Covid-19 and Loneliness

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward, for the second time today. Who am I to speak in this debate after two terrific speeches from the hon. Members for Blaydon (Liz Twist) and for Southend West (Sir David Amess)? I have been here for four years and a couple of days, and it strikes me that one of the best things that Westminster does is the Westminster Hall debate, which is more like a tutorial. What I have heard in the first two contributions is thought provoking and has altered what I am going to say.

Lockdown was not terribly difficult for me and my wife because we had each other, and my son and his wife, just in the nick of time before the first lockdown, came north with their two little girls, which was a pleasure. However, I want to talk about a constituent of mine called Sally Cartwright. Sally is a widow in her 80s. She has been successful in life. She ran a business with her husband and had a successful small business. She became chairman of the local enterprise company—I think the first female chairman of a local enterprise company in Scotland. She was awarded the MBE. Halfway through the first lockdown, I called her about something or other. I asked for advice and she said, “Jamie, I’m so damned lonely. I am not in a bubble. I can’t go out. I am not daft. I am not very good with mobility, but I am a thinking lady, and it’s really getting me down.” That shook me because this lady is a pillar of society and one would not expect that to come from her.

I then took to ringing Sally on a regular basis to say, “How’s it going?”. In fact, I spoke to her today to get permission to use her name in this debate. My excellent constituency officer manager, Heather Macmillan, said, “You ought to get in the habit of making perhaps 10 calls a day, and I will suggest people you can call.” The reason I am telling Members this is because I was relatively comfortable in my own home in lockdown and I had not seen it for what it really was, and it shook me to the core. So what is the answer?

I am speaking only briefly in this debate and I am speaking only because of Sally. I thought, “Damn it, I will take part in this debate.” I do not normally go on about things in the north of Scotland, as Members know. However, yesterday—this takes me back to the hon. Member for Southend West—hot and bothered I walked from this place to my flat. It had been a really hot day and I longed to get in, pull myself a glass of lager and put my feet up. I heard music as I walked towards St John’s, Smith Square, and it got louder and louder as I walked past that beautiful church heading towards Pimlico. I realised the doors of the church were open because of the heat, and the orchestra was in full practice. I thought, “What are they playing? Is it Prokofiev? What is it? I don’t know.” At that moment, it hit me like a bolt of lightning, exactly as the hon. Gentleman said: music touches the human psyche more than we all realise.

We all have different tastes, but music is a sort of strange common language that works, and I think that it is possibly part of the solution—although there are no solutions to this—but it could be part of the way we can approach it. The next time we have to go through this awful process again, and I fear that we will because viruses mutate and there will be new viruses—although, God, I wish there weren’t—I think more music will be part of the solution.

The second thing is that every time I spoke to Sally, she told me that one of her grandchildren had zoomed in and, for all the difficulties of this way of talking to each other through a small screen, the grandchild saying, “Hello, Granny. How are you?”, really gave a little lift to her day. Perhaps we could, in each of our communities, develop the idea of having teams of people, including young people, who can talk to one another. Sally said to me, “I’m not so mobile, but I’ve got a brain on my shoulders,” and so she has. She is, as we say in Scotland, as sharp as a tack. If I put a foot wrong in politics, she is on to me just like that. I was saying, “Sally, if we have to go through this again, how would it be if you did some telephoning or whatever and we just opened this up?”

I do not know the solution, but I have made two suggestions to the Minister. I have enormous respect for the Minister—a lady of compassion. I suspect that we are sowing our seeds on fertile ground, in terms of what the Government might come forward with.

Safety of Journalists

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 10th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) [V]]

In a way, today’s debate is slightly poignant for me, because I knew Rory Peck very well as a friend. He was a fantastic journalist, and he was also a bit of a rogue. Shortly before he died in 1993, he bet me a bottle of wine that he would have a little boy for his first child, and I bet him that he would have a little girl. He wrote down the name of the bottle of wine that was the bet, and when I lost it, I had to go and buy a bottle of Haut-Brion, which is one of the finest wines in the world and the most expensive bet I have ever lost. I have never, ever bet a bottle of wine since. That is to digress, but it is poignant for me.

I have several times in this House been a champion of the BBC. I really believe we have to get our own house in order, and I deplore some of the political attacks that we have seen on the BBC. I believe these political attacks undermine our own moral standing when it comes to criticising the arrests, as previous speakers have mentioned, of journalists in Belarus and pro-democracy demonstrators in Hong Kong, and the whole awful Ryanair event. My view is that we ain’t got any room for grandstanding until we make ourselves absolutely beyond reproach. In doing so, we will have the moral high ground, and I think it is worth striving for.

Let us just remind ourselves that only last year our special envoy on media freedom quit due to what she saw as the Government’s intentional breaking of international law through the United Kingdom Internal Market Act 2020, saying that their actions threaten to

“embolden autocratic regimes that violate international law with devastating consequences all over the world.”

That shows us where we should not go. We have to do an awful lot more about reaffirming our existing commitments to media freedom, as other speakers have said.

In addition to protecting our journalists in their ability to speak truth, we have to protect those who help them to facilitate the truth being told. That is why I make no apologies for today reiterating my call to offer asylum to the interpreters in Afghanistan, for instance, who have helped British journalists with translation and have been absolutely invaluable to getting the media coverage out. We have a debt of honour to those interpreters.

