Media Bill

Jackie Doyle-Price Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 21st November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate on the Media Bill. I wish to focus narrowly on part 4, which sets out the provisions on public service broadcasting and gives Ofcom powers to draft and enforce a video-on-demand code. The Bill proposes to do that by extending audience protection measures, for example, age ratings and content warnings, that are currently enforced for broadcast media and BBC iPlayer-only to all on-demand programme services.

A number of colleagues have mentioned how the media landscape has evolved rapidly in our lifetimes. I remember the black-and-white telly in my parent’s lounge, with the choice of just three or four channels. I remember traditional linear TV, where we would all sit around to watch a programme and we would not answer the phone or the doorbell, because if we missed something, that was it. I remember my grandparents getting a VHS player before we did in the 1980s and my grandma would record “Thomas the Tank Engine” and “Postman Pat” for us, and we would binge watch it when we went to stay with her. Of course, so much has changed since then, and when my children were young, they did not even understand the concept of linear TV. I remember going to stay with a family member who did not have a smart TV at the time and my children did not understand how they could not watch “Octonauts” right that minute.

So much has changed in our lifetime. Of course, there are many wonderful aspects of media programming in this country—we have some fantastic content that is the envy of the world—but there are also some not-so-wonderful aspects, and there is lots of material out there that may be entertaining for adults but we definitely do not want children to see. That is the point of the Ofcom broadcasting code, which says for broadcast TV:

“1.1: Material that might seriously impair the physical, mental or moral development of people under eighteen must not be broadcast.

1.2: In the provision of services, broadcasters must take all reasonable steps to protect people under eighteen.

1.3: Children must also be protected by appropriate scheduling from material that is unsuitable for them.”

A healthy family media environment relies on parents being able to keep children safe by making sure they do not accidentally come upon content that is not suitable, and on parents having control over what is suitable for their own children. It goes without saying that young children should not be watching violence, sex, extreme language and all those kinds of things. We accept that as a society, and that is why we have rules and systems in place to help parents and to stop children seeing unsuitable content.

Our traditional on-demand media—cinema, DVD and VHS—is regulated by the British Board of Film Classification, which is a highly respected organisation that has been going for over 100 years. We are all familiar with the littles triangles telling us that a film is a U, PG, 12 and so on. Our TV scheduling is regulated by the broadcasting code, which mainly relies on the watershed so that broadcasters do not put out programmes before 9 pm that children should not see. On demand presents a new challenge for our broadcasters, because the watershed does not apply. By definition, all the content is available all the time, and therefore parents cannot rely on the fact that it is before 9 o’clock to know that a particular programme is safe.

Some commercial streaming services have voluntarily adopted the BBFC’s ratings. Netflix is a good example. It has adopted the U, PG, 12 and so on ratings. That is really important, because the BBFC ratings are some of the clearest, most transparent and most respected in the whole world. The BBFC even has an app now where parents can look for any programme or film, and it will tell them the rating and exactly why that rating is given, so that parents can be fully informed about what children are going to watch.

I visited the BBFC a couple of weeks ago—I highly recommend that to Members; it is more than willing to give briefings—to see how it rates films, trailers and programmes. It is a hugely impressive organisation, with enormous levels of trust from not just the content creators but the public. It surveys 10,000 members of the public every four years to ask them about their attitudes to violence, swearing, sex, drugs and so on, to feed into its ratings, so that there is buy-in from the public.

Some services have not opted into the BBFC ratings or produced a suitable rating system of their own. The most significant player in this category is Disney+, which has an opaque system of age rating that cannot be trusted by parents. For example, the film “Avatar”, which I think most people would say is suitable for children, has a rating of 16+, and yet a quite sinister adaptation of “A Christmas Carol” that involves nudity, horror, child molestation, forced prostitution and a depiction of child drowning has a rating of 9+.

The problem is that when parents see that kind of discrepancy, and when the ratings are opaque and there is no transparency about why things are rated in the way they are, parents just remove the passwords, because they think, “I want my child to be able to see ‘Avatar’”. But in removing the passwords or changing the settings on their account, they inadvertently enable children to watch a lot of material that is not suitable for them.

