Deregulation Bill

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Tom Brake]

I want briefly to outline why the Government have introduced amendments in lieu of Lords amendment 38.

A television licence is required to watch all live or nearly live broadcast television content on any device in the UK. People should not seek to evade this and there needs to be an effective enforcement regime for the failure to have a TV licence.

Clause 76 imposes a duty on the Secretary of State to ensure that a review of the TV licensing enforcement regime is carried out. This review will identify whether the current enforcement regime is appropriate and proportionate, and will ensure that there is a strong, evidence-based case for any changes to the TV licence enforcement regime. This matters a great deal to many people.

The Government are very clear that the review of the licensing enforcement regime is a high priority. The decision was taken to commence this review in advance of Royal Assent, while retaining the clause that commits the Government to carry out the review to ensure that this important piece of work is completed. The review is being led, independently, by David Perry QC. The findings of the review, which will complete by the end of June 2015, will be laid in both Houses of Parliament and be presented to the BBC Trust.

The proposed further amendment requires the Secretary of State within three months of the review reporting to set out whether the Government intend to decriminalise or not, and commits the Government to indicate clearly the timetable they plan to follow upon the completion of the Perry review. Our overriding aim is to ensure that the system is appropriate, proportionate and fair, and represents the best value.

This amendment places a firm commitment on the Government of the day to promptly and properly consider the report and set out their response and the timetable of steps to be taken, within three months of the report’s completion. Clause 77 confers a new power on the Secretary of State, via secondary legislation, to change the sanctions that apply to the failure to have a TV licence. We have always maintained that the report’s findings, and potential next steps, should be considered in the context of charter review. This position has not changed.

The BBC’s current charter expires on 31 December 2016. The Government will not begin charter review until after the election and there is no set process for how the review of the charter should be conducted, or when. It will be for the Government of the day to take forward any further actions as they see fit.

We must not make presumptions about the recommendations that Mr Perry will make, nor about how the Government will decide to take them forward, particularly as the public consultation element of this work is ongoing. Clearly, any changes will require serious consideration in the broader context of the charter review process, and it will be for the next Government to ensure that the right enforcement regime for licence fee payers, the courts and indeed the BBC itself is in place.

Our amendment ensures that the next Government will be ready and able to implement whatever recommendations David Perry, QC wishes to make, when the Secretary of State’s regulation-making power commences in April 2017. There was significant cross-party support for the TV licensing clauses during our earlier consideration of this Bill in this House. The firm commitments set out by the Government at that time must be honoured, particularly given that strong, cross-party support. Our amendments ensure that David Perry’s review will be promptly considered by the Government of the day, and that any potential changes are introduced to a clear timetable, leading up to 1 April 2017. For all the reasons I have outlined, I ask hon. Members to disagree with the Lords amendment and support our amendments in lieu.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Anybody would think, from the way the Minister just presented his case, that this has been a smooth path and everything the Government intended from the very beginning. But there was only an amendment relating to the licence fee at all because of a Government Back-Bencher, the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen)—who may be able to catch your eye a little later, Madam Deputy Speaker—and we have a change only because in the Lords the Government’s position was overturned by three votes. I am, of course, proud that we now have a far more sensible set of propositions before us. I admit that the Liberal Democrat heart that is still beating within the Minister is probably on our side in this argument, but he might at least have shown that that heart still beats, rather than just deliver what his paymasters in the Conservative party have told him to deliver.

The truth is that Labour Members support the BBC licence fee for the foreseeable future, not out of ideological passion but simply because it has worked and because the vast majority of people in this country support it. Everybody comes up with other ideas; every Select Committee that has ever examined this issue has set out this, that and the other idea for us to consider, but at the end has said that the least worst option is the licence fee. Broadly speaking, that is what the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport decided in its report a couple of weeks ago.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

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[Chris Bryant]

Of course. I cannot think of anyone to whom I would want to give way more.

[Mark Field]

The lack of any other options on the Government Benches may have something to do with that. I hope that the hon. Gentleman does not mistake the broad support on the Government Benches for a different and less stringent sanctions regime for support for the TV licence. I very much support the idea of a TV licence, but we need somehow to rein back what has been allowed to happen with TV licence sanctions. That is what drives most of the support for this amendment.

[Chris Bryant]

I did not give way to the hon. Gentleman faute de mieux. He is right in what he says, and some Opposition Members are as passionate in their support for the licence fee as he is, as I am or as Tony Hall is but want a change to the rules on how the licence fee is administered and the penalties for those who do not pay. My noble Friend Baroness Corston put forward a cogent and moving argument, to which one would have to be hard-hearted not to listen, on the criminalisation aspects of the current situation. Our point, which won substantially in the House of Lords, was that we have a system that broadly works, and if we want to change it, it would be better to change it in the round, rather than simply changing the licence fee. Let me explain why.

The licence fee is not just about funding the BBC’s programming, although it is true that it provides £3.7 billion of investment in the arts, broadcasting and British culture through the BBC, which it is difficult to see how any other model would deliver to the same degree. In addition, it provides for a degree of competition for quality, as well as for audiences, with the other broadcasters. Thus, ITV wants to make high-quality drama and does so; many of the dramas people often associate with the BBC are actually made by ITV. Likewise, Channel 4 has a special role to play because of the original remit it was given to be edgy, alternative and sometimes naughty. It can perform that public service broadcasting role within the whole ecosystem only if the BBC licence fee also exists and if Channel 4 remains in public hands. I am sure that the Minister would agree with me on that one about Channel 4, even if some Conservative Members might not.

