Media Bill

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 28th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, it is a pleasure but somewhat daunting to follow the noble Lord, Lord Birt. I agree with every word he said. I strongly welcome the Bill. It is timely and necessary. The regulatory framework that governs public service media, not just broadcasting, is in urgent need of updating, given the accelerating changes in technology, media consumption and the wider media ecosystem in the 20 years since the Communications Act 2003. I commend the excellent Library briefing for this debate. It was very helpful.

A number of things that are on my mind have already been mentioned, so I will move swiftly on. As the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, and, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, have already noted, I understand that the intention to drop Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act will almost certainly proceed. It was a manifesto commitment by the Government. However, I will not be the only person to want to put on record that arguments by press agencies about freedom of speech can ring somewhat hollow. Leveson worked on this for good reasons. Freedom of speech and press freedom must not be confused with press protectionism. Victims of press misrepresentation and abuse must be forgiven for suspecting that government can easily be captured by business.

Leveson did not address public concerns for the good of his health. The promises of Leveson still stand. How are they to be fulfilled if Section 40 is dropped? The problem it sought to address has not gone away. Using this Bill to drop the Leveson commitment will not solve the problem that Leveson addressed, and it will not go away. I endorse the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, about press ownership, but I urge a wider and deeper public debate about media ownership per se.

In this speech I shall focus on four points that I urge the Government to pay attention to as we proceed: prominence, genres, metrics, and language. Many noble Lords will address the question of PSB prominence so I will not labour that point here, but if PSB is to be properly valued as part of our media and democratic landscape, it needs particular attention when ensuring that people can see, quickly and easily, where to access it. PSB cannot play an equal role in a commercial battle with companies whose endgame is simply to make money. I think the Government agree about this prominence priority, so it does not need to be pressed further here.

I endorse the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, about language. Please can the Minister tell us what “appropriate” means? Who judges what is appropriate in which circumstances and according to which criteria? In common conversation the word might be useful—it is unspecific and creates space and flexibility—but this is legislation. Noble Lords have asked many questions, in recent legislation passing through this House, about the use of this undefined word. I ask that it not be swapped with “significant”, a word that is commonly used but meaningless unless you say what it signifies. Something can be “significant of” something, but it being “significant” tells us nothing. Perhaps “substantial” or “substantive” would work. Maybe this is pedantic, but it is important for another reason involving metrics that I will come on to in a moment.

My main concern about the Bill has to do with genres, which the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, has already mentioned—or rather the lack of them. The current Bill has dropped specific reference to genres that might be described as “minority interest”, such as children, the arts, science, and religion. I will be specific: guaranteeing space for religion is not about propaganda for any particular faith or religion. The point is simply that you cannot understand the world if you do not understand religion. Religion is not about worldviews or beliefs alone but about prime motivators for individual and communal decisions and behaviours, about how and why people see the world as they do and how their priorities, rituals and communalities shape our societies. In broadcasting terms, that embraces drama, comedy, and current affairs; it is not all about “Songs of Praise”. This is not trivial. The fragilities of our world at present make attention to religion more important than ever, not less.

That brings me to the related issue of quotas, or metrics. I understand the point made by the DCMS Secretary of State at a recent Communications and Digital Committee meeting that the Bill aims to build flexibility in a rapidly changing media environment, but she was not able to answer questions about how the aspiration to ensure adequate PSB coverage might be measured. What are the metrics that Ofcom might use to measure whether or not PSB commitments are being fulfilled? I understand the point about flexibility, but I want to know how Ofcom can do its job in this respect. What are the metrics? There have to be some, surely. If they are not percentages or numbers of hours, what are they? If you cannot measure, you do not know whether commitments are being fulfilled. On Monday Ofcom wrote of the Bill:

“It makes changes to our existing responsibilities—including to our regulation of commercial radio and how we ensure that public service broadcasters deliver against their quotas”.


That makes my point beautifully. If there are no quotas, how can Ofcom ensure that?

In conclusion, I support and welcome the Bill. I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me a few days ago to discuss it. But I have specific concerns, which I will continue to address, along with others, when the Bill comes to Committee.

Media Bill

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fraser of Craigmaddie (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendments 1 to 3 and 7, to which I have added my name, and in doing so, I declare my interest as laid out in the register as a board member of Creative Scotland.

