Media Bill

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 28th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as a broadcaster on Times Radio, chairman of Marlow Film Studios and chairman of Common Sense Media in the UK. It is a great pleasure to follow the excellent speech of the noble Lord, Lord Hall. I loved working with him when I was a junior Culture Minister many years ago.

Many noble Lords have said during the debate that this is the biggest media Bill for 20 years. Of course, the last big media Bill, in 2003, created Ofcom. It was genuinely a very big media Bill and Ofcom has indeed proved itself to be an effective and robust regulator. It has increased its reach and powers, even to the extent that it now sits in your Lordships’ Chamber, keeping watch over the debate to see that we stick to the rules and give it appropriate praise. It has taken over the regulation of the BBC, which I oversaw and was very much in favour of. But when it comes to broadcasting, interestingly, Ofcom is wrestling now with the difficult question of impartiality—particularly some of the challenges posed to it by, for example, new and innovative stations such as GB News, which is testing the boundaries.

Interestingly, there does not seem to be much room in the Bill or this debate to discuss impartiality, or indeed the Broadcasting Code itself and whether it is up to speed. I am not putting forward a specific view here. There is a particular recognition by Ofcom that the broadcasting landscape is changing as more people are able to start television channels, but a debate on how the Broadcasting Code should adapt to this changing landscape is perfect for this House.

This is not a very important or very big Bill. That is not an insult to either the Government or the Minister, because we are simply tweaking the edges. In my view, the biggest media Bill we have had since 2003 was the Online Safety Act, which gave Ofcom very important powers to regulate the content of platforms. That, of course, encapsulates the change we are debating, because we are now a country that watches streamed content, and people are moving in their droves online. That is what the consumer is doing naturally, as the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, pointed out in her robust speech on the quality of children’s programming, for which she has been a staunch advocate for many years.

It is true that, as my noble friend Lord Mendoza said, the streamers make great investment in the UK but the link to the public service broadcasters is important. Many of the senior executives you might meet from these big companies trained at places such as the BBC, so we still provide not just quality broadcasting but quality broadcasting executives to the streamers. It seems that at the heart of this debate is the support for our PSBs, particularly the BBC, no matter how much it annoys us. The existential question at the heart of the debate, which we have to address, is: what are we going to do when all the content we consume as British subjects is owned by the Americans? It will be on Netflix and Disney; it will be on Amazon, Apple and YouTube. If we are to preserve British cultural content, if we believe that to be important, we are going to have to support as best we can the BBC and the public service broadcasters. That may mean asking difficult questions such as whether their three streaming services should be allowed to merge— presumably in the face of opposition from the Competition and Markets Authority —and whether we can bring a degree of scale to this debate in order to have any sense of competition.

I was glad that the noble Lord, Lord Hall, mentioned that he was pleased that radio has its own section in this debate, because radio is something I am passionate about. While I might have used this opportunity to big up Times Radio, what I actually want to talk about is Global. I was delighted to see that the founder of Global, Ashley Tabor, got a CBE while the chief executive, Stephen Miron, who has led it for 16 years, has just announced that he will be stepping down and becoming the chairman. Of course, the noble Lord, Lord Allen, one of our own, is the current chairman. It is a great British success story because we love radio in this country. Global took some assets such as Capital Radio and has turned them into real broadcasting powerhouses. It has been helped to do that by a process of deregulation, so I am pleased to see that the Government are continuing that process.

Behind deregulation lies the ability to trust the broadcasters to know where their audiences are and to use technology to provide local content—not necessarily having to be based locally, but still able to present local content. On that point, I would challenge how we have debated genres for public service broadcasters, because if we sit in this Chamber and decide what we think are important parts of the broadcasting genre land- scape, we will end up disappearing down a rabbit hole. I would err on the side of deregulation simply to give our broadcasting companies, whether public service broadcasters or commercial, room to thrive.

Specifically on radio, I would love to hear the Minister’s views on switchover. I avoided the date for switchover like the plague. There is nothing worse than having a person of a certain age with eight FM radios, one in the garden shed, coming at you if you tell them that they have to buy a digital radio. It seems that, rather like DTT, this should be led by the industry. I am a passionate supporter of community radio and would be interested in the Minister’s views about its future. I would also challenge the BBC because, again, if there is any area where the BBC can have a major impact, it is on local radio. I simply do not understand why it keeps pulling back from local radio and making such a mess of it.

The regulation of video on demand is fascinating. I would love to see how it is to be implemented in practice—how to effectively regulate a library of content with things such as impartiality or a watershed. I am delighted that Channel 4 can now invest in its own content. The debate on privatisation, which again I was open-minded about, proved to be an enormous and costly distraction for Channel 4. I do not agree with my noble friend Lord Bethell that the British Board of Film Classification should be given a monopoly on ratings; I should say that Common Sense Media provides excellent ratings, which are loved by British parents, and there should be a choice. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson, that the one issue we have not debated, partly because we do not have any answers, is the impact of artificial intelligence on content.

I end by congratulating my noble friend Lord Forsyth on moving his amendment. I did not realise that if you put in a regret amendment, you get to speak at the beginning and the end of the debate. I put the House on notice that I will be putting down a regret amendment on every Second Reading of every Bill that comes before your Lordships in future.

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

I completely agree with my noble friend that no one should be given a monopoly on minimum standards. However, my amendment will be advocating that there should be minimum standards.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

I look forward to supporting the noble Lord’s amendment.

Media Bill

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 8th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Benjamin (LD)]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 33 in the name of my noble friend Lady Bonham-Carter—I thank her for the name check—which I have put my name to in support. I also support the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, in everything she said in her speech. I declare my interests as set out in the register.

