Media Bill

Gary Streeter Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 30th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his intervention, but I am speaking about amendment 2, which we will support for the reasons that the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth set out.

I want to see publishers protected from defamation cases brought by Russian oligarchs and other wealthy individuals or corporations looking to evade scrutiny in the public interest. The Government have promised to do more to protect people from SLAPPs, but they have yet to come forward with concrete proposals. We would like to see those measures brought forward, as they are needed to secure our free press. We also look forward to seeing the private Member’s Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Caerphilly (Wayne David) on this subject.

It is an important principle that ordinary citizens should be able to access justice. As the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth said, amendment 2 would remove the stick. If that encourages more publishers to join the approved regulator, it would create more compliance with the arbitration scheme, which is another reason why we support the amendment. How will the Government protect publishers from SLAPPs and give complainants access to justice?

I acknowledge the amendments and new clauses tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell). In addition to covering many of the issues that I also support, he clearly cares about the care that public service broadcasters should take in consulting and fully representing their audiences in both their workforce and their output. I ask every culture, media and sport organisation I meet, “Where are the women? Where are the people of colour? Where are the people from working-class communities?” Those questions have to be answered both horizontally and vertically, and my right hon. Friend made that case extremely well.

Before closing, I wish to raise a couple of concerns with the Minister on Government amendments 37 to 39. Those amendments appear to lack clarity and purpose, and they may weaken the position of public service broadcasters in future negotiations with commercial broadcasters. I urge the Government to reconsider them, and at least to make it clear to the House what problem they are trying to solve.

We support the Bill in general terms. I hope Members will join me in supporting the amendments I have outlined, including amendment 2 tabled by the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth and our new clause 13 on Gaelic. We feel that these amendments would strengthen the Bill, benefiting people across the country and helping to support our broadcasters in the coming years.

[Sir Gary Streeter (South West Devon) (Con)]

I am pleased to speak in support of amendment 18, tabled in my name and the names of other hon. Members.

I generally welcome this Bill as a valiant attempt to bring the law and regulation up to date in a fast-moving sector of our society, namely broadcasting and on-screen entertainment. I will focus on part 4, which deals with on-demand programme services and, in particular, clause 38, which will usher in a comprehensive review, to be undertaken by Ofcom, of audience protection and the production of a video on demand code.

This welcome Bill reflects how many people watch their entertainment today. My two oldest grandchildren, aged 19 and 18, rarely watch anything on television, but they are always on their tablets or smartphones. They have no concept of seeing what is on the box in the evening, and maybe even recording it, as my wife and I still do. They simply source and download what they want to watch, when they want to watch it, via video on demand.

It is therefore important that we ensure the very best protection is in place, not so much for them—they are both adults now—but for my 12-year-old granddaughter, my seven-year-old grandson and even my two-year-old granddaughter, who has her own tablet on which she watches “Peppa Pig” and “The Wheels on the Bus”—I can confirm that the wheels go round an awful lot. [Laughter.] After 20 years, I am so sick of hearing that song.

Ensuring adequate audience protection measures for video on demand is vital, and clause 38 makes a commendable start, but I believe that amendment 18—shades of which are mirrored in amendments tabled by Members on both sides of the House, as was mentioned by the shadow Secretary of State—would enhance that protection. The amendment contains the following reasonable provision:

“When considering the adequacy of age ratings, OFCOM must report on the extent to which any age ratings used by providers are—

(a) clear and well understood by consumers;

(b) underpinned by a published and transparent set of standards; and

(c) informed by regular and substantive consultation with the UK public.”

I do not think that is asking too much, and I therefore hope the Government will consider it carefully.

The Government have said that the Bill’s objective is to bring in

“stronger protections from harmful or age-inappropriate shows through a new Ofcom…Video-on-demand Code”.

Amendment 18 simply sets out objective criteria to achieve this aim with regard to age ratings. All it requires is that age ratings are clear, transparent and reflect UK expectations about what is age appropriate. That is not a high bar to expect services to meet.

As others have said, we are very fortunate in the UK to have a tried and trusted classifier of content, namely the British Board of Film Classification, which has been age-rating our movies ever since I first went to the pictures in Tiverton to see James Bond in “Thunderball”—I wonder how many colleagues remember that underwater film—and probably for a lot longer than that. The BBFC now rates online content and video on demand.

Opinion polls and surveys tell us that parents understand and trust the BBFC’s rating system. My informal survey of parents in my constituency over the past few weeks has confirmed that. It is the gold standard, and the threshold against which Ofcom can consider the sector as a whole. It is therefore reassuring that Netflix, Apple and Amazon all use BBFC ratings for their video content.

