Media Bill

John Whittingdale Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 30th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

For information, I intend to call those who have tabled amendments before other Members.

I call Sir John Whittingdale.

[Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

You are absolutely right, Madam Deputy Speaker; I have an amendment that I would like to speak to. It might be slightly unusual for the person who was the Minister taking the Bill through Committee then to seek to amend the Bill on Report, but I am sure it is not unprecedented, and I hope my amendment is nevertheless helpful to the Government. It is certainly my intention that it should be.

I have taken the Bill through Committee, and it has already been subject to a lot of scrutiny by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, in this House and in the other place, and with the publication of a draft Bill. I am therefore slightly surprised to see the number of Government amendments that have been tabled. Most are relatively minor and technical, and I welcome the measure that would correct the anomaly around independent national radio, requiring it to continue to broadcast on AM, even though fewer and fewer people are now accessing radio by those means. It is right to remove that anomaly.

Amendment 78 addresses local television, which was the invention of my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Surrey (Jeremy Hunt). Although it has had a somewhat chequered history, it is successful in a number of areas across the country, particularly outside London. Rightly, the Government have consulted recently on whether they believe there is a long-term future for local TV, and I am optimistic they will conclude that they would like it to continue. The Bill will ensure that those broadcasters that the Government regard as making an important contribution should continue to thrive in a different media landscape. That is the purpose of the prominence provisions, which safeguard public service broadcasters to ensure that whatever means viewer choose to access television, they can find those public service broadcasters easily. Local television is not currently included on the list of channels that should have due prominence. As we move forward into an age when more and more people rely on internet protocol television to access channels, it will become increasingly hard for them if local TV is not obviously available on IPTV sets.

I have a Sky Glass television, which is an IPTV set, and at the moment I cannot get local television on it at all. One reason for that—and the reason the Government have previously given for not including local TV on the list of channels to be given prominence—is the absence of an app to deliver local TV. When I was filling in for the Minister over the past few months I had a meeting with local TV and was told that an app will be forthcoming quite soon that will allow local television to be received by IPTV. The Government suggested in a letter to my right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) that they see a difficulty with that, and that because there are a large number of local television channels it would be difficult to give all of them individual prominence. However, I am assured by local television that they intend to come forward with a single app, which will be available on a number of major platforms and ensure that a specifically chosen geographical location in the country will receive the specific local TV channel that is appropriate for that area. We are only talking about one app. The Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport said in his letter that the Government will continue to monitor the situation and consider increasing the availability of local content.

As we know, media Bills do not come along every day, and this is our single opportunity to update the law covering the range of media services. It is likely that there will not be another opportunity for some considerable time. My amendment would allow Ofcom, at a future date, to recommend the inclusion of a local TV app, as and when it emerges, in the prominence regime. It would ensure that the Bill future-proofs the regime so that it can be amended in such a way. I hope the Government will consider adopting that measure. I understand it is unlikely that they will accept my amendment, but I ask the Minister whether she will continue to look at this issue and, if the Government believe it is appropriate, consider tabling an amendment to that effect in the House of Lords.

On new clause 3, regarding the abolition of section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013, I was slightly surprised to learn from my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) that the inclusion of a firm pledge to repeal section 40, which was not just in the 2017 Conservative manifesto but repeated in that of 2019, was a drafting error. It did not strike me at the time that either the initial pledge or the second one were drafting errors.

[George Eustice]

Is my right hon. Friend saying that there were no drafting errors in the 2017 manifesto?

[Sir John Whittingdale]

There may have been—I am not quite sure which others my right hon. Friend might be referring to, but I am pretty certain that that was not one of them.

[George Eustice]

Nobody ever said that they objected to the cost protections for the press contained in section 40. The arguments against section 40 were always shorthand arguments that essentially claimed falsely that it would require publishers to pay the costs of others—and that only related to one small part of section 40.

[Sir John Whittingdale]

My right hon. Friend is right, but as I think I pointed out on Second Reading, not a single major publisher has chosen to apply for recognition by the Press Recognition Panel through joining a recognised regulator.

[George Eustice]

But is that not precisely because the Government failed to move the incentives that encouraged people to join?

[Sir John Whittingdale]

As the Minister responsible, who said that we would not implement section 40, I had considerable talks. It was made plain that if the Government had implemented section 40, no major publisher would apply for recognition. My right hon. Friend talked about the carrot and stick, and his new clause would require the Government to look for alternative incentives to encourage publishers to apply for recognition, even if the existing carrot and stick were removed. He did not go into detail in his speech about what alternative incentive there might be; it sounded slightly like a reference to Marlon Brando’s making “an offer you can’t refuse”. The press have been absolutely plain: they object to any regulator that carries the stamp of Government approval. That is the fundamental principle that has caused every publisher to say that they will not apply for recognition.

[George Eustice]

My right hon. Friend knows that it is not a Government regulator. The Press Recognition Panel was established by the royal charter on self-regulation of the press. The Conservative party established that as a royal charter rather than a regulatory body for precisely that reason—to accommodate that wish of the press.