If we rebuild and enhance our reputation, we will be striking a mighty blow for the truth being the truth in an age when there is so much that is not true.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Tuesday 25th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I am getting so used to just doing what I am told by my hon. Friend when it is necessary that she only has to look in this direction and I give way to her—my apologies.

What I was really trying to get to the bottom of is that I do not think that this is feasible any longer. The Bill illustrates the dichotomy that lies at the heart of the Government’s position. We are trying constantly to talk about these trade relationships, but at the same time we recognise that the country that we are discussing them with is a totalitarian state that is guilty of what many, including myself, believe is a genocide of a whole ethnic group—more than one ethnic group. It is a state that is intolerant, that is suppressing democracy and free speech in Hong Kong, that is threatening Taiwan and India, and that has said that it is in possession of the South China sea. I could go on with that list. We can recognise the compilation of all those things and that there is a security risk, and yet at the same time in the other place we are told, “Don’t worry. We are still trying to do trade deals.”

It is quite interesting that we have reopened an economic and financial dialogue under a JETCO—a joint economic and trade committee—which was originally paused because of the imposition of the national security law in Hong Kong. The discussions have now restarted, although we did not hear much fanfare. We sort of discovered that they had restarted, but there was no announcement from the Dispatch Box that we were restarting them. There are no dates involved, but the discussions are restarting, despite the sanctions against individuals and so on, and despite our sanctions against Chinese officials—although I still wish that we could do more.

I note also that the European Union was heading in the same direction with its agreement, only now, because of the sanctions on its MEPs and so on, it has decided that it is not going to do that. I simply raise the question: if we think that this country and this Government —the Chinese Communist party, the Government of China—are such a potential threat, should we really be trying to reopen those doors, despite the sanctions that we have in place, the sanctions that they have put in place, and the very clear threat that they now pose to our security?

I simply say to my hon. Friend the Minister that I was going to move my amendment, which would have said that the Government should immediately declare many of these companies high-risk vendors by the very nature of the security law that exists in China. However, I would also say, in support of what has been said already, that the Government need to use the internal possibilities in our Parliament. We have a Committee that is cleared to the highest level of security in these areas, and it is important that we use that Committee. If the Government get private advice from the Committee about what it thinks is going wrong with their position, I think that will benefit and improve them.

I therefore ask my hon. Friend to take my amendment into consideration and to answer that point, to think seriously about how we can strengthen the Bill further and, if he can, to make the reservations of this place felt to his colleagues in Government. We are deeply concerned about trying to ride two bicycles at the same time: recognising a deep and growing threat to democracy not just here but around the world from the Chinese Communist party, while trying to beg China to do trade deals with us, notwithstanding the fact that it behaves so badly.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) [V]]

It is a pleasure to join you, Madam Deputy Speaker, from the far north of Scotland. Before I make two points that will be familiar to the House, may I compliment the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) on a most interesting speech? I afford myself a wry smile; we are where we are today, which is rather different from where we were when I attended the Westminster Hall debate in which he made the same point. I think that he would be allowed some quiet satisfaction at having changed the Government’s course as significantly as he has, because—I shall return to this point—this is about the defence of the realm.

Let me make a second initial remark, with reference to the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Stephen Flynn). As a former Member of a place based in Holyrood, in Edinburgh, I wholeheartedly support the notion of working with the devolved Administrations. It makes absolute sense. If we believe in the security of the realm, we all have to work together for the better good.

As I have said already, my two points will be familiar to the House. The first is that, having done the armed forces scheme, I know it is very useful in bringing elected Members face to face with the realities of the defence of this country. For me, it was something of a wake-up call. There is no doubt, as the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green said, that there are nations out there—Russia, China, North Korea and others—that do not concern themselves with the good health of the United Kingdom. We have only to look at the hijacking of the Ryanair airliner in recent days, or indeed the crime that was committed in Salisbury, to see that the actions of states can be very bad indeed for us as a country, so in some ways this whole debate is a bit of a wake-up call. We have to ask ourselves where we stand in the world, what we can do and whether we are going to stand up for what we believe is right.

The Bill has the support of my party, in that it helps to protect the vital interests of the United Kingdom and the people who live in and love our country, as we all do. The key point emerging from that is that, as others have said, there will have to be an element of co-operation with other countries that share our ideals and interests. We think of the Five Eyes countries, of our European friends and of other countries all over the globe—perhaps India, perhaps South Korea, perhaps Japan—that we could work with more closely to further the best interests of us all.

My second point—yes, I am going to talk about this yet again, so perhaps I should offer an apology to the Chamber—is on something that the hon. Member for Aberdeen South referred to: we talk about 5G in the UK, but there are parts of Scotland that do not have 4G. As the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne Central (Chi Onwurah), said, there are bits of Scotland where connectivity is very poor indeed. In the past, I have made the perhaps not very clever joke that in parts of my constituency, we might even be better off with two tin cans and a length of string, so there is a lot of work to be done, to say the least.