Amendment 18 would not force every content producer to use BBFC ratings, but it would help to ensure that each rating system is fit for purpose. That is the bare minimum we can do to prevent commercial VOD services from exposing children to harmful content because, sadly, all is not well in this sector. It grieves me to say that that is particularly so in relation to Disney.

The current ratings free-for-all has seen Disney+ classifying scenes of sexual abuse as suitable for nine-year-olds and scenes of graphic, misogynistic violence or offensive antisemitic stereotypes as suitable for 12-year-olds. That is lower than it classifies some of its “Star Wars” and superhero content. Until we hold services to a minimum standard, we risk eroding public trust in age ratings as a child-protection measure, and thus perpetuating this entirely preventable harm.

The problem with Disney and Disney+ is that, for most of us, the brand conjures a sense of safety and security that is no longer warranted. When people of my generation hear the word Disney, we think of “Bambi” or “Cinderella”, so the thought that our grandchildren are in the next room watching a Disney+ video is intrinsically reassuring. But that would be an error of judgment, because much of its content is now dark and explicit.

Disney’s rating system is very different from the BBFC’s, and it is based on a Dutch system. Transparency and consistency must be part of the new VOD code, and Ofcom should consider the current lack of coherence and consistency in its review and future work.

Amendment 18 does not seek to change the scope of the Bill or prevent new innovations in audience protection. It is not about mandating any particular solution. Most of us know and respect BBFC age ratings, but nobody will be forced to adopt age ratings where they are not appropriate or not expected, such as on services operated by public service broadcasters. It is purely about setting objective benchmark standards to ensure that, where age ratings are used, they are effective for the purpose of child protection. As that is the stated purpose of the Bill, I hope the amendment will attract Government support.

It is not my intention to divide the House on amendment 18, but I hope that the excellent Minister will introduce similar amendments in the other place. If she does not, I am confident that similar amendments will be tabled in the other place that are likely to be supported, and I certainly would not vote against them when they come back to this place.

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

BBC Accountability and Transparency

Gary Streeter Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Gregory Campbell will move the motion and then the Minister will respond. There will not be an opportunity for the Member in charge to wind up the debate, as is the convention for 30-minute debates, so the Minister will have the final word.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered BBC accountability and transparency to Government and licence fee payers.

The BBC traditionally was a world-leading news and current affairs broadcaster—paid for, of course, by the licence fee. When I have raised issues such as the one that I will raise today, the Government have said that it is for the BBC to deal with how it allocates and spends our licence fee moneys. I understand and accept that. The problem is that when I and others raise very important issues such as the lack of transparency and the lack of accountability and I and others go to places such as our regional BBC, we do not get answers. Then we come to BBC London and we do not get answers. Then we go to the National Audit Office and we do not get answers. Then we go to Ofcom and we do not get answers. The buck has to stop somewhere, and eventually the buck stops with the Government, Parliament and all of us who, on the public’s behalf, have to try to hold the BBC to account.

A few years ago, as the Minister and others will remember, we had the term “on-screen talent”, which sometimes is a misnomer. There was an issue about the on-screen talent having huge salaries about which no one knew anything. I and others campaigned long and hard to get those salaries brought into the public domain. We all remember programmes in which publicly paid broadcasters were asking us as MPs how we allocated our overheads and how we spent our salaries, how we divvied up our salaries. On rare occasions, Ministers would say, “Just hang on a minute, Mr Dimbleby. How do you spend your money, given that you get it from the licence fee?” Unfortunately, very few people did that, although some of us did. The BBC is very good at asking questions, but it is not very good at answering them. That eventually worked its way through and the BBC now has a banding process whereby it announces the salaries of on-screen talent in certain bands, which is some progress but not sufficient.

Then, on the topic of accountability, we moved on to the issue of outside interests. That resulted in the BBC putting an external events register on their website 18 months ago. I quote:

“As announced in October 2020, the BBC will publish a quarterly summary of the paid-for external events undertaken by on-air staff in journalism and senior leaders, in order to promote the highest standards of impartiality.”

That sounds very good.

Hadrian’s Wall: Newcastle’s West End

Gary Streeter Excerpts

Tuesday 1st February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Before we begin, I remind Members to observe social distancing, which should be easier with fewer Members present.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Hadrian’s Wall in Newcastle’s West End.

