Oral Answers to Questions
Graham P Jones Excerpts(7 years, 3 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Matt Hancock
Yes, I would be delighted to. I am more familiar than I would ever have expected to be with Faroese Telecom’s policy because of how it has managed to roll out connectivity to the whole of those islands, and we should see whether we can do that for some of the islands in Scotland. Of course, the roll-out of superfast broadband in Scotland is done through the Scottish Government. They have been much, much slower than almost every other part of the UK—much slower than the Labour Welsh Government—but I am sure that, together, we can ensure that we bring the country together by delivering good connectivity.
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
The Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport (Karen Bradley)
In due course.
Graham Jones
Brevity.
The question about privatisation is this: ITV’s profits are 26% of turnover, and Channel 4 has a £1 billion turnover. Are the Government seriously considering privatising Channel 4 and taking a quarter of its income for programming away?
Karen Bradley
The hon. Gentleman knows that in a fast-changing and challenging broadcasting environment, the Government want to ensure that Channel 4 has a strong and secure future, and that it can provide for audiences and support creative industries around the UK. I am looking at a broad range of options and, as I have said, I will report in due course.
Oral Answers to Questions
Graham P Jones Excerpts(8 years, 8 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Graham Jones (Hyndburn) (Lab)
1. What recent discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Justice on proposals for reform of the Human Rights Act 1998.
Paul Blomfield (Sheffield Central) (Lab)
2. What steps he plans to take to ensure that proposals for reform of the Human Rights Act 1998 meet the UK’s domestic and international human rights obligations.
The Attorney General (Jeremy Wright)
The Justice Secretary and I meet regularly to discuss important issues of common interest, including on domestic and international human rights law. I am not, as the House knows, able to talk about any legal content of those discussions, because, by convention, whether the Law Officers have given advice or not is not disclosed outside government.
Graham Jones
The public need to be aware that withdrawing from the Human Rights Act does not mean that we will withdraw from human rights, because people will still be able to have those rights. It is just that rather than get them in British courts they will have to traipse off to Strasbourg to get them. The British public need to be made aware of the situation. The issue, of course, is about the convention. Are the Government proposing to withdraw from the European convention on human rights, a move that would remove human rights in this country, rather than just from the Human Rights Act?
The Attorney General
The hon. Gentleman is right to a certain extent, but of course he will have to wait for the proposals that the Justice Secretary will make on human rights reform. The other point for the hon. Gentleman to bear in mind is that it is not just the Court in Strasbourg that protects the human rights of British citizens. The British courts do, too, and I believe we can rely on the robustness and good sense of British judges to protect those rights.