The Bill will set the standard for public service broadcasting and is much welcomed. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, has spotted that currently the Bill removes any overarching principles for public service broadcasting, which I believe is a glaring omission.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, has just excellently introduced, the Reithian principles to inform, educate and entertain have been at the foundation of our public service broadcasting for over 100 years. These overarching principles mean that the values, objectives and practices of public service broadcasters are very different from those in the private sector.

A 2022 report by the Ada Lovelace Institute highlighted the importance of the Reithian principles that guided public service broadcasters in what stories they chose to tell, how they were told and presented, and what programmes were commissioned. By extension, they reflect, support and stimulate the nation of the UK in all its diversity and creativity, and therefore support our world-leading creative industries.

Public service broadcasters already face criticism that they do not sufficiently reflect the public whom they serve, which is why the BBC and Channel 4 attempted to address that by moving parts of their workforce and commissioning outside London—but more of that in amendments to come. In contrast, private organisations such as Netflix are designed to maximise market share and shareholder revenue. They use recommendation systems to drive user engagement with their content. They may have some consideration of social values, but public service organisations are currently legally mandated to operate with a particular set of public interest values at their core. Without these amendments, we would lose that. PSBs are building their own recommendation systems to compete in this new digital age but, as the Ada Lovelace Institute report highlights, they will not work unless public service broadcasters are clear about their own identity and purpose.

Amendment 3 reinstates the role of PSBs in supporting our creative industries in all their diversity. The regional production of drama, comedy, music and other visual and performing arts programming plays a vital role in enabling new talent to be heard, local creative economies to be sustained and regional culture to be supported. The UK’s network of PSBs provides a platform for artists, musicians, songwriters, producers, composers and choreographers, enabling them to reach a wider audience and to gain exposure. For example, many people’s first experience of ballet is only through the Christmas Day ballet production. It is a two-way relationship: as government and funding bodies encourage live performing arts companies to make the most of digital viewing opportunities, it is in partnership with the broadcasters that those skills can be developed.

Amendment 7 recognises that education is not solely the preserve of children and children’s broadcasting. Education is a crucial part of the public service broad- casting requirements. Several of the statutory requirements set out in Section 264 of the Communications Act 2003 relate to educational objectives. The noble Baroness’s amendment picks up on them and ensures that PSBs continue to have a role in lifelong learning.

Engaging adults in lifelong learning, to ensure that we continue to invest in the development of crucial skills, is a theme that emerges from numerous Select Committee reports from your Lordships’ House. Lifelong learning is vital to the success of the UK economy. Broadcast media has a unique power and reach as a medium for inspiring adults to take advantage of learning opportunities and can engage unconfident learners who would not normally consider the possibility of lifelong learning. It is therefore essential that requirements are in place that encourage broadcasters to produce high-quality educational programmes and to give them sufficient prominence to attract viewers.

This is our opportunity to ensure that we clearly define public service values for the digital age. Public service broadcasters are already delivering against the Reithian principles and—as far as I understand from my conversations with some of them, and as the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, said—we believe that they have no objections to these amendments. As a group, the amendments seek to ensure that PSBs continue to provide content considered of value to society, if not to the shareholders. I wholeheartedly support them and hope that the Minister will too.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I support the first four amendments in this group—Amendments 1 to 3 and 7—and will not repeat what has been said so far in the excellent two speeches. However, I support them for a different reason: I think that they lay the ground for later amendments, particularly Amendments 9, 13 and 32. I will make a serious point about those amendments now, partly because I may have to be on a train when the Committee gets to them.

If we take seriously the Reithian principles to inform, educate and entertain, it means doing what the inscription from George Orwell outside the BBC spells out: that people are enabled to be confronted by, or to hear and see things, that

“they do not want to hear”.

That is essential to public service broadcasting and democratic education. That is also why, when we get to Amendments 9, 13 and 32, it becomes so important to cite in the Bill some of the genres that need to be not just glossed over or assumed but recognised as essential to inform, educate and broadcast in an entertaining way. As was said earlier, not everything has to be serious; often we are informed and educated by being entertained. The reference to “EastEnders” was pertinent: we gauge the public conversation by what we see being conversed about in things such as soap operas.

