Deregulation Bill

Lord Black of Brentwood Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

Work with me. This amendment is incredibly straightforward. It goes to the heart of one question: why should terrestrial television in the United Kingdom subsidise Sky, Virgin and other providers? More significantly, why should we as taxpayers put money into the pockets of the owners of those companies? As a nation, our terrestrial television is some of the best in the world, of which we should be rightly proud. We have brilliant drama, fabulous sport and exceptional television across the piece. Just look at what Channel 4 did with the Paralympics in the summer of 2012. For me, it is no more complicated than that. It is an out-of-date clause. One can see why it existed way back when. Now the Deregulation Bill gives us the right opportunity to wipe it out. We should all accept this amendment.

[Lord Black of Brentwood (Con)]

My Lords, I very much support this important amendment. Although I have no direct involvement with the broadcasting sector, I should draw attention to my media interests in the register. This debate and this amendment impact on the creative economy and the wider media, particularly in relation to news provision. As we have heard, the pace of technological change across the whole of the media is breathtaking. It is relentless and punishing. It is difficult enough to plan for even one month ahead sometimes, let alone one year. As my noble friend Lord Grade said, we need to look very carefully and very warily at legislation binding the media that is 26 years old and is, to all intents and purposes, from a bygone age, especially where it has implications for jobs and investment.

Where legislation is out of date—Section 73 of the 1988 Act clearly is—it should go. If ever I saw a piece of law that should be put out of its misery, it is this one. That is why the debate on this amendment is so important. Central to it is the health of our public sector broadcasters, who are, in turn, crucial to the sustainability and vibrancy of the whole creative economy. These commercial PSBs have a number of important public service obligations, including obligations to broadcast high levels of original content; significant quotas for spending outside London, as the noble Lord, Lord Macdonald, made clear, and on independent production; and the provision of national and regional news services and current affairs.

We had glimpses earlier of the fact that the UK is fortunate in having such a PSB system that guarantees the provision of well resourced, independent and impartial news from the BBC and the commercial PSBs—ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. All the evidence shows that viewers expect and benefit from effective competition between providers of TV news at national and regional levels. In the regions, ITV is the only competitor to the BBC and provides services to 16 different regions, including the Scottish Borders, as we have heard, ensuring that viewers across the country receive a relevant and local news service. Regional news is important, not only because it helps to keep people informed about local events but because it is a hugely important part of the UK democratic process.

That is why the amendment is important, and why we need to do everything we can to defend the system. To do so, though, we need to be clear that PSB needs to be commercially successful. There are two keys to that. First, the PSB framework has offered the direct benefit of access to the digital terrestrial television spectrum and an appropriately prominent position on the EPG, as the noble Lord, Lord Grade, said. These benefits are crucial to the continued viability of regional news in particular, which is very expensive to make. Without that direct benefit, it is very doubtful that high-quality regional TV news would be viable commercially.

Secondly, the ability of the commercial PSBs to earn a return on investments in original UK TV content is massively important. It is the commercial PSBs that offer by far the most watched news services in the UK after the BBC, at no cost to the taxpayer, and those services depend on continued commercial success in a wide variety of genres of programming.

I support the amendment because I care about our PSB system and the role of news within it. It is more important than ever that the commercial PSBs can make a successful return on their investments and retain their ability to sustain this hugely important public service. Section 73 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, which was designed in a bygone analogue era, is undermining the PSB system and, in turn, damaging the wider creative economy. I hope that my noble friend will have listened to the arguments and that the Government will consider accepting the amendment.

[Baroness Ford (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I, too, support this amendment, which was so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Grade. I declare my interest as chairman of a commercial PSB company, STV plc, which of course operates the Channel 3 licence in Scotland.

As almost all the speakers have said, the amendment focuses on a change that is very long overdue. For many years, the current arrangements for television platform access have been wholly inappropriate to secure the continued investment in original content made by all the commercial PSB operators in the United Kingdom. I, too, urge the Government to develop a commercial and market-orientated solution that recognises the real value of this original content to the pay TV operators. The amendment presents a golden opportunity to effect that change. Often throughout my career I have heard Governments say, “We recognise a need to change but we do not readily possess the legislative vehicle to effect it”. That is not so in this case. By repealing Section 73 of the 1988 Act, this time the change could be very readily and swiftly achieved.

In support of the amendment, I offer additional points to reinforce some of the important points already made. I particularly emphasise that the current legislative framework that determines television access arrangements between channel operators and pay TV platforms is, as everyone else who has already contributed has said, totally outdated, completely inappropriate and biased in favour of pay TV platforms. We have reminded ourselves, and the Government must be clear on this, that, as the noble Lord, Lord Grade, said, the current arrangements, based on legislation set out in the 1980s, had the necessary aim at the time of encouraging the rollout of the cable network in the UK to challenge the analogue monopoly that existed at that time. However, the current landscape is totally unrecognisable from that time, and legislation has simply not kept up with industry changes. Sometimes I think at my board meetings that we have enough trouble keeping up with industry changes, so it is not surprising that legislation struggles to keep up. However, here is an opportunity.

For example, the online providers and aggregators of content are using the lack of clarity in the legislation to exploit the content of public service broadcasters in an online environment. This was simply not foreseen at the time of the original legislation. Indeed, the real and potential value of original content was not properly understood at that time, probably by any of us. No one makes that mistake now. So long as commercial PSB operators carry a must-offer obligation within their licences and pay TV platforms retransmit PSB channels without any charge for carrying that content, the net result is that the PSB channel operators suffer a net outflow of value which, as other noble Lords have said, is subsidising large pay TV platforms. This has to change.