BBC: Dyson Report

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

I understand my right hon. Friend’s strength of feeling. As he will know, we have now twice examined whether non-payment of the licence fee should be decriminalised, but this has revealed that if we decriminalise, there is a risk that the alternative enforcement mechanisms would lead to more distress for people who are perhaps not in a position to pay, with the possibility of bailiffs arriving and even greater fines. So we need to look at this very carefully. As we have said, we have not ruled out decriminalisation, but we are balancing that against the consequences of the alternatives, and that is something that the Government will continue to examine.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) [V]]

As the House is aware, I am a Scottish politician. During the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, the BBC came under strong and sustained attack from the then First Minister, Mr Alex Salmond, a gentleman who now broadcasts on Russian television and refuses to acknowledge the enormity of the crime that was committed in Salisbury. I wonder, does the Minister agree that in the long term the editorial independence of the BBC and its protection from undue interference by politicians are paramount?

[Mr Whittingdale]

I do agree with the hon. Gentleman. The independence of the BBC is absolutely central to its reputation for objectivity and reliability, and indeed it contrasts strongly with the channel that he also mentioned, RT, which has none of those things. We are absolutely committed to maintaining and indeed strengthening the independence, objectivity and fairness of the BBC.

Elected Women Representatives: Online Abuse

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on securing this debate.

I will quote briefly from a 23-year-old candidate who is standing in the election in Scotland:

“I think that online abuse was one of the biggest things in my mind when I was preparing to stand. I have grown up with the internet and I think I was prepared for what I was getting into, and when I thought about standing I did think that this was going to be quite tough from a social media point of view. This is something that many women will think about, and it’s not an easy decision. However, I don’t think anyone is quite prepared for the first time you get piled on with abuse on Twitter. I think of myself as being pretty resilient, but who I worry about are my friends and family, because they didn’t sign up for any of this.”

That person is Molly Nolan and, as I said, she is 23 and a candidate in the Scottish election. Colleagues might be pardoned for thinking that I am making a party political point; I am not and I want to broaden it out.

In 2016, I stood for the Scottish Parliament and was beaten fair and square by the Scottish National party candidate Gail Ross, who for the past five years has served the constituency of Caithness, Sutherland and Ross. The online abuse Gail has suffered is beyond belief. I have seen some of it and it is disgusting. At one point, somebody stole her Facebook identity, masqueraded as her online and started dealing with vulnerable constituents. Nobody like Gail deserves anything like that.

I am glad that Gail and I have stayed friends throughout all this. This morning, I asked her permission to mention her in this debate, which she gave with alacrity. That is the nature of our deep and lasting friendship. She made a point that I had not thought about before. The highlands are made up of small, scattered communities. Wick, where she lives, is one of the bigger ones but most people there know each other. What really hurt Gail and drew blood was the fact that people known to her in her community were saying and doing these dreadful things. That must be a sickening thing to live with.

My second point is brief and I will abuse my position as a Member of this place. In a former existence, I was a councillor in the highlands a long time ago. I suppose I could say that Highland Council was possibly somewhere where misogyny might thrive a bit. I remember that one lady councillor called Mrs Isobel Rhind, a superb councillor who represented Invergordon, was held back because she was female. My point is that misogyny back then has turned into online abuse today; it has been empowered and made worse. I have longed for many years to put Mrs Isobel Rhind’s name on the record in Hansard. She is probably the best councillor Invergordon ever had—there, I have said it.

Today Molly Nolan, the 23-year-old candidate for my party, soldiers on. She is coping with the abuse. Other candidates of all parties have had similar abuse and are getting on with it, but it is not easy. Gail Ross has just been appointed the communications director for Dounreay, which is new career move for her. I hope we can work together across party boundaries. I will work with Gail and use every means at my disposal to fight this fiendishly awful thing in our society. I hope we can sort it out, because if we do not, as others have said, we are just going to make life a hell of a lot worse.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Digital and Culture (Caroline Dinenage)]

It is a great honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley, and I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) on securing this incredibly important debate. I know that she has always been a passionate campaigner in this area, and she is also the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on women in Parliament, which leads such important work to protect women in Parliament—online and offline. I thank her for everything that she does in this space, and I also thank all Members who have taken part in the debate.

All the speeches were incredibly heartfelt and brave. They show the will across the House to address this pernicious and distressing issue. Sadly, this is one of those issues that bear out the words of our former friend and colleague Jo Cox in a most unpleasant way, because we

“have far more in common than that which divides us.”—[Official Report, 3 June 2015; Vol. 596, c. 675.]

Is it not tragic that that is the case? It is sometimes hard to fathom how the faceless and cowardly abuse of those in the public eye has almost become part of the job description. It has become a fact of life. It has become something that almost goes with the territory. How messed up is it that we feel that way?

As many Members, including my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke, have said, the word “abuse” seems almost insufficient to describe what so many female MPs and others in the public eye experience: threats of rape, violence and death to themselves and their family members. The number of contributions to the debate highlights the scale of the problem. Of course, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who chairs the Select Committee, said, it is always impossible to know whether such online threats will tip over into real life. That is what is most chilling.