The Opposition believe that it is important that there is the licence fee, and that it is a massive investment in production and drama, not just the kind of long-form dramas that exist in American commercial broadcasting and are often very lucrative, but the short-form dramas, such as “The Casual Vacancy”, which has been on the BBC over the past few weeks. It was only three episodes long and it would be very difficult to make in any environment other than one where there is some form of subsidy. In news, current affairs, comedy and so many different areas, the BBC would not be able to perform the same function without the licence fee.

Labour Members have been critical of the difficult time the BBC has had. Of course it always has to strive to make its resources stretch further, but since 2010 it has had not only a tough financial settlement but top-slicing, with a significant amount of money—some hundreds of millions of pounds—going off to fund the roll-out of broadband around the country. In addition, S4C is, in the main, being paid for not by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport but out of the licence fee, and the World Service is being paid for not by the Foreign Office, but out of the licence fee.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I see that the hon. Gentleman is pregnant.

[Andrew Bridgen]

If the BBC has had such a tough financial settlement and it can no longer go on with a freeze on the licence fee, can the hon. Gentleman explain why the number of managers—not staff, but managers—who work for the BBC and are paid more than the Prime Minister has increased by 10% in the past 12 months?

[Chris Bryant]

Those are precisely the kinds of points the BBC has to address. It has to make sure that more and more of its money is spent on programming rather than on administration. That is why I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on one element of his campaign. He has argued forcefully that the collection system for the licence fee costs some £100 million a year and he has asked whether there is a better way of doing that. That is a perfectly legitimate question to ask.

Of course there are those—I see the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) has just entered the Chamber at precisely the right moment—who would dismantle the licence fee. He is the only member of the Select Committee who voted to get rid of the licence fee completely. Some people would want to change it, and that is a perfectly legitimate argument to have. My concern about how the Government behaved on this issue is that the version they sent through to the House of Lords meant that the Government could have instituted the decriminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee without consideration of that issue within the whole package of other issues relating to the BBC and charter renewal. In effect, that would have left the door open to dismantling the licence fee without even intending to do so. I am certain that, as right hon. and hon. Members said in the House of Lords, if the Government were to proceed too swiftly, we would simply see a significant fall in licence fee take-up almost immediately. We could be talking about something in the region of £200 million or £250 million, which is more than the cost of all children’s broadcasting.

We need to think carefully about the timing of how we proceed, which is why Labour supported in the House of Lords the amendment that the Government are objecting to today, but not really objecting to. They are doing an adroit about-turn, for which we are deeply grateful. I wish to praise my colleagues in the House of Lords, particularly Lord Stevenson of Balmacara and Baroness Hayter of Kentish Town, who made sure that the amendment was carried, with a lot of cross-Bench support and a significant amount of Liberal Democrat support.

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[Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)]

rose—

[Chris Bryant]

I was on my very last sentence. Normally, hon. Members are clamouring for me to stop, but I see that the hon. and learned Member is clamouring for me to continue.

[Sir Oliver Heald]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that in principle it is wrong for somebody to be sent to prison for not paying the licence fee?

[Chris Bryant]

I believe in the licence fee. I would like to see decriminalisation. If we can achieve decriminalisation of non-payment of the licence fee in a way that does not dismantle the rest of the licence fee, yes, I would agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman. However, in order to do that, one cannot simply send forward to Her Majesty legislation which suggests that the Government can introduce that decriminalisation in a few weeks’ time. We have to carry the amendment as tabled, substantially agreeing with the House of Lords, while pretending to disagree. I am grateful that the hon. and learned Gentleman passionately agrees with me. He still has a beating socialist heart and will support the licence fee, as we shall.

[Andrew Bridgen]

I start by expressing my deep disappointment that the amendment has been added to the Bill by the House of Lords, by a narrow majority of only three noble Members, in order to maintain the status quo and perpetuate criminalisation of non-payment of the TV licence for at least another two years—an eleventh-hour attempt to frustrate the clear will of this House and of the country.

It should be noted that five of the votes in favour in the other place came from the ex-BBC chairman, Lord Grade, in whose name the amendment stood; the ex-BBC “Play School” presenter, Baroness Benjamin; an ex-BBC governor, Baroness Deech; the ex-BBC “EastEnders” actor, Lord Cashman; and BBC producer Viscount Colville. They all spoke in the debate and voted in favour of the amendment.

[Chris Bryant]

In referring to all those Members, the hon. Gentleman might also point out their slightly wider career paths. For example, Lord Grade was head of ITV and spent most of his career in broadcasting in the commercial sector, so it is fascinating that the commercial sector and the public sector agree.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. I do not think it is fascinating; we are not here to debate Members of the other place. We are here to debate the Lords amendments so, Mr Bridgen, I require you to desist from reminding us what happened in the other place, because we can read it, and to direct your comments to the amendments before us.