in the system outlined in Amendments 71 and 73. Ofcom does not need to run expensive competitions any more for FM licences, and it is not surprising that no new FM licences have been issued since 2009 if it has to run such a competition. As has been outlined, if you have a DAB licence, your FM licence is now automatically renewed. That simple process of renewal online with the payment of a fee could apply to new licences, rather than the expensive competition process that we had previously.

Commercial radio stations used to come in all shapes and sizes, so it is sad to learn, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, outlined, of the demise of local radio. “Much in little” is Rutland’s motto, and there are about 41,000 people living there, plus tourists. Rutland radio is a great way to find out what is happening in the local area, especially as you drive around, but it has areas where digital has no reach.

The vision of Ofcom for the digital switchover for local radio is called small-scale DAB—smaller areas where it issues what are called polygon licences. I assume for the purpose of Amendment 72 that, as with the internet, His Majesty’s Government’s policy is that everyone should have radio access. Looking at SS-DAB and FM, even if small-scale DAB was the answer technically, it is not small scale enough to work economically.

Instead of the one frequency that you need for an FM station—at a cost, I am informed, of around £15,000 plus your annual fee to Ofcom—under a polygon licence a station such as Banbury radio, as the noble Lord just mentioned, would have to buy three such licences for that small-scale area delineated by Ofcom, at triple the cost. The local economy of advertising, which is what supports those local FM radio stations, just cannot sustain that; the areas envisaged by small-scale DAB are just too big.

I am grateful that the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, will cover the more technical issues relating to small-scale DAB, but, as I have outlined, it does not reach everywhere. In a place such as Rutland, it comes in and out when you drive between the villages and the two towns—yes, villages and two market towns is Rutland. Alicia Kearns MP recited to us yesterday how the digital signal goes out for lengthy periods when driving around. SS-DAB is fine for areas of greater population, but those areas do not need it. Apparently, there are pockets all around the country where you cannot get digital radio. No one is sure precisely where all those are, but it would be interesting to know from His Majesty’s Government whether they have looked at where the gaps are and what the internet coverage is in those areas. I suspect that there is quite a lot of correlation, but it is merely a suspicion.

Internet radio is also not the solution for those areas. Statistics from the UK Consumer Digital Index from Lloyds Bank show that 2.1 million people in the UK are offline, and 4.7 million people do not access the internet. Age UK did a survey of over-65s, and 2.7 million people, which is about 22% of that age group, are not accessing the internet. That could be due not to lack of coverage but to disability, cognition failure or vision problems. They will continue to rely on digital or FM radio.

It was rather prescient that, only yesterday, we raised with the Secretary of State that national resilience needs FM. In the national resilience strategy, it turns out that FM is the most resilient form of communication, so we will not be switching off FM in the near future. In the event of power outage or solar flares, it is the most resilient. Today, it just so happens that the Deputy Prime Minister is outlining the preparedness of household strategies to boost national resilience. The advice is to boost your analogue capabilities and buy a wind-up radio—but to receive what? FM, of course.

Why not allow those who want a new licence to broadcast on an FM frequency that will remain for the foreseeable future? All the commercial risk is on the operators. It will not cost His Majesty’s Government a penny. Also, the more people who continue using FM radios, the more resilient households are. They will know that their FM radio works and will not be scrambling around in the back of the wardrobe to dust it off in an emergency—but perhaps I am only the person who, on reading the national resilience strategy, is wondering where the batteries are for that torch that I bought, and where the candles are that I bought when the Deputy Prime Minister last talked to me about resilience.

Finally—and to give my second “it just so happens”—your Lordships’ House has just had a repeat of an Urgent Question from the other place on South West Water. In areas with no digital coverage and an emergency that is not a power outage, sometimes there is time to communicate with your population—for example, if there is flooding or a forest fire. But if you need to tell the public, “Stop drinking your tap water”, that is an immediate message. I hope that His Majesty’s Government are looking at how South West Water managed to communicate with all its customers in the local area. Sadly, as we renew only 0.1% of our mains water network each year, instead of the 1% average on the continent, I think that such incidents will be more frequent.