The Government are absolutely clear that online abuse, and particularly abuse targeted at women, is utterly reprehensible and completely unacceptable. The abuse can have such a significant impact on female representation in all walks of life. It silences women from speaking out. It prevents them from sharing their experiences online. It deters them from pursuing certain roles or, in this case, from seeking election or office at every single level. It can also hasten an early departure from this job, as we have also heard.

[Jamie Stone]

When I quoted my friend Gail Ross, I was also thinking about her small boy. I hope he does not know what was said, but if he did, would that not put another generation off politics? They would not touch it with a barge pole.

[Caroline Dinenage]

That is such an important point, and it is actually something that I was thinking about as I was listening to the contributions to the debate. I took an almost conscious decision not to put my children on my social media, for that very reason. I do not want what I do as a job to have an impact on them. How messed up and crazy is it that we feel that we cannot share things about our lives because of the impact that it will have? Of course, that has a dramatic impact on democracy when it puts people off standing for election at every single level. That affects women and stops their voices being heard in this Chamber and in society more broadly. As other Members have said, our success as a Parliament utterly depends on our having elected figures who better reflect the communities that we represent.

I know there are organisations that have led studies on abuse targeted at women, such as Glitch, Amnesty International and the Centenary Action Group. This work has such an important role to play in strengthening our understanding of the scale and prevalence of abuse targeted at women representatives and others, and my Department has been supporting research led by the University of Sheffield that assessed online abuse during the 2019 general election campaign and the covid-19 lockdown. The findings suggested that abuse directed at MPs has increased. I think we all recognise that. From the 2017 and 2019 general elections it was clear that there are some MPs who are more affected, and that particularly includes, as the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) said, those with intersectionality. Women from minority backgrounds were particularly targeted. Bizarrely, as we have been sitting here I have noticed that a colleague in Parliament has tweeted:

“Today’s mailbag with photos and photos of beheadings that would make you sick. It’s not unusual for MPs to be dealing with racists and this stuff isn’t new to me, but today I feel exhausted.”

I think that we all feel exhausted by it, Mr Paisley.

As the hon. Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) said, the additional research shows that over the lockdown period individuals, and prominent women in particular, were still receiving high levels of abuse. It has got significantly worse. Of the 26 MPs who received sexist abuse only four were men, with women receiving high volumes of personal attacks—attacks on their credibility, and sexually explicit abuse. Although men are a greater proportion of MPs, women get much higher volumes of abuse, which is of course unacceptable. There is some support for Members in managing their online and offline security through the parliamentary channels, but of course much more needs to be done at that level.

All that only goes to underline how vital the Government’s online safety Bill is. It will protect women and all users online. We published the full Government response to the Online Harms White Paper consultation last year, outlining our fundamental commitment to taking forward a new legal duty of care that companies will have towards their users. That will mean that companies must have robust systems and processes in place to tackle illegal content, including illegal online abuse and anonymous abuse. They will need to remove content quickly, or face enforcement action from Ofcom, which will be the new regulator. Companies with the largest audience and the most high-risk features will have to address legal but harmful content for both adults and children. That will include online abuse that does not cross criminal thresholds but is still harmful for users and could leave a significant impact on victims.

Companies will also need to ensure that they have effective, accessible mechanisms through which users can report concerns about harmful content. That has always been a big issue. People do not know how to report such things. It is all very murky and needs to be much clearer. They need to be able to challenge wrongful content take-down as well, and raise concerns that a company has failed to fulfil its duty of care.

I understand clearly, and sympathise enormously with, calls for compulsory user verification for social media, which my hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton North East (Jane Stevenson) raised. However, there are concerns that it would prevent legitimate users such as human rights activists or whistleblowers from protecting themselves, dissuade vulnerable users such as victims of domestic violence from seeking support, or deter young LGBT people who are not ready to come out to their friends and family from seeking the information and support they need. However, I am keen to look at imaginative and innovative ways to tackle the issue. There must be some way to square the circle. I would gently like to say that online platforms do not have to wait for legislation to move on the matter. If they want to put it right, they could start to put their houses in order now, to rebuild the trust. Surely they have a moral duty not to stand by and let such things continue to happen.

We are working at pace to prepare the Bill. It will be ready later in the year. The hon. Member for City of Chester (Christian Matheson) asked me about that and we want to get it out as soon as possible. It is, however, vital to get it right, and we want all parliamentarians to contribute to that important work.

I want quickly to mention our work with the Law Commission and how the criminal law will improve protection for women and users online. It is reviewing how the criminal law relates to harmful online communication and has consulted on reforms that include new ways to tackle pile-on abuse, cyber-flashing and self-harm. I know that that will be of interest to Members. The final recommendations will be published this summer and we are looking at where it would be appropriate to bring those things into law.

Finally, the Government will in due course legislate for a new electoral sanction that will help to protect women who contribute to our public life from intimidation and abuse, in person and online. That means that someone convicted of intimidating a candidate, future candidate, campaigner or elected representative will be banned from standing for or holding elected office for five years. That new sanction is just one part of the Government’s programme of work against political intimidation. We are working with partners to provide security guidance to support the elections that are coming up next month, ensuring the delivery of a safe and inclusive democratic event.

