Deregulation Bill

Lord Grade of Yarmouth Excerpts

Monday 16th March 2015 Lords Chamber

In conclusion, as well as welcoming the Commons amendment, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Gardiner, and his Bill team, for the helpful way in which they arranged a number of meetings to listen to our concerns and explain the position of the Government at the time.

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth (Con)]

My Lords, first, I draw attention to my interests in this matter as a former chairman of the BBC Board of Governors, the chairman of Pinewood Studios, an occasional—far too occasional—supplier of services to the BBC, and any other interests in the register.

It has been a very good experience putting this matter to rights, and I offer my congratulations to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe. She and I have not always seen eye to eye on broadcasting matters over many years, but I am delighted to support the remarks she made earlier. I thank the Minister for reaching such a happy resolution on this matter, which means that when the starting gun goes on the charter review debate at the BBC after the election, we can start with a blank sheet of paper and no subsidiary issues that might get in the way. My thanks go to my noble friend and in particular to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, for running with this matter. I have been very happy to support her, I continue to support her and I am very happy to support the government Motion.

[Lord Stevenson of Balmacara (Lab)]

My Lords, although the Minister tried to argue that all sides of the House were in agreement in support for the BBC, I am bound to say that the Government’s position on this issue, repeated at earlier stages of the debate in your Lordships’ House, was precisely the opposite. Had the Government prevailed, that would have had a very destabilising effect on the BBC. The Minister may speak now with the passion of the converted, but we heard him in Committee, we heard him again at Third Reading, and we will remember.

Over time, we have in this country established appropriate procedures for exercising effective but arm’s-length oversight of the BBC involving periodic reviews of the charter and licence and the regular fixing of budgets. The lesson to learn from this episode is that it would be very unwise for any political party to play around with the BBC mid-licence period for short-term political advantage.

We support the independent review being undertaken by David Perry QC. We do not know what the review will recommend on this important but rather narrow question of decriminalising penalties for not paying fines imposed by the courts. But we think it is right to wait for the outcome of the review before any decisions are taken for the simple reason that this would ensure that there will be no significant effect on BBC funding—up or down—before the end of the BBC’s current licence fee settlement, which is due to expire at the end of March 2017.

When the 2010 licence fee settlement was announced, the then Secretary of State said that it would provide,

“a full financial settlement to the end of the year 2016/17, with no new financial requirements or fresh obligations of any kind being placed on the BBC and/or licence fee revenues in this period”.

I am delighted that the Government are now prepared to honour that commitment and we support the amendment.

Deregulation Bill

Lord Grade of Yarmouth Excerpts

Monday 7th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Grade of Yarmouth (Con)]

My Lords, by my calculation, I am the 25th cab on the rank today—licensed or unlicensed, I am not sure.

The Bill is indeed a weighty tome, a very heavy volume. In a previous life, I might have been tempted to put it on one side and wait for the film, but even if it is made at Pinewood, I do not think that would be appropriate.

I should like to refer to two or three matters. The noble Lord, Lord Tope, referred to Clause 34, about short-term use of London accommodation. This being a deregulation Bill, that caught my eye because I was trying to understand why London was separate from the rest of the country in respect of legislation of this kind, whether this was regulation or deregulation, and whether there are homogeneous rules across all London boroughs. That is a source of great confusion to me in a deregulation Bill. It would be very interesting to know, at a time when housing is in such short supply, particularly in Greater London, whether there is cause for reregulation of some kind and why we cannot just be consistent with the rest of the home nations.

The noble Lord, Lord Dubs, with whom I have had many an agreeable conversation over the years on matters of broadcasting, raised the issue of Section 73 of the Copyright Act 1988. That is not in the Bill. The noble Lord eloquently described the anomaly that it has created. Opportunities in the legislative timetable of Parliament to put right things that have gone horribly wrong are very rare, and this is one of those things, at a time when the creative industries in this country are so important to economic growth. The Bill is about growth. The growth of investment in British television product is leaking a lot of value as a result of the 1988 Act, which was designed to create greater competition in the fledgling cable market. The cable market is hardly fledgling now; it is dwarfing the public service broadcasters in this country. It has attracted Liberty, one of the world’s biggest media companies, to own Virgin Media in this country. It appears that the commercial public service broadcasters are now leaking value as a result of Section 73, and this is absolutely the appropriate time in the parliamentary timetable to redress that and ensure that funds are flowing into British production, as they should. I look forward to participating in debates on amendments to that effect.

Clauses 59 and 60 relate to the BBC. I am sorry that my noble friend Lord Fowler is not in his place, but it is probably just as well, because an argument about the BBC Trust would detain your Lordships far too long, and we can take that offline. As my headmaster used to say, “See me afterwards”.

It is of course right that the Government should consult and consider whether it is possible to decriminalise non-payment of the licence fee. However, Clause 60 seems to anticipate charter review—a point made by many noble Lords—which is worrying. We do not know what the funding future of the BBC will be, we do not know what the governance structure will be, and so on: that is all part of a process to come immediately after the election, if it has not started already.

Also, the power of the Secretary of State in Clause 60 could in unscrupulous hands be used in future as a stick to beat the BBC and, perhaps, challenge its independence or even threaten it. I am not saying that the present Secretary of State would have any such thoughts, but it is a worrying trend. I hope that the BBC clauses will get a good debate. I hope that we can get reassurance from my noble friends on the Front Bench that implementation will await the outcome of charter review. It makes no sense at all to put the cart before the horse.

In summary, as I said, I am hugely supportive of a deregulation Bill of this weight. As your Lordships will know, this House is a repository of some of the greatest expertise in the land on a million different subjects. They are all contained in the Bill, and I wish those on our Front Bench all the very best in steering it through.