Many in your Lordships’ House will know of “Rutland Weekend Television” by Eric Idle, but the local coverage of Rutland radio and other local stations is not a comedy; it is essential. I hope that my noble friend the Minister will have some good news to tell your Lordships’ House on this amendment.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 72, to which I have put my name, and also to support Amendments 71, 73 and 74 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Storey. These amendments will do much to support local radio.

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, has already explained to us the regionalisation of local radio and the destruction it has caused. This has not been helped by cuts at the BBC, which are forcing many of its stations to regionalise as well. In the area in which I live, East Anglia, BBC Suffolk and BBC Norfolk broadcast the same content for much of the day. These stations are not local; they are regional, and in some cases national. They have fired local staff and closed local studios, and as brands move towards national broadcasting there are fewer regional centres.

Online Safety Bill

Debate between Viscount Colville of Culross and Baroness Berridge

Committee stage
Thursday 25th May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

I, too, thank my noble friend the Government Whip. I apologise too if I have spoken out of discourtesy in the Committee: I was not sure whose name was on which amendment, so I will continue.

Physically, I am, of course, working in my home. If that behaviour had happened in the office, it would be an offence, an assault: “intentional or reckless application of unlawful force to another person”. It will not be an offence in the metaverse and it is probably not harassment because it is not a course of conduct.

Although the basic definition of user-to-user content covers the metaverse, as does encountering, as has been mentioned in relation to content under Clause 207, which is broad enough to cover the haptic suits, the restriction to illegal content could be problematic, as the metaverse is a complex of live interactions that mimics real life and such behaviours, including criminal ones. Also, the avatar of an adult could sexually assault the avatar of a child in the metaverse, and with haptic technologies this would not be just a virtual experience. Potentially even more fundamentally than Amendment 125, the Bill is premised on the internet being a solely virtual environment when it comes to content that can harm. But what I am seeking to outline is that conduct can also harm.

I recognise that we cannot catch everything in this Bill at this moment. This research is literally hot off the press; it is only a few weeks old. At the very least, it highlights the need for future-proofing. I am aware that some of the issues I have highlighted about the fundamental difference between conduct and content refer to clauses noble Lords may already have debated. However, I believe that these points are significant. It is just happenstance that the research came out and is hot off the press. I would be grateful if the Minister would meet the Dawes Centre urgently to consider whether there are further changes the Government need to make to the Bill to ensure that it covers the harms I have outlined.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB)]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendments 195, 239 and 263. I also strongly support Amendment 125 in the name of my noble friend Lady Kidron.

During this Committee there have been many claims that a group of amendments is the most significant, but I believe that this group is the most significant. This debate comes after the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Science and Technology met the heads of leading AI research companies in Downing Street. The joint statement said:

“They discussed safety measures … to manage risks”


and called for

“international collaboration on AI safety and regulation”.

Surely this Bill is the obvious place to start responding to those concerns. If we do not future-proof this Bill against the changes in digital technology, which are ever increasing at an ever-faster rate, it will be obsolete even before it is implemented.

My greatest concern is the arrival of AI. The noble Baroness, Lady Harding, has reminded us of the warnings from the godfather of AI, Geoffrey Hinton. If he is not listened to, who on earth should we be listening to? I wholeheartedly support Amendment 125. Machine-generated content is present in so much of what we see on the internet, and its presence is increasing daily. It is the future, and it must be within scope of this Bill. I am appalled by the examples that the noble Baroness, Lady Harding, has brought before us.

In the Communications and Digital Committee inquiry on regulating the internet, we decided that horizon scanning was so important that we called for a digital authority to be created which would look for harms developing in the digital world, assess how serious a threat they posed to users and develop a regulated response. The Government did not take up these suggestions. Instead, Ofcom has been given the onerous task of enforcing the triple shield which under this Bill will protect users to different degrees into the future.