Clearly, Disney+ and other streaming services need to be subject to the same standards as broadcast media. If material is unsuitable for children, it is unsuitable whatever the platform on which it is viewed, and it is the intention of the Bill to remedy that. Clause 38 will require Ofcom to review audience protection measures used by providers of all on-demand tier 1 programme services, including those that do not have their headquarters in the UK. In other words, the Bill seeks to ensure that what we might call the new media—streamed content—is subject to the same audience protection measures, such as age ratings, content warnings, parental control and age assurance measures, as traditional and linear material such as cinema, DVD and broadcast TV.

So far, so good—that is a laudable and much-needed aim—but my question to the Government is, why reinvent the wheel? Why task Ofcom with another review and developing another new code, when we already have a world-leading regulatory framework in the BBFC? Why not instead extend the remit of the BBFC—an internationally trusted organisation—and an age-rating system understood by millions who already use streaming media, so that those familiar ratings logos of U, PG, 15 and so on are visible on each and every programme on every streaming platform?

Indeed, 88% of parents find the BBFC ratings on Netflix extremely helpful, so it would make sense to standardise these ratings across all the major streaming platforms. The platforms would pay the cost—that is how the BBFC is funded, so it would not require a massive expansion of the BBFC. For example, the BBFC gives the code and the transparent materials for rating to Netflix; Netflix polices itself, and every so often, the BBFC will check that it is fully compliant with the way it regulates itself. There would be a clear advantage to extending that universal rating system across all streaming services: it would not be reinventing the wheel, and there are also serious question marks about Ofcom’s capacity to deliver on both the requirements in this Bill and the significantly increased requirements placed on it by the passage of the Online Safety Act 2023. I urge the Minister to consider amending the Bill to use the BBFC and its code, rather than Ofcom, to achieve the aims of clause 38.

I also urge the Minister to consider extending the remit of the Bill’s audience protection provisions beyond broadcast and streaming to all UK-accessible video content, including online. I appreciate that that would be a very significant expansion of the Bill, but if its purpose is to bring audience protection regulation up to date with the current and future media landscape, we are just skirting around the issue if we do not include online content. Indeed, the principle of part 4 of the Bill is to create that parity between online and offline. Nowhere is that more needed than in the much less regulated online space.

I say that principally because of the proliferation of unregulated hardcore pornography on the internet—pornography that would be completely illegal in the offline world, on DVDs or on streaming services—that is now being viewed by millions, including children, and causing immense societal damage. We are not talking about erotic magazines passed by teenage boys around the bike sheds, but extreme, violent, hardcore, repulsive and completely illegal material: violent rapes, violent assaults and incest. It is the most unimaginable, degrading material—material that is illegal offline on traditional platforms, and always has been. If we are rightly convinced that it matters what people watch—that it matters that children are protected from strong content, whether they are watching it on TV, streaming it on demand or seeing it on their phones—we have to apply the same principle to pornography.

A third of the internet is pornography; Pornhub has more users than Twitter, Instagram, Netflix, Pinterest, Zoom and LinkedIn put together. It is a $100 million industry, and algorithms draw users into more and more extreme material. The Government’s own research makes the link between viewing violent pornography and violence against women and girls, yet the average age of first viewing in this country is 11. We will never turn the tide on violence against women and girls unless we recognise the role of pornography in conditioning men and boys to link violence with sexual pleasure. That is why I urge the Minister to bring online pornography content within the scope of the audience protection measures in the Bill.

The Online Safety Act will go some way towards helping in this space: its age verification provisions will make it harder for under-18s to access that content. I very much commend the Government on accepting those amendments, which had cross-party support. But that Act missed an opportunity to crack down on online porn that would be completely illegal in the offline world—material that still proliferates online and, even with the new protections, will of course be accessed by some children. Again, the BBFC can have a role here, because it is the BBFC’s role to regulate offline porn, such as DVDs, and certain adult websites. It has a very effective working relationship with the adult industry and with payment providers, so if the BBFC establishes that a particular adult platform has on it a video that is illegal and should be taken down, it can contact the payment providers and ask them to deny payment to that website until the video is taken down.

[Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the BBFC is also a very established brand that is trusted and understood by the public, so the public would themselves have confidence if the BBFC was given the ability to act in this space?

[Miriam Cates]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is exactly why I am calling for the BBFC to have a much greater role in this Bill, but also for that role to be extended to the regulation of pornography. The BBFC has been going for over 100 years; other countries look to it and its ratings. It has buy-in from the public and from the content creators themselves, so it is perfectly placed to provide the kind of regulation and expertise we need. If we really want online and offline parity when it comes to audience safety—of course we do, because it does not matter where this content is viewed; it will have the same effect—we must look to include pornography in the scope of the Bill. I would go so far as to say that if the Government really want to leave a legacy of child protection and reducing violence against women and girls, nothing is more important than preventing access to hardcore pornography that is, and always has been, illegal in the offline world.

I welcome the Bill; it contains some excellent provisions. Obviously, I have focused narrowly on one aspect of it, but I ask Ministers to consider mandating that all streaming services use the BBFC’s age verification ratings, and extending audience protection measures to online content, especially violent pornography.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir John Whittingdale]

I am afraid that all I can say to the hon. Gentleman is that the Government recognise the importance of continuing support. We expect the BBC to continue providing a channel in Gaelic, in the form of BBC Alba, and we welcome the fact that MG Alba produces content through an arrangement with the BBC and with the support of the Scottish Government. We have now, for the first time, put into the public service remit the requirement to provide

“a sufficient quantity of audiovisual content”.

That is a significant step forward, even if it does not go quite as far as SNP Members would like.

The provisions covering radio have been rightly welcomed and described by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington South (Andy Carter), who is an acknowledged expert in this area. We have worked closely with the radio sector, and I think that the audio review identified the need to ensure the protection of radio services as more and more people adopt smart speakers.

A number of hon. Members raised local television, of which the Government remain supportive. However, at the moment, local television is not available through apps, so including it in the provisions for prominence was not appropriate, but we will of course keep the situation under review, should it evolve in future. The Government are consulting on the future of local television.

My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) raised a specific point about the regulation of video-on-demand streaming services. The Government completely share her wish to see adequate protection for children. Having sufficient protections in place will be part of the new requirements on the major streaming services. She is right to praise the BBFC. I have worked with the BBFC for many years, going right back to James Ferman, who for 25 years was its director. It is absolutely true that the BBFC is recognised as expert in this field. I very much welcome that a number of streamers have chosen to adopt the BBFC to carry out their age ratings, including Netflix and Amazon.

The Government’s objective, however, is to ensure that protection is in place, rather than necessarily to specify that it has to be done by the BBFC. It will be left to Ofcom to oversee that, and it already has a lot of experience in this area. It enforces the broadcasting code, which also requires age-appropriate broadcasting. As my hon. Friend rightly said, that was traditionally via the watershed, although that is now changing with the move to on-demand TV. Ofcom also undertakes other protections such as parental controls and so on, so it is not just age rating. I entirely share her view that the BBFC does an excellent job, and I hope that all services will consider using it when reaching decisions, but the Government are not at the point of wishing to mandate that at this time.

[Jackie Doyle-Price]

I utterly appreciate what my right hon. Friend is saying, and I can see why the Government and Ofcom do not want to be overly prescriptive about how this regulation is done, as long as the content is well understood. Will he just reflect on the fact that this set of labels is well understood by the public? Everyone knows what a U is, and everyone knows what an 18 is. In that sense, it would be an effective vehicle to establish that people understand the content.

[Sir John Whittingdale]

In determining whether the requirements are met, Ofcom will have to take into account whether the rating is easily understood by viewers. Even if that is not necessarily the BBFC’s triangles and particular age ratings, it will nevertheless need to meet those requirements and ensure that viewers can easily see what is an appropriate age for that particular content. I am a viewer of Disney+ along with the other services, and I agree with my hon. Friend. Disney+ has some content that is highly appropriate for children, but it has other content that is perhaps less so.

