Deregulation Bill

Lord Deben Excerpts

Tuesday 11th November 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for his amendment. The Government are clear that busking can enrich a community’s quality of life and generate a positive atmosphere enjoyed by many people. Regrettably, though, street entertainment can sometimes be a source of conflict between buskers, businesses and residents. Complaints of noise, nuisance and anti-social behaviour can arise, and police and local councils have to respond and try to find solutions.

The Government do not start from the position that busking requires regulation and control. Busking should be about freedom of the individual, and only if necessary should local action be taken to curb certain excesses. To answer the noble Lord, Lord Rooker, although I am still waiting for some advice, there is actually no general legislation on the subject of busking but local authorities can have policies on it, including codes of conduct or permit regimes, and occasionally by-laws and local authority legislation, such as the London Local Authorities Act 2000. That Act enables London councils to license busking. Indeed, it is a matter for London councils to determine whether or not they utilise these powers.

The amendment proposes that a government Bill should seek to overturn private legislation promoted by London local authorities and passed by Parliament. If we were to accept the amendment, the Government would indeed be saying that London councils should not have the option to decide whether or not to license busking based on local circumstances. Indeed, we feel that this is not a subject for top-down government solutions; it is for local authorities to determine fair, reasonable and transparent policies in relation to managing our streets.

As far as the Metropolitan Police Act 1839 is concerned, while Section 54(14) is rarely used, the Metropolitan Police need to retain the provision to give their officers the tactical option of dealing with what they have called “busking-related offences”. We are seeking to strike a balance between freedom to busk and having to control nuisance caused by persons with no musical intent.

[Lord Deben (Con)]

I have often had discussions with the Metropolitan Police. I find the phrase “busking-related offences” precisely the kind of comment always made when you are suggesting that things might be changed. Perhaps the Minister could describe a “busking-related offence” that is not covered by any other legislation.

[Lord Gardiner of Kimble]

My noble friend always intervenes to engage the Committee in important issues with his own touch. It is important to say that I know what he is saying but that, at the same time, if the Metropolitan Police need to have the ability to ensure that they have some means by which they can have assistance as regards a certain possible alleged assistance, for all the cynicism that there may be about the Metropolitan Police, we have to place our trust in them.

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[Lord Stoneham of Droxford]

My Lords, the main arguments have been made in favour of these amendments but I have just one or two points to make. We have to remember how the growth of pay TV is such that its revenues now hugely exceed those of our public service broadcasters. Sky TV’s revenues are more than twice the BBC’s, which gives it huge power. The Government are considering a review of licence fee collection, but are not prepared to accept some changes to this Bill along the lines of this amendment. Why on earth are they not prepared to have a review or consultation on the proposals which stand in this amendment—and the sooner the better?

[Lord Deben]

My Lords, I believe that my noble friend will realise that my earlier intervention had a degree of mischievousness to it, as I had come in specifically to address this particular amendment. I do so for three reasons. First, sometimes we on this side of the House have been disappointed with the Deregulation Bill, because quite a number of things have been deregulated that really do not seem to have been very important. There has been a tendency to add up the number of things that we have got rid of. On one occasion my noble friend had to justify the removal of a statutory right from someone who was still able to exercise it voluntarily—not, I thought, one of the biggest things that we have ever done in government. I am particularly concerned that when we have an opportunity to make a change that is really worth while, we should do it.

The second reason for my concern is that sometimes one of the ways you can judge the validity of a proposition is to see who opposes it. For much of the time in my period in the House of Commons, there were one or two Members on my own side from whom, when I knew they were in favour of something, I was almost automatically on the other side. I believe that that is true of both sides of the House: we all have bellwethers, who are always extremely useful if we have not quite grasped what is behind the issue. My noble friend’s characterisation of the dual position of Fox News is one that deserves considerable investigation. The reason that people do not want that is because they make money out of it. We therefore have to ask ourselves some very simple questions. Should they make money out of it? Is it in the public interest that they make money out of it? Is it money that could be better spent somewhere else?