Amendment 195 in the name of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford will ensure that Ofcom has knowledge of how well the triple shield is working, which must be essential. Surveys of thousands of users undertaken by companies such as Kantar give an invaluable snapshot of what is concerning users now. These must be fed into research by Ofcom to ensure that future developments across the digital space are monitored, updated and brought to the attention of the Secretary of State and Parliament on a regular basis.

Amendment 195 will reveal trends in harms which might not be picked up by Ofcom under the present regime. It will look at the risk arising for individuals from the operation of Part 3 services. Clause 12 on user empowerment duties has a list of content and characteristics from which users can protect themselves. However, the characteristics for which or content with which users can be abused will change over time and these changes need to be researched, anticipated and implemented.

This Bill has proved in its long years of gestation that it takes time to change legislation, while changes on the internet take just minutes or are already here. The regime set up by these future-proofing amendments will at least go some way to protecting users from these fast-evolving harms. I stress to your Lordships’ Committee that this is very much precautionary work. It should be used to inform the Secretary of State of harms which are coming down the line. I do not think it will give power automatically to expand the scope of harms covered by the regime.

Amendment 239 inserts a new clause for an Ofcom future management of risks review. This will help feed into the Secretary of State review regime set out in Clause 159. Clause 159(3)(a) currently looks at ensuring that regulated services are operating using systems and process which, so far as relevant, are minimising the risk of harms to individuals. The wording appears to mean that the Secretary of State will be viewing all harms to individuals. I would be grateful if the Minister could explain to the Committee the scope of the harms set out in Clause 159(3)(a)(i). Are they meant to cover only the harms of illegality and harms to children, or are they part of a wider examination of the harms regime to see whether it needs to be contracted or expanded? I would welcome an explanation of the scope of the Secretary of State’s review.

The real aim of Amendment 263 is to ensure that the Secretary of State looks at research work carried out by Ofcom. I am not sure how politicians will come to any conclusions in the Clause 159 review unless they are required to look at all the research published by Ofcom on future risk. I would like the Minister to explain what research the Secretary of State would rely on for this review unless this amendment is accepted. I hope Amendment 263 will also encourage the Secretary of State to look at possible harms not only from content, but also from the means of delivering this content.

This aim was the whole point of Amendment 261, which has already been debated. However, it needs to be borne in mind when considering that harms come not just from content, but also from the machine technology which delivers it. Every day we read about new developments and threats posed by a fast-evolving internet. Today it is concerns about ChatGPT and the race for the most sophisticated artificial intelligence. The amendments in this group will provide much-needed reinforcement to ensure that the Online Safety Bill remains a beacon for continuing safety online.

Social Mobility

Debate between Viscount Colville of Culross and Baroness Berridge

Thursday 15th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

As noble Lords will be aware, I also hold the privilege of being the Minister for Women. Unfortunately, the link data that the LEO relies on does not contain women’s data at the moment, but we are aware of the increased caring responsibilities that women are taking on, particularly during the pandemic. Subject to consultation, there will be an employment Bill that will make flexible working the default option, unless there is good reason otherwise. There is also a proposal for a £1 billion childcare fund, so we are aware of the importance of that issue for women in the workplace.

[Viscount Colville of Culross (CB) [V]]

The commission’s report says that,

“a long-run shift to further homeworking would open up new opportunities that could spread … high-quality jobs more widely across the country”.

What are the Government doing to ensure that residents in deprived areas can easily access well-paid public sector jobs by working from home? That is particularly important in this time of Covid.

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that the noble Viscount is aware that, even before this current situation, the Government had a specific initiative in relation to their workforce in Whitehall to look at moving as much as possible of the government function outside London. Around half the Department for Education’s workforce is outside London, and we are major employers in places such as Darlington. In relation to opportunity areas, teaching is obviously not a work-from-home job, but this has been about attracting teachers to those opportunity areas, and in many of them it has been successful.