This Government are absolutely committed to protecting female representatives, both online and offline. The disproportionate abuse that women receive online, which we have heard about today, has absolutely no place in a thriving and tolerant democracy. We will do all we can to protect not only women representatives, but all users, as part of the online safety Bill. We are working at pace to deliver the new electoral sanctions and to prepare that legislation, and we will ensure that Members across both Houses can contribute to those vital pieces of work.

Online Anonymity and Anonymous Abuse

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Wednesday 24th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

Well done the hon. Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) for securing this debate. I stand here today as a Liberal and I am a great supporter of free speech, but I have no difficulty in drawing a line between free speech and online abuse. I thank the hon. Member for Ashfield (Lee Anderson) for lightening up this rather dark debate with his joke about breathalysing people before they go on Facebook, but what we have heard from all around the Chamber is a horrific litany of disgusting abuse online.

Online abuses have a real-world impact. We cannot just take refuge in dualism. We cannot say that the online world is different from the real world, because it is not. As we know, we have seen the final, awful result of some of this, which is that young people and other people have taken their own lives.

On anonymity, the hon. Gentleman, the hon. Member for Barrow and Furness (Simon Fell) and the hon. Member for East Surrey (Claire Coutinho) made the very sensible point that, of course, anonymity has its place in all this. It can provide much needed support for whistleblowers, for minorities finding a safe online space for self-expression, and for victims of physical abuse connecting with a support network. The conversation about anonymity is difficult and we may have to make trade-offs in what the Bill contains. We may not like some of the trade-offs, but at the end of the day, it would be much more worrying if the online safety Bill did not get to the heart of the issue. I sincerely hope that it will.

Let us face it: we already take a variable approach. If somebody wants to buy alcohol—booze—they have to prove that they are of a certain age; they have to prove who they are. If someone wants to get a certain job, take out some sort of loan and or make a financial transaction, they have to prove who they are, so there is a precedent for such proof. Lastly, we have the technical know-how to tackle this issue. It is out there and we can use it.

I want to make it very clear to the Government that it will not be easy but we have to get the identification issue sorted out. It would be a hugely valuable achievement to pull this one off, because I never again want to hear the sort of stuff that I have been hearing in this debate, such as how the hon. Member for Stroud and many others have had this dreadful stuff flung at them. It is just the lowest of the low.

Live Events: Government-backed Insurance

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Government-backed insurance for live events.

Everybody here today will be aware that live performance production is an inherently risky economic activity, as the majority of capital is expended on pre-production and rehearsal prior to any income returns retrieved at the performance stage. In other words, as a business, it needs to invest money before it can take money back again. And therein lies the problem: for all the glorious music and theatre that live events offer, behind the scenes it is all about money and the integrity of the business. Organisers simply cannot get the ball rolling—by sourcing locations, paying performers, hiring equipment and so on—if they are not guaranteed that the show will go ahead.

I have heard the Government say many times that it would be too expensive to create an insurance scheme. I beg to disagree with that. I think there needs to be a perspective shift inside Government. Government must stop seeing our calls for an insurance scheme as expenditure and see this instead as an investment opportunity. I say that because ultimately, if they help facilitate the return of live events, the economic and cultural returns will end up paying for the initial investment—it will pay for itself.

We know the economic potential of the industry. The creative industry contributes—can you believe it?—£13 million every hour to the British economy, with the live events industry adding £70 billion to the UK economy every year. However, the significance of live events is not limited to the UK-wide economy. When events take place, local economies benefit, not only in direct revenue but through the increased use of hospitality or transport services. For example, and as I have said many times, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe generates no less than £500 million in direct spending, and a further £560 million goes into the Scottish economy indirectly.

Up in my own patch in the far north of Scotland, my beloved Highland games are worth an estimated £25 million. The House can imagine what that means to rural areas. With 25% of the people attending those games, they provide a much-needed economic boost to my constituency and to other Scottish constituencies. But they also allow us to share Scottish culture with people all around the world.

At a time when this nation needs to recover, and aligned to employment opportunities, increasing the consumption of hospitality and bringing tourism to every nook and cranny of the country will help us not only build back better, but build back together. As the House can imagine, I do not want to see my constituency being left behind in this regard, but that is exactly what is happening. I am hearing now that Highland games are being cancelled all over the highlands and Scotland because of uncertainty as to what the Government advice is.

I am asking for a scheme to be arranged whereby the Government would back insurance and underwrite it. I am asking our Government to underwrite their own policy. If the Government are confident enough about their handling of the pandemic to ease restrictions, and if they have promised an irreversible road map, meaning the industry should not have to worry about further lockdowns, why are they so reluctant to put their money where their promises are?

If all the things that insurers are worried about never come to be, the Treasury will never have to make a payment. What this really demonstrates is the Government’s lack of confidence in their own policies; either that or they have a different definition of what their responsibilities are.

I think every hon. Member here today must have expertise in the industry. I am no expert, but I listen to experts such as Tim Thornhill from Tysers Insurance Brokers when they tell me that insurance is the key to unlock the festival and live events door. On discussions with industry experts, the Minister promised my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) last week that she would release documents relating to her discussion with industry experts and insurers. I am grateful that she has agreed to come and respond to our debate.

