BBC Funding

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

That vital role of the BBC moving forward is one of the issues that we have to ensure we protect, along with the British content that we make, as I have said. The fact is that the BBC is a global beacon around the world and people in other countries depend upon it, as hon. Members have mentioned. Maintaining the BBC is something we have to protect, but how it is to be funded is the question. That is what the discussion will be about.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

I am British and proud of it, and I am proud of the BBC. It reaches 468 million people in 42 languages around the world every week. It is the envy of the world. Cutting funding to the BBC and the World Service already leaves the path clear for Russian and Chinese influence in those countries. Does the Secretary of State agree that only an unpatriotic party would cut the real-terms funding of that national treasure?

[Ms Dorries]

Unpatriotic? I do not think it was this side of the House that was laughing about the prospect of the national anthem being played on television; I think it was that side of the House. I disagree—I am not unpatriotic; I am very patriotic.

Oral Answers to Questions

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Thursday 4th February 2021 Commons Chamber

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

What steps he is taking to support touring (a) musicians and (b) crew in Europe.

[The Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Oliver Dowden)]

The UK’s creative industries are the finest in the world, and this Government are, of course, determined to support them. I deeply regret that the EU rejected our proposals, which would have enabled performers, artists and support staff to work freely across Europe. In recent weeks, I have discussed our approach with leading voices from music, including the head of Universal Music globally and, yesterday, Sir Elton John and his manager, David Furnish. We are working urgently to develop a plan to make it easier to tour across all of Europe.

--- Later in debate ---

[Oliver Dowden]

First, I would like to reassure touring musicians and all those in the creative industry. I know how important the opportunity to tour is for them; it is something I discussed just yesterday with Elton John, and I have discussed it with many others. It is a vital part of them building their careers. That is why we have set up the working group with musicians, so that we can find ways of supporting them to continue to tour not just in Europe but across the whole world. There are huge opportunities for the industry.

[Fleur Anderson [V]]

I am glad to hear that you are still working with the EU bureaucrats—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am definitely not doing that. The hon. Lady is accusing me by saying “you”.

[Fleur Anderson]

Sorry. I am glad to hear that the Secretary of State is working with the EU on this. Music is worth £5.8 billion to the UK economy, and I have been surprised at how many Putney residents and businesses rely on touring. I am glad to hear that the Secretary of State is working on a future plan. Will that plan be across the EU, not requiring red tape for each individual country, which will be a huge barrier? What is the Government’s plan to ensure that creative workers do not miss out on vital earning opportunities and a chance to represent Britain on the global stage?

[Oliver Dowden]

I share the hon. Lady’s passion for the creative industries. That is why we have put the support in, including in her own constituency. For example, the World Heart Beat Music Academy has received over £100,000, and the Exodus track and the Deptford Northern Soul Club have received over £50,000. On what we are doing to promote touring, there are basically three threads to it: first, we are working with the industry to help it overcome barriers. Secondly, we are working across Government to overcome barriers; and, thirdly, we continue to engage both with the Commission and member states to see what further support we can provide.

UK Musicians: EU Visa Arrangements

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend is a great champion for her local area and will be taking the concerns of her constituents incredibly seriously, as indeed do we. We understand that we need to work with all the music sector trade bodies to make sure that we give people access to the information they need as to the situations in all the individual nation states; they are all different, which is one of the most confusing things about this. We also need to make sure that we work with those individual nations as closely as we can, to ensure that any barriers that are in place are made as simple and easy to navigate as possible.

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab) [V]]

In Putney, creative artists and support staff have already been damaged by the uncertainty around Brexit, on top of the covid effects that mean they are not able to tour. This failure of negotiations on a creative industry 90-day visa is letting down industry and the arts. Is the Minister really just going to sit back with her door open, or will she re-enter negotiations and be prepared for some give and take with individual countries to get that tailored deal that the creative industries really need?

Online Harms

Fleur Anderson Excerpts

Wednesday 7th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Fleur Anderson (Putney) (Lab)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I congratulate and thank my hon. Friend the Member for Halifax (Holly Lynch) for securing this important and, I hope, influential debate.

Online harms are one of the biggest worries and harms faced by parents across my constituency and across the country. As a parent, I am very worried about what is happening in the safety of my own home, which I cannot control. Speaking to other parents, I know that is a shared concern. In our own homes, children can have free and unfettered access to pornography and to people inciting young people to violent hate and extremist views. Women can be threatened to share intimate images, which can cause long-lasting damage. Our online world must be a safe and positive place for us all to explore, including our children, but at present it is not. Providers are not taking action. Parents just cannot keep up. Self-regulation is definitely not cutting it and online harm in our society is spiralling out of control.

The 2015 Conservative manifesto pledged that

“we will stop children’s exposure to harmful sexualised content online, by requiring age verification for access to all sites containing pornographic material.”

Well, it is time to come good on that commitment. If the Government had acted sooner, large numbers of children would not have been harmed by avoidable online experiences during lockdown. The consequences of ongoing inaction are severe and widespread. Our children can never unsee images they have stumbled across in all innocence in their own home. There are more children online for more time with more anxiety, yet there is less regulation, less action taken by providers and more sex offenders online.

I want to highlight three key issues. The first is pornography. According to the NSPCC, in the first three months of this year, more than 100 sex crimes against children were recorded every day. Lockdown led to a spike in online child abuse, meaning that that is much higher. The second issue is youth violence. The Mayor of London and deputy mayor for policing and crime have been vocal about the role of the internet in spreading violent messages and the incitement to commit serious youth violence. That is around us every day. The third issue is threats around sharing intimate images. One in 14 adults and one in seven young women have experienced threats about sharing intimate images. As a mother of two daughters, I am really concerned about that, and I know that parents across the country share that concern.

Although the sharing of intimate images was made a crime in 2015, threatening to share them can be just as damaging, but it is not illegal in England and Wales, although it is in Scotland. The threats are used to control, damage and affect mental health, and one in 10 survivors said that the threats had made them feel suicidal. There is also a substantial body of evidence suggesting that exposure to pornography is harmful to children and young people and can have a damaging impact on young people’s views of sex or relationships, leading to a belief that women are sex objects. There are links between sexually coercive behaviour and higher rates of sexual harassment and forced sex. We simply cannot let this situation go unregulated any longer, so I have some questions for the Minister.

When will the first reading of the online harms Bill be? Is there urgency to tackle online harms? Will the Minister commit to introducing legislation to outlaw threats to share intimate images as part of the Domestic Abuse Bill? Can she introduce a statutory instrument to redesignate the regulator as the British Board of Film Classification? That could be done very quickly and would enable age verification of pornographic websites. Will the online harms Bill contain strong and robust action, with a framework of comprehensive regulations and an adaptable new regulator that can adapt to the issues that will come up in future that we do not even know about yet?

It is time for tough action. We have really strict limits against hate speech and pornography in other areas of life, but just where most children are most of the time is where the Government are failing in their duty of care.

[Sir Edward Leigh (in the Chair)]

We now come to the summing-up speeches. I call Gavin Newlands.