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Gary. I like to champion Newcastle as the home of the first industrial revolution and as a hub of today’s green industrial revolution. However, there is another facet to our great, vibrant city that is less well known: Roman Newcastle. As a child, one of my favourite shows was “Star Trek”. I loved the phrase, “Space: the final frontier.” I was born in Wallsend, but I did not realise that in Roman times the final frontier was not space, but Newcastle, which marked the northernmost boundary of the Roman empire.

This year, we celebrate Hadrian’s Wall’s 1,900th birthday, and we need to celebrate all the wall. Hadrian’s Wall tends to conjure up images of the wonderful Northumbrian countryside, but the wall is and was an urban wall, too. It runs through the wonderful, vibrant, multicultural, urban west end of Newcastle, but not everyone knows that. Many tourists are actually directed away from the wall by the Hadrian’s Wall National Trails path and other trails and tours that follow the wall, such as those of the Ramblers Association and the National Cycle Network. That is not right. It is not right that the west end of Newcastle should be missed out of our national Roman heritage.

We must remember that the wall was built by an invading and colonising army. Hadrian himself said that it was to keep his empire intact—a duty that he felt was imposed on him by divine instruction. We do not have a record of what the indigenous peoples of the north thought, but the wall must have divided families and communities, as walls that are constructed to keep people out always do. While we celebrate the heritage and history of the wall, we do not celebrate Rome’s hierarchical slave society. I am glad to say that Newcastle does not seek to emulate that particular aspect of our heritage, being a long-standing centre of the struggle for social justice. However, our Roman heritage is deep within us.

Our city was named for the new Norman castle that stands on the site of the Roman fort of Pons Aelius—Aelius was Hadrian’s family name, so it was “Hadrian’s bridge”. We can be relatively sure that some of the stones from the wall were recycled into that castle. Indeed, many buildings—particularly churches, which were the first major stone buildings built after the Roman withdrawal—undoubtedly have stones from Hadrian’s Wall within them.

There are still significant traces of the wall in my constituency. Just last year, 3 metres of some of the oldest parts of the whole wall were found in the city centre during routine drain maintenance. The remains of Milecastle 4 can be found at Newcastle Arts Centre, less than 100 m away from my constituency office, which is also in the city centre. Yet every day, tens of thousands of tourists pass by without knowing how close they are to the Roman wall.

[Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend is making a fantastic case for Hadrian’s Wall—not the “Roman wall”; there are others—in the west end of Newcastle. Talking about all of the wall for this 1,900th anniversary is so important. I know that today is about being inclusive of all parts of the wall, so I hope she agrees with the idea developed in Wallsend in my constituency, where I live and she was born. In the planned redevelopment of the Segedunum Roman fort, Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums and North Tyneside Council, are keen to explore redirecting the trail through the 80 metres of wall foundations that were repaired by the Romans and a reconstructed part of the wall that people can climb. Hadrian’s Wall Partnership Board includes in its 10-year investment programme the establishment of stopping points to highlight the wall in unexpected places—

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Order. I am afraid that interventions must be a lot shorter than that.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for making those important points, and pay tribute to the work that she has done as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Hadrian’s Wall. I am obviously focusing on my constituency, but this debate is about celebrating the wall where it really is, promoting it, and ensuring that people can engage with it and see it. The idea of climbing on the wall is fantastic, yes. We need support to show the wall as it really was, which is as it really is today.

Benwell and Scotswood in my constituency has the most visible remains of the wall in Newcastle Central—indeed, the “well” in Benwell actually means “wall”. Residents have bits in their gardens, as the Channel 4 series “The Great British Dig: History in Your Back Garden” showed. People literally stumble over a remnant of the wall when leaving a service station or an Indian restaurant on the West Road. Benwell was the site of the temple of Antenociticus—the Geordie god who was only worshipped locally, by Romans and locals alike. Also in Benwell is the Condercum fort—the name means “fair view point”—which was surrounded by an extensive vicus housing a thriving community, and the only surviving vallum crossing along the whole wall. In Denton, there are remains of a Roman fort and settlement that predate Hadrian’s Wall.

The forts at Newcastle and Benwell were thriving economic and commercial hubs with communities around them. Units stationed there from different parts of western Europe included soldiers and civilians from Spain, Belgium, Syria, Romania and north Africa. Bill Griffiths, a member of the Hadrian’s Wall management plan board, tells me that it was the most diverse place in England at the time. Today, Newcastle’s West Road is also vibrant and has many facilities that Roman troops would have sought: diverse and fast food, traded goods from all over the world, and excellent barbers.

