Digital Economy Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Calum Kerr and Graham P Jones

Committee Debate: 10th sitting: House of Commons
Thursday 27th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Graham Jones]

Absolutely. My hon. Friend makes the point perfectly. There is no need to add too much to that, other than to say that if we want to talk about the Government’s view of the BBC and this chipping away, which our new clause is designed to prevent, it is the outsourcing of programme making again to 100% programme making that will now be made out in the private sector and not in-house. Again, it is part of the package of making the BBC less viable, so that we arrive at a day when a tough decision might have to be made because the BBC as it exists now has been completely undermined. The policy is not to put it on a firmer footing. This £700 million is a huge part of that chipping away at the BBC.

[Calum Kerr]

In reality, the Government by all means could have had a financial settlement that reflects the same outcome, but the fact is they have passed the policy. Why pass the policy other than to abdicate responsibility?

[Graham Jones]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates what I was moving on to, which is that the policy is also about passing responsibility. The Government want to shape the decision and take the credit where there is an upside, and to dump it on the BBC where there is a downside. That is what this is about—so the BBC is left with it.

Suppose the Government wanted to offer further icing on the cake and have over-70s get the free TV licence. The Government would take the credit for that, but any difficult decisions, such as only over-80s getting the free licence and the 75-year-olds losing out, will of course be the BBC’s fault. We can see exactly what is happening and the duplicity of the argument. The Government are setting the BBC up with a dilemma: it will take the stick for any downsides, but for any upsides the Government will be up there on the podium, all backslapping each other, saying, “Great social policy!”

There is no escaping that, and I do not think that the general public are fooled—they can see. It would make perfect sense for the Minister to accept new clause 38, because the public see what the Government are doing with that shift of responsibility for the over-75s. The public will not be fooled by the shift; they can see precisely what Ministers are trying to achieve. The public, too, will be concerned and asking how it affects them, the ordinary person. Will the BBC, faced with further cuts, have to say, “Well, we’re sorry, it’s only over-80s who will get it”? Decisions and responsibilities are outsourced to the BBC, and the licence fee payer, in particular those coming up to that age, will be wondering, “Hang on, I’m going to get the worst of both worlds—either a Tory Government or the BBC cutting my licence fee.” I do not think that the public will be too happy. They will not not see through this—sorry about the double negative.

Digital Economy Bill (Eighth sitting)

Debate between Calum Kerr and Graham P Jones

Committee Debate: 8th sitting: House of Commons
Tuesday 25th October 2016 Public Bill Committees

[Calum Kerr]

I will keep to the subject with a bit of brevity and levity.

I support the Labour move to review this whole area to ensure that we have a set of listed events that is fit for purpose and, more importantly, to ensure that the protection will continue. Likewise, we fully support new clause 17 on prominence. The Committee has spent a lot of time talking about the changing digital landscape. There is no doubt that if we do not introduce measures to protect listings, the public service broadcasters will disappear, slide down the pecking order and be harder to find. We will then be on the slow road to an argument that says that public service broadcasting is not as popular as it once was, but the reality will be that it is just difficult to find.

I conclude by thanking the Labour party for beating me to it with both amendments, to which I should have added my name and which I fully endorse.

[Graham Jones]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship for the first time, Mr Streeter. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West encouraged me to talk about children’s programmes—I was thinking about “Play Away”—and I apologise for not being here earlier. I was observing a NATO training exercise as part of the armed forces parliamentary scheme.

I rise to talk about retransmission charges, and I will do so briefly because I am conscious of the time. We obviously have a listening Minister who is deeply concerned about these matters, and I hope he will go away and give due consideration to some of the points that have been raised, perhaps coming back with some thoughts of his own and some changes that could improve the Bill. On retransmission charges, repealing section 73 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988—the intellectual property rights element—is important and welcome. It will put Virgin on an equal footing with the public service broadcasters in the marketplace of buying and selling channels.

I will return to that second issue and the financial impact in a moment, but I will first highlight an anomaly. Unless there has been a change in the last few days, the Bill does not include satellite channels, which fall under the Communications Act 2003. The Sky platform is exempt from the Bill and will not be liable for retransmission charges, which seems to be a market anomaly—I stand to be corrected by the Minister. We should have a level playing field for everyone. Sky benefits significantly not only from the five public service broadcast channels but from some of the other channels—my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West has just mentioned S4C and Alba, among others—and the radio stations. Sky has a huge commercial advantage in not paying for receiving something that is very complementary to its platform. We are applying a principle to Virgin, and the Bill should treat Sky equally.

We demand a lot from public service broadcasters, particularly the BBC, for which we pay a licence fee, and it is only right that the BBC should be able to recover some of that money for the licence fee payer in the commercial marketplace, rather than the service being literally given away to some platform providers. There is obviously a commercial benefit to the Sky platform or, for that matter, any satellite platform that automatically has to deliver PSBs under the 2003 Act. There ought to be something that provides clarity and a level playing field, because without it, Sky has another advantage among the many it already has.