BBC Licence Fee

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

My right hon. Friend makes a fair point, and this is why we are having this consultation, to which he will no doubt contribute. Younger people, especially those I have spoken to in the past year, do not understand why they have to pay for a service that they do not use. It is only right that we look at whether criminalising people for non-payment of the TV licence fee is fair and proportionate.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I do not think the Minister really believes in the licence fee at all, but the truth of the matter is that nothing in life is free. “Gavin & Stacey” does not come for free, and neither do “Strictly Come Dancing”, “Sherlock” or any of the great dramas, comedies or wildlife documentaries on the BBC. None of that comes for free. It comes free to air because everybody pays in and everybody gets something in return. It is a fundamental part of the way we do things in this country. The problem is that if we pull at a snag in a jumper, we end up unravelling the whole thing, and my worry is that that is precisely what the Government intend.

[Nigel Adams]

I have an awful lot of respect for the hon. Gentleman, but he is missing the point of what this consultation is about. At the risk of repeating myself, it is about whether criminal sanctions for licence fee evasion are proportionate and fair. I am sure he will be contributing to the consultation, as well as in this House, and I am sure he will do so on many more occasions.

5G Network and Huawei

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 27th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Matt Warman]

The hon. Gentleman will of course know that I cannot pre-empt any decision that could be taken tomorrow.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Go on.

[Matt Warman]

I won’t, but am grateful for the invitation.

The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (John Nicolson) is also right to say that maintaining the security of this country’s data is one of the many important ways in which we preserve our national security. On his final and most important question, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that this is by no means the only company that Britain looks to for this sort of infrastructure. That is one of the reasons why we talk about high-risk vendors, rather than one individual company. Success in many ways over coming years looks like a more diverse, more competitive market supplying these things. We already use other companies in UK networks; we should continue to do so to a greater extent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Matt Warman]

As my right hon. Friend will know, a number of eminent former Government employees have spoken out on this issue in the past weeks and years. It is a hugely complex area, but he is, of course, right to imply that we should not put any one interest above our national security.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

We are talking about 5G, but a lot of my constituents would quite like to see some 4G—or, frankly, any G at all.

In China, we face a political party, running a country, that believes it is perfectly acceptable to mount regular cyber-attacks on the network of the House of Commons and on key infrastructure in the UK. It frequently decides to engage in state-sponsored industrial espionage. It is difficult to see that it is a fair and honest broker for us to do business with.

[Matt Warman]

I thought for a moment that the hon. Gentleman was going to welcome the shared rural network that we announced the other week, but he missed that opportunity. He is, of course, absolutely right that we have to put national security at the top of this agenda. That is what we will continue to do. Sometimes, we have to beware of some of the particular concerns around countries such as China.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 16th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[The Solicitor General]

I always welcome communication from the hon. Gentleman and, in fact, from any Member. The issue of manifestly excessive sentences is one for the defence in each case, and there are mechanisms by which, within a time limit, defence lawyers can appeal to the Court of Appeal against a sentence that they consider to be manifestly excessive. It is not a matter for the Law Officers; we deal with unduly lenient sentences.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Assaults on emergency workers continue to increase, particularly against ambulance workers and people working in the NHS and in the police. Surely that is a disgrace. I have yet to see a single sentence handed down in such cases that is not unduly lenient. One reason for that is that the Sentencing Council has still not introduced any guidelines in relation to assaults on emergency workers since the Assaults on Emergency Workers (Offences) Bill became an Act more than a year ago. Will the Solicitor General ring up the chaps or the women who run the Sentencing Council and ensure that we get proper sentences for people who attack our emergency workers?

Football Association and Bet365

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

I could not agree more.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Can I pull the Minister up on the point that he just made, when he said that a large proportion of the money from broadcasting rights is going into grassroots football? If only! It is a tiny amount of money. In other countries in Europe, much more significant amounts of money go into paying for local coaches, local facilities and ensuring that there is home-grown talent. Should not we be ensuring—notwithstanding today’s urgent question—that far more of this money goes directly to the small local clubs that are sustained by families, with mums, dads, grandpas and grandmas turning up every weekend?

[Nigel Adams]

I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman’s latter point, but I was referring to the broadcasting rights and the amount of money secured under the FA cup broadcasting deal, not the premier league broadcasting deal, which is an enormous amount of money.