There is a precedent, with the Government underwriting insurance in the face of terrorism, and they make a lot of money on that—over £200 million in each of the two previous years. There is a precedent. I beg the Minister to listen to my plea.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Rosindell, and it is also a pleasure to be part of this cross-party supergroup this morning, which has got together to work across party lines and to argue for proper insurance indemnity for events this year from the Government.

I thank the Minister for her attendance, although, as the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine)—who, like me, is on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee—has just said, we would really like to hear from the Treasury, because we would like to know what it has made of all the representations that have been made to it by the industries that we are talking about today. For fronting up for the Government time and again, the Minister deserves some kind of award, but we need to know the answers, and one wonders whether they are currently locked away in a vault somewhere across the road in the Treasury. We want to know what the Treasury really thinks.

As the hon. Member for Winchester did, I will focus today on festivals and live music events, but I will also say a little bit about theatre. I will not go through the whole set of statistics, as the hon. Members for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) and for Winchester have already done. Suffice it to say that one statistic for Cardiff is that across the river from my constituency, in the Principality Stadium, Ed Sheeran played four nights in a row in June 2018 to 60,000 people a night, which is nearly a quarter of a million people over the course of just a few nights. I do not need to spell out to hon. Members and to people watching this debate the economic impact of such events, and their importance to the economy of Cardiff and to the wider economy of south Wales.

In talking about festivals this morning, we want the Government to provide some clarity. If it is the case that it is not going to be possible for them to underwrite events and if it is going to be the case that they do not think that they will stick to their irreversible timetable and will probably have to impose further restrictions in the future, they should say so, because at the moment the sector is being led along on a string effectively and is unable to progress appropriately.

I have heard it said that the Government think that because festivals and live music events are selling tickets they do not need insurance, but of course normally—in a normal year—that ticket revenue would be used to do the build and provide the infrastructure to put on things such as festivals. However, this year is not a normal year, because festivals cannot get any cancellation insurance; they cannot get insurance against not being able to proceed, which would normally be available in the market, as the hon. Member for Winchester said. As a result, that money would have to be returned to ticket purchasers if the event was unable to go ahead and there would be a huge impact on those trying to put on festivals and also further down the supply chain.

That is why the hon. Gentleman—who, as I have said, is on the DCMS Committee, like me—was quite right to draw the attention of that Committee and of the Minister to the possibility of money being taken from people that will never be returned to them, and potentially fraudulent activity taking place around the festival scene this year without the kind of certainty that insurance provides. So we need either insurance to be underwritten for the sector to be able to restart or a clear indication that festivals will not be able to take place and financial support to allow the sector to survive into 2022.

Other countries are doing things about this situation.

[Jamie Stone]

The hon. Gentleman is making a splendid contribution to the debate, which I really appreciate. Does he agree that the longer we delay in getting these events up and running, the more danger there is of people losing momentum and even deskilling, in terms of performance and generating public enthusiasm?

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I have praised the investment in the culture recovery fund, which the Minister will mention in her remarks at the end of the debate—she has to do that; it is an important riff for her as the Minister. There are criticisms, however. In the 1980s, we had the concept of the neutron bomb, which was developed so that it would kill the enemy but not destroy the buildings all around. In a way, the culture recovery fund is a wonderful thing, but if it just saves the buildings and some infrastructure, but does not protect the people in the sector and the skills that the hon. Gentleman mentioned, that will be an additional cost. He is right to make that point.

I was going to mention what is happening in other countries. The Danish Government have announced an event cancellation fund of €67.2 million. The Dutch Government have just announced an insurance fund of €385 million. Finland’s Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment is working on a Government-backed insurance scheme for summer events, to be finalised by the end of the month. The Estonian Government have a scheme. The Germans have a similar fund, of €2.5 billion, to cover promoter risk. I could also mention schemes proposed by the Austrian, Belgian and Norwegian Governments. Such a scheme is not without precedent, because there is a precedent in the creative industries in this country, in the film and television sector. All that many people in the industry are asking for is a similar scheme. It is vital for live music events and festivals that action is taken.

I want to speak briefly about theatre. The theatre sector, and UK Theatre, have been lobbying Government hard for months. Many people involved in theatre production are also involved in film and television production, and they do not understand why the Treasury could provide an insurance indemnity scheme for the film and television industry, but could not provide an identical scheme for the theatre sector, as UK Theatre is asking for. Without a return to normal for theatre production, there will be a huge negative impact on the total economy, including loss of tax revenues and economic activity. That will be felt particularly badly in city centres and some towns.

The insurance market is not offering a scheme of this kind, and it is clear that it will not offer one for the foreseeable future—into 2022 at the very least. The risk exposure figures have been provided to Her Majesty’s Government by, for example, UK Theatre and the new umbrella body for the live sector. The Treasury has not publicly said what is wrong with those figures, and that is what we need to know—if it does not agree with what the sector is saying, it should say so.

We need to hear from the Minister not only about the culture recovery fund, although we understand how important it has been, but about the discussions between her and the Secretary of State and the Treasury. What have the discussions been like, and what is the Treasury saying? If it will not be possible to provide an underwriting insurance scheme, the Government should come clean with the creative industries, so that they can plan accordingly, and Ministers should offer support to help them through to the next stage of this dreadful pandemic.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jamie Stone]

If I understand the Minister correctly, she is saying to us, in drawing the comparison with Germany, that the time is not ripe. Can I then assume that there will be some stage, hopefully as soon as possible, when the time is ripe to look at such schemes?