That is why—I would say this, wouldn’t I?—portrayal of religion is so important and needs to be named, as well as children, the arts, science, and so on. These are often called minority interests but in fact, because something is of interest to minorities does not mean that the majority should not be aware of what those interests are. Whenever we talk about religious broadcasting —I refer to my previous interest as the chairman of the Sandford St Martin Trust for nine years—it is not about proselytism or propagating a particular world view; it is recognising that you cannot live in the world and understand it if you do not understand religion. That should be obvious, given what is going on in the world at the moment. We cannot understand the Sunni/Shia divide and how that impacts on politics in the United Kingdom if we do not get informed and educated about that. So it is not about proselytism; it is about education, social cohesion and so on.

That raises another question that I wish to put at this point. How is Ofcom supposed to be able to report on whether PSBs are fulfilling their remit if there are no metrics in the Bill to say what fulfilment of the remit might be? At Second Reading we were told that it will be left to “flexibility”. Flexibility is as flexible as you want it to be, but it is quite possible to go through a whole year and just have a subjective account of what constitutes, for example, religious broadcasting or children’s broadcasting, which puts it into a narrow silo and which, for example, counts out entertainment as a medium for these things. If there are no metrics, how are we and Ofcom to know whether the remit has been fulfilled? I have been told that it cannot be the number of hours you allot to a particular genre, or a percentage quota. I am very happy with that, but what are the metrics going to be? There have to be some; otherwise, it is totally subjective.

We can speak nobly about creative industries, the creative process and what ought to constitute public service broadcasting, but if we do not put some detail in and nail down those things, name the genres and say something about metrics other than flexibility, we cannot guarantee that the remit is being fulfilled.

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I rise briefly to support all my noble friend Lady Bull’s amendments.

The world has changed somewhat since about a century ago. My great-grandfather, Stanley Baldwin, who was the then Prime Minister, would go round to Cowley Street, just around the corner, sit down with Sir John Reith, as he then was, and discuss in some detail exactly how best to use the radio to deliver what he wanted to deliver. He was the first Prime Minister to use public sector broadcasting as a means of mass communication to the electorate. Things have moved on somewhat since then, to the extent that I believe that in recent times certain members of the Cabinet have even refused to appear on the public sector broadcaster, which is a strange development, to put it mildly.

I did some research, and I do not think it is an accident that 43% of the 35 speakers at Second Reading referred directly to the issue we are talking about in this group of amendments. If one wants a metric for the depth, strength and breadth of feeling across the House about this set of principles, that is evidence enough.

Media Bill

Lord Bishop of Leeds Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 20th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

I know that the noble Lord is sticking to the line to take, and nothing is being taken for granted. I completely understand. However, he will understand why I favour the amendment from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson: because it incorporates the structure of this proper legislative reform in relation to on-demand services. It does not apply where somebody has access to on-demand rights and makes them available in a number of places to unconnected persons. That would not necessarily fall to be regulated because it is not exclusive, and the use of exclusivity is really important. It reflects what is done in relation to existing live events. Equally, if it is made available free to air or free of charge, it would likewise not need Ofcom’s permission; again, that is like live events.

The amendment very carefully addresses itself to the listed events—major events of national importance—where they are intended to be available on demand, exclusively by those rights holders only and by nobody else, and behind a paywall. This means, in effect, they are not available as most people would expect to see national events in the catch-up and on-demand world of broadcasting that we now live in. It is an excellent amendment and demands close attention by the Government. I urge my noble friend to consider whether this is now the time to make this additional change to the structure of the regulation of listed events.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, surely at a time when we want children to get away from the telly and actually do sports, it is right that they be confronted by sports that they may know nothing about. Was it not curling, whatever that is, which became very popular and captured the imagination? Most of us could not believe that there was a sport where you push something along in that way.

There is a serious point about how children and young people know what sports are there. It is a bit like the inscription by Orwell’s statue outside the BBC:

“If liberty means anything … it means the right”


to be confronted by opinions you do not like, or something like that. That must go for sports as well, but I really need to make a confession. I live in Headingley; I have never been. Cricket is one of those sports that I suppose some people like. I have never understood it, but I would rather go to curling.

