Broadcasting (Amendment) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019

Lord Liddle Excerpts

Wednesday 6th February 2019 Lords Chamber

It is clear that this instrument does not live up to the claims made for it in the Explanatory Memorandum. That said, it is still needed to provide protection for UK citizens and a degree of certainty for the providers of broadcasting services here, but I hope I have made clear that exiting the EU will be accompanied by additional burdens for our hugely successful broadcasting sector and the wider creative industries. I hope the Minister will acknowledge that this will be the case and commit the Government to doing all they can to protect our creative industries by, for example, maintaining a strong copyright regime and the existing very successful production incentives of tax breaks. Above all, would the Minister be at least willing to pick up the recommendations from my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones and many on these Benches who have been calling for a rethink on some of the elements of the proposed new immigration system so that broadcasters and others in the creative industries can continue to access highly skilled talent from the EU 27 after Brexit?

[Lord Liddle (Lab)]

My Lords, I support that excellent speech from the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath. It was extremely well argued and well researched and brought out a series of very real concerns. I have sat patiently through these discussions. We are seeing how Brexit will potentially destroy some of the jewels in the crown of Britain’s industrial and economic capacity. There is no more striking case of this than in broadcasting, which is one of Britain’s great success stories.

My experience of this is as a member of your Lordships’ Internal Market Sub-Committee of the European Union Select Committee, which did a thorough report on non-financial services and took evidence from broadcasters. At the time I was really shocked by the concerns expressed about the viability of their activities in this country. There is no doubt, whether to a greater or lesser extent, that what we are talking about will destroy opportunities for hundreds of young people who would otherwise have the chance of really fulfilling jobs in the media and broadcasting sectors.

No one I recall coming across in this field believes that the European convention is a full substitute for the EU directive. I would like to hear on what basis the Minister thinks it is. It clearly is deficient in that it is not comprehensive and does not have any means of enforcement through the Commission and the court. The fact is our industry is showing that it has no confidence in this poor substitute by the fact so many companies are relocating to the continent.

One thing about the statutory instrument really worries me. What we are doing with it—I can see why from the point of view domestic regulation—is saying that from now on we will no longer have the country of origin principle, but the country of destination principle. That will be used against us by commercial interests on the continent that want to prevent full UK access to the market. They will say, “You want to switch to a country of destination arrangement. That means we insist on the right to regulate your right to broadcast in our country”. This is very bad news for the British entertainment and broadcasting sectors. The Minister has many difficult questions to answer.

[Lord Pannick (CB)]

My Lords, I share the concerns so powerfully expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Foster. His speech demonstrates that these regulations, like so many of the exit regulations we are debating, raise fundamental policy questions. They are being presented under Section 8 of the withdrawal Act and other powers as merely transitional provisions designed to tidy up loopholes, but they are not. They raise fundamental issues of policy.

I have a specific question for the Minister concerning those broadcasters based in EU states that are not parties to the Council of Europe’s European Convention on Transfrontier Television. As the Minister and the noble Lord, Lord Foster, have explained, there is currently no need for Ofcom to license them because they are based in another EU state. As I understand these regulations, and the Minister will correct me if I am wrong, broadcasters based in non-convention states, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ireland—apart from for Irish-language programmes—Sweden and Denmark will now need to be licensed by Ofcom. Is it right that they will have to apply for a licence on 30 March or before then, or will there be a transitional provision by which they will be granted one automatically by reason of the fact they were previously covered by the EU directive?

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[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

This SI does not relate specifically to the creative industries; it is more to do with the broadcasting industry. There is a link between the broadcasting industry and the creative industries, but this deals with things such as production, which have historically tended to follow broadcasting. We have not made that assessment yet, because it is too early to tell, but clearly there is the possible danger that, if all broadcasters move their editorial and head offices to an EU country, production might go with them. Obviously, that would depend on where they go. It is too early to tell on that specific point, but the tax credits and other things I talked about will specifically help the creative industry, rather than broadcasters.

[Lord Liddle]

I am grateful to the Minister for answering the points I raised, but I am concerned about two things. First, I am a bit disturbed to hear that the Government are reading about what is happening in the newspapers, rather than being in constant consultation with this important sector of the industry. Secondly, if there were good will, the European convention might be an adequate substitute for European regulation; but in this situation we are talking about no deal, where there will be no good will.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

We are not—as noble Lords might have realised—reading about this only in the papers, although we do read them. We have had extensive consultation—not perhaps the public consultation where all pros and cons are publicised, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, would prefer. But noble Lords should be under no illusions: we have had extensive consultation on this situation and this specific SI, not only with Ofcom, which has been instrumental in drafting the SI to address the problems of regulation of television services—how they should be construed and defined—but with the sector. We have organised round tables at ministerial and official level. We have included AETN, AMC Networks, BBC Studios, Channel 4, Discovery Channel, Disney, ITV, NBCUniversal, Nordic Entertainment Group, Sky, Sony, WarnerMedia, Viacom and Viasat. We have met these and further broadcasters on a bilateral basis, because a lot of these discussions are commercially sensitive, depending on what they are going to do with their establishments to meet the problems of Brexit. I reiterate that this is an issue about Brexit, not about this SI, which is about the regulation—making sure that a regulatory system exists if we have no deal.