[Caroline Dinenage]

What I am saying is that the decision is with the Treasury right now. We are working very closely with the Treasury to provide the evidence it needs to make a financial decision on this, and it is a big financial decision. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester hit the nail on the head when he said it is a leap of faith. It is obviously a big financial decision that the Treasury has to make. I am trying to articulate the background within which that decision will be made. But it is absolutely still on the table, and it is absolutely still a decision being looked at right now. In DCMS we are really keen to gather all the evidence that is needed to make that case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Dinenage]

The hon. Gentleman is slightly over-complicating this. I do not think that is the case at all. The film and TV restart scheme was something that many thought would be too difficult, but we were able to do that at pace last year, and by the last quarter of last year we were seeing more film and TV production than virtually any other quarter, so we know that these things can be done despite obstacles.

Also, the hon. Member for Cardiff West must be careful not to brush away the £65 billion-worth of measures announced in the Budget for this year and next, which will support the economy through the pandemic. Those things are literally saving livelihoods every single day, and of course that builds on the existing support already committed, which totalled £353 billion across the economy. The support that has been put in place is world leading and has been vital to the continued survival and recovery of our DCMS sectors. I meet parts of our sectors every week, and they have seen measures such as the furlough scheme and the business support measures as a lifeline allowing their survival.

The hon. Member for Cardiff West talks about bricks and mortar, but it is also about individuals, and there has been a lot of direct support for individuals. At the end of the day, however, the one thing that so many of our great performers, artists and professionals in these sectors want to do is get back to work as quickly as possible. They need to have venues in which to be able to do that. That is why it is important that that support is across the board and why the culture recovery fund has been so successful, with an additional £300 million dedicated to that in the Budget. That is an extension of the original £1.57 billion fund, which is unprecedented. That will safeguard our cultural and heritage organisations, while it also helps support supply chain organisations, which rely so much on them, with supply chain organisations able to apply for both of the rounds so far.

I want to talk a little about the road map and the reopening. The Prime Minister announced the scientific events research programme and a number of hon. Members have asked me about that. It is an integral part of the road map, which will explore how larger events across the cultural and entertainment sectors can reopen safely. Over the spring this will include a series of pilots that will use enhanced testing approaches and other measures to run events with larger crowd sizes and reduced social distancing and evaluate the outcomes. The road map sets out the planned caps on capacity for events when they reopen at stage 3, but the findings will come from all different sectors and settings to determine a consistent approach to lifting the restrictions when the time is right.

I am sure I speak for all of us when I say that I cannot wait to have our theatre, sport, festivals, live music venues and events open as soon as possible. As the Chancellor said in his Budget speech, the Government stand ready to do whatever it takes to help our country and our economy recover from the disruption of the coronavirus pandemic.

[Jamie Stone]

I rather fancied that my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) was hinting, perhaps with tongue in cheek, at my role in events and festivals in the past. I therefore rise to my feet as a former panto dame—I have waited many years to utter those words. When I was in costume, I would have said that it was madness to suggest that I would ever be in the House of Commons to say that.

I thank all who have contributed to this debate. I am more grateful than I can say for their thoughtful contributions, and I am grateful to the Minister, who, within her role, has given us the best answer that she can, but I think it is a moving situation.

I want to touch on several points. In an answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park, the Minister indicated that she might share the documentation of reasoning with my hon. Friend. May I appeal to her to share it with Members present here today? I say this not as an effort to try to score points, but to see whether we can work together constructively to see how we can get the industry back on its feet. I emphasise the point again that it is an investment that we seek. Money injected into an industry that desperately needs it will be a shot in the arm, and that money will in turn be recycled into not only the national economy, but local economies—a point made eloquently by the hon. Member for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely). The hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) pointed out that other countries are putting into place such schemes, so I hope that we are on a road map to doing something similar as and when we can, or as soon as possible.

I want to end with this point: at the end of the day, we are all talking about something that is terribly important to the way we live our lives in the UK, because events and festivals brighten up people’s lives and they are fun. God only knows, after the horrific time we have had with the pandemic, we need some fun in this country, and it would make an enormous difference to everyone’s lives.

Finally, Mr Rosindell, apart from thanking your good self—it is always a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship—I say to the Minister that when we have the Tain highland gathering again, it will be my pleasure to buy her a glass of our excellent local beverage called Glenmorangie.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered Government-backed insurance for live events.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question; I know of his passionate concern about this. The Government have introduced a range of targeted measures to support hospitality and tourism through covid-19, including business rates relief and the new restart support grants, as well as the 5% VAT rate. He will know that his Southport constituency is receiving £37.5 million from the £1 billion towns fund, and that will support the development of new projects there, including a new waterfront conference centre.

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) [V]]

Yesterday, the Government announced that superfast broadband coverage was going to be 97%. That is great: well done, Her Majesty’s Government! In my constituency, the coverage is—can you believe it, Mr Speaker?—78% and yesterday Paul Wheelhouse, the Minister responsible, announced that we would not achieve the full figure until 2026, having already promised delivery by this year. My plea is very simple: please will Her Majesty’s Government step in and sort this out?