--- Later in debate ---

The UK has a proud history of public service broadcasting, which has enriched this country for over 100 years. It has been the cornerstone of a thriving creative economy, of British stories for British people, and of a dynamic and informed British democracy. That is what we are seeking to future-proof today, and it has never been more important.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, I endorse everything that the noble Baroness has said apart from the language point. Why is “significant” an improvement on “appropriate”, when neither of them are defined? “Significant” has to mean significant of something—we might think that it just means “a lot”, but it does not. It is as meaningless as “appropriate”, indefinable and cannot be quantified.

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)]

To my mind, “significant” is very different from “appropriate”, which is a wishy-washy, woolly term, whereas “significant” is a specific term.

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

My Lords, it is not. If we went around the room and asked, “Please quantify it, or tell us what it means”, I think we would—

[Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury (LD)]

What word would the right reverend Prelate use?

[The Lord Bishop of Leeds]

I have struggled with it, but “substantial” or “substantive” might get us somewhere, rather than something that does not actually mean anything. The General Synod of the Church of England has a similar problem; it put “collegiate” in some recent legislation when it meant “collegial”—it had nothing to do with colleges. I worry about putting things in legislation that cannot be defined.

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

The right reverend Prelate is nothing if not consistent. He has been raising what “appropriate” means in the Bill from the word go.

This group of amendments, and the debate which we have just had, is in many ways at the heart of the Bill. At its heart is the issue of our public service broadcasters as the cornerstone of our broadcasting sector in the UK, investing, as they do, billions of pounds in original productions and creating content that is trusted, valuable and entertaining for UK audiences. In return for the high standard of programming and investment that public service broadcasters provide, their channels have been made easy to find on linear television sets—to the benefit of audiences across the country. However, amid rapid changes in how viewers access television and content more generally, the prominence regime, which has not been updated for decades, is at increasing risk of becoming diluted and outdated.

It seems there are two major issues. First, public service broadcasters are in danger of being cut out of view, as noble Lords have said in this short debate, as global content players and platforms strike international deals with online platforms for prominence. Secondly, as a result, our public service broadcasters are at risk of being forced to concede increasingly material percentages of their revenue to those platforms simply to appear on them.

In this situation, it seems that almost everybody loses out—from audiences to the wider UK production economy, even the platforms themselves, which might find themselves in a position where they cannot promote the content that UK viewers most want to see. A new prominence framework for the digital era, therefore, was always going to be crucial. These amendments address how prescriptive such a new regime should be in legislation.

We on these Benches welcome that the Government have avoided explicitly spelling out what prominence looks like in the Bill or making primary legislation restrictive or resistant to future changes in technology and behaviour. Instead, we endorse a principles-based approach based on finding mutually beneficial carriage deals between what are branded “designated internet programme services” and “regulated television selection services”, with Ofcom able to provide a framework in which those negotiations can operate. Ofcom must show that it can and will undertake this important duty as a regulator. There must be strong dispute resolution and enforcement powers for Ofcom, including the ability to impose significant penalties as a result of non-compliance. That allows for maximum flexibility in both legislation and negotiations, as well as proper protections where agreements cannot be reached. It also allows for the regime to be expanded where necessary to capture new technology via which people might be watching television content. Platforms and PSBs have a history of successful negotiations, creating mutually beneficial deals and partnerships that it would be counterintuitive for the prominence regime to undermine.

We support the drafting, but we seek some clarity on the requirement to secure “appropriate” prominence. This was a major topic of discussion during the pre-legislative scrutiny process, with the majority of PSBs calling for this to be upgraded to “significant” prominence. The arguments were based mostly on the differences between linear and digital streaming landscapes.

I invite the Minister to provide a full response to the legitimate argument for “significant” prominence, and to outline the reasons why the prominence requirement has not been upgraded. What conversations have been had with Ofcom on how the detail of the regime will be set out in the code of practice to ensure that it meets its aims? We will need a strongly empowered Ofcom if the Bill is to succeed.

The BBC has consistently called for the possibility of including remote controls and multi-use devices in the prominence regime. I know that its latest thinking is that electronic programme guides could be given prominent buttons on remotes, rather than one PSB in particular. Though we are all keen to see this legislation on the statute book, our aim is that we fully seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to ensure that public service content is easily findable in the digital age. The Minister must assure us that that can be achieved and tell us how.