Shared Rural Network

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank my right hon. and learned Friend very much. There appears to be a surfeit of former holders of my office on these Benches today, which is a sign of just how much time everyone in this job has had to invest in getting to this stage. He is right that it would not have mattered what we announced today, the Labour party would have found reason to disagree with it, which is unfair to the people they represent. He is absolutely right that we need to keep all the options on the table until that legally binding agreement is concluded, and that is what we will both be doing.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Well, I welcome what the right hon. Lady has had to say today, but the people I get very fed up with are those from mobile phone companies, because they will quite often say that a person in a village such as Porth has 100% coverage when, actually, nobody in Hannah Street can get any signal whatsoever. Recently, when there was an arson attack on the mast, which covered several different companies, EE did not even bother to tell all its local customers that coverage would be out for four weeks and it refused to give compensation. The mobile phone companies simply must do better.

[Nicky Morgan]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. Anybody would think that he was standing for election next week given how much he welcomed this announcement.

[Chris Bryant]

We might all be doing so.

[Nicky Morgan]

That is very true.

The hon. Gentleman makes a very fair point, which is that honesty about the coverage being offered is very important. There is nothing more frustrating for people than being told that they have coverage—or it even looking like they have coverage on their phone—but they still cannot make a call. I am concerned to hear how EE handled that particular attack. I hope that Members right across the House will always know that, if they have problems such as that, they should contact me, the Ministers involved, or the Department so that we can follow it up on their behalf.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 3rd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Some of us, however, will stand up for Parliament at all times. I completely respect the right of the Attorney General to his view. This Parliament is entirely legitimate. It is doing its work, it should be expected to do so and no amount of cheap abuse, calumny and vituperation directed at this Parliament will stop it doing its job. That is the way it is, that is the way it will continue to be, that is the way it has to be.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

May I ask about extradition? Obviously we in this country rely on being able to extradite people from other countries in Europe to face justice in this country. We have relied on the European arrest warrant but, as I understand it, four or five countries in the European Union have now stated categorically that, if there is no deal, they will not extradite to the UK. How will we make sure that we get people to face justice in this country?

[The Attorney General]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right; there are some countries that will not extradite their own citizens. In those cases it is a case of bilateral discussion with them. There is the existing Extradition Act 2003, but if they will not extradite citizens, there is of course the option of trying them in that country. That is generally the option that those countries offer in connection with their own citizens.

[Chris Bryant]

Russia.

[The Attorney General]

Exactly, and that presents considerable difficulty, as the hon. Gentleman points out. However, we will be having bilateral discussions with those countries to seek to agree specific arrangements with them.

TV Licences for Over-75s

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Wednesday 8th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Tom Watson]

It certainly is for this Minister, who happens to be answering today. But it is not as if she, or other Front Benchers, did not have notice, because during the passage of the Bill that enabled this my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) made that very point.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend said earlier that the BBC makes some of the best programming in the world, and we would all want to agree with that, but the difficulty is that if the BBC loses such a large chunk of its budget, it will be more difficult for it to do this in the future. We would lose our status in the world as one of the greatest broadcasting production houses in the world and other people, often American players, would be able to take up the British market. Is this not a gross dereliction of patriotic duty?

[Tom Watson]

I think it is, and my hon. Friend makes a good point. I would answer more fully, but I am already running over time.

Keeping TV licences free for all over-75s would require unprecedented cuts to the BBC’s spending on broadcasting and content. This is political cowardice: if the Government want to cut free TV licences for over-75s, they should say so—they should include it in the manifesto and let the public decide on the policy. If the Government want to cut the BBC’s budget by a fifth, they should say so—they should put it in the manifesto and let the public have their say at the ballot box.

The BBC has consulted on a range of options, from means testing, which would still see 3 million households lose out, to raising the qualifying age to 80, which would see 1.5 million households lose their free licence. The conclusions of that consultation are still outstanding, but one thing is clear: if these cuts go ahead in any of the suggested forms, the responsibility will lie firmly at the Government’s door. Passing the buck to the BBC was not a decision made in the national interest, as my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) has said, or for the benefit of older people; it was designed to give the Government political cover to cut a popular policy. This is austerity by stealth. The Conservative party made a commitment to the older people of this country, so now the Government should act and take both the policy and the financial responsibility for funding free TV licences for over-75s back in-house—the two should not be separated.

The BBC has been put in an impossible position by this Government, being asked either to make swingeing cuts to the programmes we all know and love or to take free TV away from older people. That is why when the National Pensioners Convention gathered to protest against scrapping the concession earlier this year, they did not convene outside Broadcasting House, but met outside the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Those protestors know the cost of losing free TV licences.

Age UK’s analysis shows that scrapping the concession completely could push more than 50,000 pensioners below the poverty line. For many, losing £154.50 from their pensions is a frightening prospect and it could mean being forced to choose between heating, eating or having a TV at home. This debate over free TV licences is an indicator of the Government’s broader policies for pensioners. For nine years, Tory austerity has saved money on the back of our most vulnerable citizens. By outsourcing responsibility for paying for TV licences, this Government will be cutting £745 million in 2021-22. That is in addition to the £220 million the Government will be saving in the same year through changes to pension credit. That is nearly a billion pounds of cuts the Government are making, coming directly out of the pockets of pensioners.