That brings me to my third point. Torn aside from all the history, the phrases, the arguments and the discussions, this is a simple matter. We once had a different system, and we had different rules to deal with that system. The system has changed but the rules have not. Would it not be sensible to change the rules now that the system has changed? If there is a big reason for deregulation, and there are several, the biggest of all is that many Administrations suffer from the inability to get rid of good things when they become bad. You can go round the whole Continent of Europe and find all sorts of bits of regulation that were frightfully good at the time when they were put forward but which now get in the way of trade, make it more difficult for people to innovate, and distort the market.

I am not always known for my upholding of the free and unfettered market, mainly because most markets are neither free nor unfettered. However, I wish to say that here there is an obvious way in which a Conservative-led coalition can make the market freer. In those circumstances, seeing as it appears to have the support of the Opposition as well as that of its coalition partners, there is not much reason for saying that this is not a sensible amendment. I therefore hope that my noble friend will find it possible, if not to give way on this occasion, at least to indicate that he has every intention of giving way at a more amenable moment, but before the Bill passes.

[Lord Dubs (Lab)]

My Lords, I have enjoyed listening to the speeches on the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Grade, who gave a very powerful indictment of the present situation. I do not know what the Front Benches will say to this.

When I was first in the Commons in 1979, a small Bill or measure was working its way through—I cannot remember what it was—and both the Front Benches were passionately in favour of it. I ended up in the Lobby, voting against it with friends, who said, “When both the Front Benches agree, we’d better all be careful”. I do not know about that. However, when Governments are in difficulty, our brilliant officials put forward a number of ideas or thoughts. One is to say, “Accept the principle, but not now”. That is pretty much what Governments do in order not to have to do anything. The other thing they could say to get out of it is, “Well, we’re going to have a review”, because that puts it all into the long grass. Or they can say, “This measure has other implications, and we’ve got to think about those”. Those are all stock excuses that the civil servants, in their brilliant and imaginative ingenuity, pull off the shelf and say, “Here, Minister; these will get you out of the mess you’re in”.

The Minister is in a bit of a mess, because people with far more experience in the industry than me have all united to condemn this anomaly, which, frankly, in logical terms, cannot be defended. I bow to the experience of many Members of this Committee who have far more media experience than I have. I served for a brief time on the ITC and for a slightly longer time on the Broadcasting Standards Commission, but we on the commission certainly did not deal with matters of this sort, so I accept that noble Lords here have far more experience in this than I have.

I suspect that the Minister will say that he accepts the principle, and then there will be a big “But”; I look forward to hearing that. However, we are in a ridiculous position if he does not accept it anyway. We have a brilliant creative industry in Britain; our television creativity is second to none. We are allowing it to be weakened by this anomaly, which dates back many years as a way of protecting a small and up-and-coming cable industry. The time has come to say, “No, there’s no point in this”.

We have to support our creative industries and, in terms of competition, have at least a semblance of a level playing field, which we simply do not have at the moment. We are allowing the public service broadcasters to subsidise the pay TV platforms, and surely that is not right in any approach to competition policy. In a normal situation, one would say that these things have to be negotiated freely between the parties and, where they cannot be negotiated freely because of anomalies, we should get rid of the anomalies. Good heavens, I am in the Labour Party and I am arguing for competition—what is going on here? What we do not want is this partly hidden subsidy.

Of course, as has been said, Virgin Media and Sky are willing to enter into such a process for the channels not covered by Section 73—in other words, ITV2, ITV3 and ITV4. It does not make sense even in those terms, any more than it makes sense in terms of what News Corporation is doing in the United States. There are many ridiculous defences of the present position and they just do not stand up at all. I would argue that Section 73 has outlived its useful life. It defies logic, it defies fairness, it defies competition policy and it might defy even the ingenuity of the Government to defend it.

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[Lord Deben]

Does the noble Lord notice that he is almost exactly paralleling the suggested answer that was given to him by his noble friend Lord Dubs? I respectfully say that it is supposed to be Ministers who listen to the civil servants giving them those ideas; I thought it was the Opposition who were supposed to get out of that and be free to be able to say, “Well, we may have got it wrong in the past but perhaps we are now on the side of the progressives who have been so far putting forward this case”.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara]

I am always grateful for comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Deben, whose expertise and knowledge are legendary in this House, but, of course, prospective Ministers might also be wise to think about what civil servants are advising.