In Roman times, Benwell fort housed the better paid cavalry and benefited economically from that. By contrast, today the area next to the wall is one of the most economically deprived in the city and the country. Benwell and Scotswood, and Elswick—where the wall also runs, but with less visible remnants—have some of the highest levels of multiple deprivation in England, as well as a problem that was no doubt also visible in Roman times: litter. This is caused in part by the numerous fast food outlets, the absence of an effective “polluter pays” policy for plastics and the lack of proper funding for public services. Newcastle City Council has lost half its central Government funding since 2010.

Perhaps that is the reason that the National Trails Hadrian’s Wall path does not go through the west end of Newcastle. There may have been a snobbish elitism that felt that semi-detached housing and a contemporary high street were not suitable for tourism. Perhaps there were concerns that neighbourhoods with high levels of immigrants and second-generation immigrant populations did not present the image of England that organisations wanted to promote. I hope that that is not the case—but I do not know. As local councillor Rob Higgins, who remembers when the trail came to Newcastle two decades ago, puts it: “We were never consulted.”

Instead, the trail takes people along the banks of the river. Perhaps those organisations thought that was prettier—the Tyne is gorgeous, Sir Gary—but it is not where the wall went. The wall has inspired many flights of fancy, as readers—and viewers—of “A Game of Thrones” will know, but should not our national trail stick to the truth? Tourists miss out on what Hadrian’s Wall was in Roman times and what it is today.

Geordie historian David Olusoga, in his excellent documentary “Black and British”, highlighted how textbooks’ traditional depictions of Romans lack any diversity. Dr Rob Collins, senior lecturer in archaeology at Newcastle University, said:

“In the last few decades, modern Benwell has reached the level of cultural and ethnic diversity that Roman Benwell had.”

Just as there was the temple of Antenociticus in Benwell, there are now mosques, churches and temples of different faiths along the West Road.

[Chi Onwurah]

I thank my hon. Friend and neighbour for putting that so eloquently. She is absolutely right, we grow up with the wall as part of our communities—a presence as it were—and the road is such a Roman road. It is not right that that is not better known and promoted more widely, which is what I want the Minister to address in his response. To add a thought from my noble Friend Baroness Quin, who chairs Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums:

“Newcastle is so often described as a Victorian Industrial City yet like London it is has been an important settlement continuously since Roman times”.

We want to see that continuity of history marked.

Some may be thinking, “Does it really matter?” There are many more important issues—Ukraine, the cost of living crisis and Afghanistan, and that is without even mentioning partygate. I will mention that the current edition of the New York Magazine has Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s former adviser, saying that the Prime Minister thought of himself as a Roman emperor, but I will resist the temptation to make comparisons with Roman parties.

This debate is important because we are the stories we tell ourselves. We need to own our history and the rightful place of communities in it. We know that in Newcastle. The St James’ Heritage and Environment Group, based in my constituency, is filming the wall in modern Newcastle along its real route, involving local schools, emphasising the connections between Roman Newcastle and Newcastle now. Iles Tours, also based in Newcastle, will be walking the real route. The 1,900 celebrations are a great opportunity to represent the wall as it was then and is now, and to move away from the history of exclusion and elitism. We need to celebrate Hadrian’s Wall in the west end. We need to promote all the wall—it is after all wor wall.

I know that the Minister values English culture. I am sure that that includes northern culture and history. I hope, therefore, that he is supportive of promoting all the wall, and of my four asks.

Ignoring Newcastle’s west end must stop. Can the Minister promise that his Department will not fund or otherwise support activities or representations of the wall that do not recognise its real route through the west end of Newcastle?

Will the Minister work with the Department for Education and cultural bodies to support engagement with local schools and organisations to promote the true route of Hadrian’s Wall, and to develop materials to educate people about both the diversity of Roman Newcastle and the parallels with contemporary Newcastle? That could include plaques or panels where the remains are, such as those suggested by my hon. Friend the Member for North Tyneside (Mary Glindon).

Overall responsibility for the literally misguided trail lies with Natural England, which is sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. DEFRA, however, says that decisions on the routes are a matter for the trail partnership. Will the Minister work with DEFRA to educate the trail partnership on the importance of historical and geographical accuracy and level up the wall to its true path?

Will he consider funding additional archaeological investigations, and others, into the route of the wall through the west end of Newcastle—for example, through Summerhill Square and along the Elswick and Westgate Roads? Finally, and perhaps a bit cheekily, another Newcastle icon has a fast-approaching birthday. Will the Minister ensure that the Tyne bridge gets painted for its 100th anniversary?

[Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

The Minister to respond. Just say yes.