--- Later in debate ---

[Margot James]

The key point is that in November 2016, the House passed the Digital Economy Act, including the important element that passed responsibility for the concession to the BBC.

[Chris Bryant]

The truth of the matter is that by passing that responsibility on the Government have, if the BBC is to implement the Government’s pledge, taken a vast chunk out of the BBC’s budget. My constituents want to know whether the BBC could do something better with that money—for instance, by making sure that we have a proper digital service across the whole of the valleys of south Wales. Why is it right that after the Government have stopped meddling with it, the national broadcaster ends up with a budget that is a fifth of the size of Sky’s? How is that a national broadcaster?

[Margot James]

I take issue with the hon. Gentleman’s asking whether the BBC could find something better to do with the money. Opposition Members have been full of reasons why it would be desirable for the BBC to continue to honour—

UK Telecoms: Huawei

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

Those are legitimate concerns, and they are the reason why we have to consider companies that are closely connected with, or potentially influenced by, the Chinese state in a different category. As I have said, however, there is a practical problem, which is that if our objective were to exclude all Chinese equipment from these systems, we would find that exceptionally difficult to do. There is a balance to be struck. The purpose of this exercise is to ensure that we do not expose our systems and our citizens to risks that we can sensibly and prudently avoid. That is what the review is designed to do, and I believe that it will succeed.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

When the Foreign Affairs Committee was in Beijing recently, every single person whom we spoke to made it absolutely clear that the Chinese Communist party would stop at nothing to gain whatever economic or political advantage it could possibly achieve, whether through espionage, massive data gathering or the abuse of intellectual property rights. The people whom we met will be enormously sceptical about direct engagement with Huawei, a company that operates directly under Chinese law and is likely at any one moment suddenly to be seized by the Chinese state to perform its duties under that law rather than the law of this country.

[Jeremy Wright]

The hon. Gentleman is, of course, right about those concerns, which are legitimately held. Let me repeat, however—I know that he understands this—that we are not at a standing start. There is already considerable engagement with Huawei, not just in this country but around the world, and we seek to manage that process in the ways that he knows about. The long-term aspiration of broadening the market and diversifying suppliers is absolutely the right one, and I hope very much that the review will address those issues, too, but that in itself will not be a quick fix. We will seek to do it, but it will take some time to broaden the market beyond what are now essentially three suppliers in this space and three only.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the question. He knows that I am acutely conscious of his desire to have the maximum transparency upon the legal advice I give to the Government. He also knows that I am bound by a long-standing convention relating to Law Officers’ advice to disclose neither the fact nor the content of it. Within those constraints, I consider constantly to what extent I can make available to the House all the information it needs to take the important decisions that theses times require.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Whatever happens with regard to trade, the economy and so on, one of the most important elements in ensuring that we can still secure justice in this country is maintaining some form of extradition with other European Union countries. What will we do if the European arrest warrant is not available to us?

[The Attorney General]

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Government are committed to a close and special relationship with the EU in relation to security. The question of our participation in a system relating to European arrest warrants will be close to our hearts in the negotiations that are to follow. But if we were not able to avail ourselves of what it is in the interests of both sides to agree, of course we would fall back on the 1957 extradition legislation and its provisions, and the preparations are at an advanced stage, in conjunction with the possibility that still exists of there being no deal between us.

Online Harms White Paper

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 8th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Well, I hope the hon. Gentleman feels that his elasticity has been suitably rewarded.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

One of the problems is anonymity, because people seem to feel able to write on social media things that they would never think of saying to another person or that they would never write if their name was revealed. Yet I have known instances, for my constituents and for myself personally, when it has taken months and months for the police to be able to get the identity of individuals from the internet companies, even when serious violence has been threatened. When are these companies going to do something about the anonymity, make sure that state actors from elsewhere, such as Russia and China, stop interfering in our political processes in this country, and clean up their act?

[Jeremy Wright]

On anonymity, as the hon. Gentleman has heard me say and as he recognises, there are powers available; the issue is how quickly they can be used. When we come to consider a duty of care, it seems to me and my colleagues that one of the advantages of the duty of care approach is that it should bring about a change of attitude across a whole range of activities among the online companies. It will no longer be sufficient for online companies to say, “Well, we’ve met this rule or that rule.” Instead, they must demonstrate to a regulator that they are doing all they reasonably can to keep their users safe, and that includes being safe from some of the activities the hon. Gentleman has in mind. I do not promise that any of this will be a magic bullet or that things will be transformed overnight, but I do think that the approach we are setting out will start to change the culture of these companies and start to make them think about how they meet their responsibilities more effectively.