[Oliver Dowden]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. The UK Government have provided over £100 million to deliver broadband in Scotland and it really is deeply disappointing to see that the Scottish Government are still failing to deliver the R100 programme effectively. The Scottish National party, I believe, promised 100% superfast coverage by 2021—yet another broken promise. We have already announced that central Scotland will be the very first part of the UK to benefit from our £5 billion investment in Project Gigabit, and I can tell the hon. Gentleman that there will be a stronger role for the UK Government in delivering this programme going forward.

Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) [V]]

Good afternoon, Madam Deputy Speaker. At the outset, as chairman of the gaps in support all-party parliamentary group, may I say how grateful I am to the Chairman of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee for his support and help over the past weeks and months.

As others have pointed out, investing in culture will be part of the key to recovery in all other sectors. It is part of the way we live our lives in this country. As the Chairman of the Select Committee pointed out, live events were among the first to shut down because of the pandemic, and they will also sadly be the last to reopen.

Recently I have referred to the particular needs of our highland games. I and my party are calling for the Government to extend the 5% VAT cut to tickets for live events for up to three years. That is because so far live events, such as the highland games, have simply not been able to profit in any way from the VAT cut, because they have not been selling any tickets whatever. I hope that that will be looked upon with some favour and considered by the Government. That would be very helpful.

Sadly, I have learned today of the cancellation of yet another highland games. The Inverness highland games are not going to be held. It is worth pointing out that these events make a huge contribution to the Scottish economy. One of the downsides of my having become an MP is that I can no longer get away with masquerading as a French or German tourist and getting a free glass of Glenmorangie whisky in the tent at the Tain highland gathering, which is there for foreign visitors only. My face has become too well known. It does raise this point, which is that 25% of the people attending highland games all over Scotland are from countries outwith the UK. One can imagine the amount of money they bring into the UK. They make a very important contribution.

Changing tack to PAYE freelancers and the excluded, I welcome—it would be churlish not to—the culture recovery fund. That has been a good thing, but the reality is, as others have pointed out, that most freelancers have not worked at all in the cultural industry since March last year, so they have not benefited from the fund. As has been mentioned, Equity, the actors’ union, has a view on that. It says:

“40% of Equity members have not received a penny from the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme”,

and that is despite those same people being unable to claim through the job retention scheme.

As chair of the gaps in support APPG, I endorse Equity’s proposals that seek to support these people. One thing we could do is allow freelancers to make a claim based on total income—both trading and non-trading profits—to eliminate the 50:50 exclusion. Equally, I endorse the APPG’s proposal to implement an urgent stopgap grant of £7,500, or £2,500 for three months, under the self-employment income support scheme, to pay PAYE freelancers who have been excluded from Government support.

The fact is that, as has already been said, there is a question mark over the future of the Edinburgh festival, and I have long advocated some sort of Government support for insurance cover. It could be done—insurance cover for terrorism is already done—and I do hope that the Government will look favourably on that. At the end of the day, the Edinburgh festival fringe brings in £500 million in direct spending and a further £560 million in indirect spending to the Scottish economy, so what I say—I think we are all singing off the same sheet this afternoon—is that on the happy day that we get through the pandemic, let us celebrate, but let us also make sure that we have a culture industry that can help us celebrate.

Budget Resolutions and Economic Situation

Jamie Stone Excerpts

Monday 8th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD) [V]]

A very good evening to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As Members are aware, I am a co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on gaps in support. I want to talk about two issues that have arisen from my work on that front.

The first—ironically, almost, given that today is International Women’s Day, as others have pointed out—is maternity. Our APPG suggested certain policies to the Government that could be based on maternity, parental and adoption rights. I am not going to be churlish about this; there were some gives by the Government. They recognised some of our suggestions and have taken action as a result. I acknowledge that and give credit where it is due. Alas, what we suggested on the maternity front in particular, where a lot of people have lost out rather badly, was sadly not taken up by the Government.

It is only right that I should express my thanks at this stage to a number of organisations, including Maternity Action, Pregnant Then Screwed and ExcludedUK, as well as the campaigner Bethany Power, who did a great deal of work. But you know me well enough, Madam Deputy Speaker; I am ever an optimist. I therefore hope that perhaps, as the weeks and months go by, we can still fine-tune the package to try to recognise the sort of people I am talking about.

As the House is aware, I talk a great deal about the highlands. Therefore, I will go very local on my second point arising out of gaps in support. As has been said, the offer on the VAT front is welcome. However, while I recognise that that is helpful to hospitality and cultural businesses, I want to mention our highland games. I speak as a past chieftain of the Tain highland games, which is one of my proudest achievements and really puts being a Member of the House of Commons into the shade. The 5% help is of no use to highland games, because of course no tickets have been sold at all. These games are simply not happening, and this year we are already facing 13 highland games being cancelled. It is obvious to all that highlands games and events of this sort underpin the very fragile economy of parts of the UK such as the highlands of Scotland.

Finally, I say to those on the Treasury Bench that we really need a more finely tuned package to make these events happen in the future. If the Government could look at extending the VAT cut beyond September, that would be very helpful indeed.