I move on to the repeal of section 40, which is of concern to a number of Members. I very much welcome the contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey), who served with me on the Select Committee when we carried out the inquiries into phone hacking. I hope I am not being too immodest in saying that the Committee was responsible for exposing phone hacking, and none of the events that followed would have occurred had the Select Committee not persisted in our summoning of representatives of News International, as it was at that time, and pursuing that inquiry. It led to the police investigations and ultimately to the establishment of the Leveson inquiry.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) was right to set out the historical background to the establishment of the Leveson inquiry. However, the one thing that he did not cover, which I recall very well, is that the intention behind section 40 was to put pressure on one or two newspapers that might have been standing out against seeking the approval of the recognised regulator. What nobody anticipated when section 40 was established was that every single national publication would say that they were not willing to comply with that requirement. It was not just the tabloids or the red tops; it was The Guardian, The Independent and the Financial Times. No national newspaper was willing to comply with the Government’s proposals under the royal charter, and that did change things, because it made the system unworkable.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) —to whom I am grateful for taking over the APPG on media freedom—is right to point out that campaigning organisations for press freedom such as Reporters Without Borders were equally critical of the Government’s proposals on section 40 and have been campaigning for its repeal. The Government reached the conclusion that the system had not worked and should be repealed, and we therefore put that in the Conservative party manifesto of 2017. It was repeated in the Conservative party manifesto of 2019, and I am delighted that we will now put that commitment into effect by repealing section 40.

I have seldom agreed with the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), but on this occasion, I thought he made one or two extremely good points. He is absolutely right to highlight the digital divide. We are very conscious that as more and more people access TV content through streaming services and via the internet, there is a group who have not done so. Several Members asked whether the Government can make a commitment to the continuation of Freeview beyond 2034. The Government would not consider switching off digital terrestrial television unless we had reached the point where the overwhelming majority were no longer using it to access TV. We are very conscious of that group in the population who still rely on traditional Freeview, and that will be in our thoughts.

The right hon. Member was also right to pay tribute to news reporting from around the world and to point out that it does not get enough attention. I was delighted to be able to attend the Society of Editors’ media freedom awards recently, where Sky received two awards for its reporter Stuart Ramsay’s reports from Myanmar about the civil war raging there. That is a terrible conflict that does not get enough attention. The right hon. Member is right that it is important that both PSBs and other providers continue to bring us reports from right around the world about things that we would otherwise be unaware of.

Lastly, I welcome the right hon. Member’s stressing the importance of local newspapers. I have been deeply concerned about the decline of local newspapers for many years. I am delighted that the BBC’s local democracy reporting service, which was established following the last charter, continues to support local newspapers, and we continue to look for other ways to support them.

This has been an excellent debate. I look forward to working with all Members and the Opposition as we take the Bill into Committee. I am delighted to commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Media Bill (Programme)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 83A(7)),

That the following provisions shall apply to the Media Bill:

Committal

(1) The Bill shall be committed to a Public Bill Committee.

Proceedings in Public Bill Committee

(2) Proceedings in the Public Bill Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 14 December 2023.

(3) The Public Bill Committee shall have leave to sit twice on the first day on which it meets.

Consideration and Third Reading

(4) Proceedings on Consideration shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion one hour before the moment of interruption on the day on which those proceedings are commenced.

(5) Proceedings on Third Reading shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion at the moment of interruption on that day.

(6) Standing Order No. 83B (Programming committees) shall not apply to proceedings on Consideration and Third Reading.

Other proceedings

(7) Any other proceedings on the Bill may be programmed.—(Mark Fletcher.)

Question agreed to.

Media Bill (Money)

King’s recommendation signified.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Media Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable under any other Act out of money so provided.—(Mark Fletcher.)

Question agreed to.

Media Bill (Ways and Means)

Motion made, and Question put forthwith (Standing Order No. 52(1)(a)),

That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the Media Bill, it is expedient to authorise:

(1) the charging of fees under the Act; and

(2) the payment of sums into the Consolidated Fund.—(Mark Fletcher.)

Question agreed to.