[Sir John Whittingdale]

I did not suggest it was a Government regulator, but nevertheless, any regulator that requires Government approval through the Press Recognition Panel is viewed by the press as having a Government stamp of approval, which they regard as unacceptable. My right hon. Friend spoke about the discussions he had, but he would agree that the stick and the carrot at that time were thought to be necessary to persuade red-top publishers such as The Daily Mail and The Sun to join a regulator recognised by the PRP. What I do not think he anticipated—indeed, nobody anticipated it at the time—was that not a single major publisher would agree to co-operate with the regime that was being put in place. That includes The Guardian, The Independent, The Observer and the Financial Times. Not one major publisher said that it would co-operate with the system that was put in place, so it has plainly failed. For that reason alone the Government should revisit the issue, remove section 40, and instead encourage those who do not currently accept the ruling of an independent regulator to join the one in existence, which is IPSO. I know that my right hon. Friend and I will not agree on this point, but his suggestion that it was somehow an oversight to include a commitment to repeal in the manifestos of 2017 and 2019 is simply not correct. He will be aware that there is unanimity among all the major publishers that section 40 represents an attack on media freedom. It is not just the publishers who hold that view; many campaigning organisations, such as Reporters Without Borders, have actually downgraded the UK’s press freedom rating because of the existence of section 40, and it is certainly viewed as an infringement of media freedom.

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[Sir John Whittingdale]

I am extremely grateful to my right hon. Friend. I hope that this is not the only issue on which we agree, but it is certainly one on which we hold the same view. For that reason, I am sorry that my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice) will press his new clause to a vote, because I shall not support him on it.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

We should remind ourselves why we are here: it is because those who were described by Alan Bates, the leader of the Horizon scandal complainants, as “small, skinny people” needed redress against the huge, overbearing press. The Hacked Off website pointed out that in 2021, only 0.6% of more than 14,000 complaints were upheld by IPSO—only 88 cases in total, which is a minuscule number. Is that a sign that the system is working?

[Sir John Whittingdale]

I do not think success can be judged simply on the number of complaints upheld. Indeed, as we have seen in other organisations, such as the BBC, we may find that a large number of those complaints relate to a single issue that has generated a great deal of concern. It is not as simple as, “There were x thousand complaints, and only so many were upheld.” Generally, however, IPSO is definitely an improvement on the Press Complaints Commission, which went before it. It is not perfect—no regulator ever is—and I myself have criticised it for not having yet imposed any fines, but the atmosphere surrounding the behaviour of the press is very different from what it was when, for instance, Hacked Off was created, and when I chaired the inquiry on phone hacking, which led to the establishment of Sir Brian Leveson’s report.

I do not want to detain the House any longer. I intend to press the Government, but not as far as a vote; I should say that I urge the Government to look at ways in which they can support local television through my amendment. Given the point about section 40, I cannot support the new clause tabled by my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth.

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

I want to express my gratitude for the fact that the Bill has been prioritised in this new term, and is progressing quickly. For our public service broadcasters in particular, this legislation is long overdue. I want to refer to my amendment about the language surrounding prominence for PSBs such as the BBC, ITV and Channel 4. The Bill gives public service content an “appropriate” level of prominence on online services, which should make it easier to find not only the apps that take us to the BBC or ITV on a smart TV, but to find those channels on the traditional TV guide with which we are all familiar. However, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee made the suggestion, which I have tabled in the form of an amendment, that the word “appropriate” is perhaps unhelpfully subjective, and should be replaced with “significant”. The prominence of PSBs is an existential issue that should not be underestimated, so I ask the Government to consider that suggestion as the Bill progresses.

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[Thangam Debbonaire]

The hon. Gentleman makes a valid and valuable contribution. My hon. Friend the Member for Barnsley East, the shadow Minister with responsibility for media, has met those bodies recently. We understand the points that he is making and take them fully on board. This new clause, tabled in my name and that of my hon. Friend, is not prescriptive as to how we break the cycle; it leaves multiple options open to the Secretary of State.

I turn to clause 50 and the amendment tabled in the name of the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), who made his points earlier. The phone hacking scandal led to section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act 2013. That scandal involved egregious acts, and the treatment of victims of crime or tragedy by some sections of the media was a disgusting abuse of power. We all say that that should never be repeated. The majority of British journalists are decent and honourable, but there are some who even now continue to drag the good name of that profession into disrepute. That profession is a cornerstone of our democracy and it is important that the public are able to trust it, but at the moment we are at risk of the public losing faith in the profession of journalism, as was certainly also the case before section 40 was created and before that scandal was exposed.

We on the Labour Benches want a press that is regulated in a way that makes it accountable for its reporting and that meets the highest ethical and journalistic standards. We want to see a financially sustainable free press in the UK that can carry on holding power to account. Clause 50 repeals section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act, but if the right hon. Member for Camborne and Redruth pushes his amendment 2 to a Division this evening, we will support it, because it offers a way through by keeping some of what he refers to as the carrots. Indeed, by removing some of the sticks, his amendment would incentivise more publishers to join up with an approved regulator, for the reasons that he has outlined much more coherently and clearly than I can now. We thank him for working co-operatively with us.

[Sir John Whittingdale]

It is interesting to hear that the Opposition intend to support my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), as they abstained in Committee. If a future Labour Government repealed section 40, would they put in place an equivalent or similar measure?