When I started my career in television, more than 50 years ago, diversity and inclusion was not a priority for public service broadcasters. I personally had to break down so many barriers to get diversity on the agenda to where we are today. Thankfully, enormous strides have been taken and the diversity landscape has been transformed, both in front of and behind the camera. Although we have not yet reached what I call “diversity nirvana”, we are well on the way. Broadcasters such as ITV have made huge progress with their diversity and inclusion strategy and should be applauded.

But, talking to people across the industry, the big concern is the redundancies that are sweeping throughout the industry, combined with the slowdown in commissioning, which in turn will lead to many production companies going out of business and will therefore have a negative effect on all the diversity gains over the past few years. As ITV and Channel 4 look for new financial models and tighten their belts, they need to make sure that they do not take their eye off the ball when it comes to diversity and inclusion, because most TV workers are freelancers and work for independent production companies. So perhaps some programme-level data is necessary in order for us to properly see how many of the PSBs’ full-time staff are from under- represented backgrounds and how much of their programming is made by diverse talent from the freelance community.

Adeel Amini, a series producer and the founder of The TV Mindset, said, “While PSBs have certainly been saying all the right things regarding diversity, their impact on the ground level and on the wider industry structure as a whole has been harder to see. In fact, many people from underrepresented backgrounds feel like the industry has gone backwards. Given the current crisis, they feel they are being squeezed out quicker than ever before. This particularly applies to roles at mid and senior level, with not enough representation at decision-making level. It’s important that diversity is seen not as a box-ticking exercise, but something that demands accountability if we are to change the fabric of this industry and make it truly welcoming and inclusive to all”.

Amendment 33 is very much the start of making this process a reality.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

My Lords, I shall just slip in on the back of the excellent speech on diversity from the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, because this is a subject very close to my heart. I think Amendment 33, put down by the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter, is very telling in calling for public service broadcasters to put forward a diversity strategy.

But I would go behind the amendment and say that, in my experience, it is often the case that public service broadcasters can hide behind a strategy, and a strategy can often be an excuse for inaction. I remember that when I first got involved in the diversity in broadcasting debate, which is now more than a decade ago, I was very struck by the fact that, when we had a meeting with the broadcasters—there were three main broadcasters in play: ITV, BBC and Sky—the BBC came in and said, “We totally get what you’re saying and we’re going to produce a strategy”. ITV came in and said something in between. Sky came in and said “We’re just going to go for 20%”—and it did go for it, in terms of people both in front of and behind the camera. So it is very important that the Minister himself gets very engaged with the broadcasters, because if they simply put strategic documents on his desk, nothing will change.

The other important part of any strategy that is legislated for in this Bill is that it brings forward proper, in-depth statistics about what is happening in broadcasting in terms of diversity and equality. On that point, I would like the Minister to update me on the Diamond network, which was the measurement standard put in place in the mid-2010s in which broadcasters had to report for every production. It gradually included the independent producers, because that was another thing that we discovered made life more difficult, because you then had to go to all the independent production companies and bring them within the system. What has happened to the Diamond system? What kind of statistics is it throwing up that reveal what is actually happening in broadcasting?

I am fully aware that, when one talks about diversity, there may be a small element of the public—perhaps a Venn diagram overlapping with Garrick Club members—who regard talking about diversity as some sort of woke totemic point. But the point is that we live in an extremely diverse country. It is so important—and it really emphasises why this Bill and broadcasting are still so important, no matter how diverse and fragmented broadcasting has become in terms of platforms—that people in this country are able to tell their stories and see themselves represented. Equally, to echo the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, it is not just the people in front of the camera; it is the people making the programmes and making the decisions about what is commissioned. You can have as many diverse people as you like appearing in a television programme but, to be blunt with the Committee, if the people commissioning the programmes are all white, those are the stories that will get told.

As far as the other amendments are concerned, since I am on my feet, I am obviously very much in favour of the principle that the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, put forward about putting back the Reithian principles into broadcasting. But I simply say at the beginning of what will be a mammoth session of days and days of scrutiny of this Bill that I am also very deregulatory minded. It is important for the Committee to be aware as much as possible that broadcasters sit under a plethora of regulations and there must also be a mindset as we debate this Bill that we do not simply put every single issue and principle that we care passionately about—albeit I am now massively contradicting everything I have just said—into the Bill, because technology is changing rapidly, costs are rising, as the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, hinted, and putting a lot of people under pressure, and people need flexibility. To a certain extent we need to trust our broadcasters, for whom quality programme making is to a certain extent embedded.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, this has been a fascinating debate, capped by a single show of dichotomy from the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey. I am sure that most of us found it both entertaining and enlightening, in line with true Reithian values.

As we draw this debate to a close, we should congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Bull, on tabling her amendments in this group. As we have heard, they broadly relate to the Reithian principles that have under- pinned public service broadcasting for much of the last century. We on the Labour Benches have co-signed Amendments 1 to 3 and 7. Additionally, we support Amendment 8 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Boycott, so ably spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. We also support Amendment 33 on diversity. On reflection, having spoken to my colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Thornton, I feel that we should have had a separate debate on the whole issue of diversity. It is merited in the context of the Bill. The noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, underlined the importance of workplace diversity, as referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Bonham-Carter. There is much to think through about what we see and how it is measured to ensure that our public service broadcasters reflect the diversity of our great nation.

I turn to the Reithian principles. My honourable friend Stephanie Peacock in another place said that she welcomed the attempts to simplify the remit of PSBs. I made a similar observation at Second Reading. As we have heard, a number of commentators have argued that this may have the unintended consequence of leading to rather more restricted content. The Communications Act 2003, which this part of the Bill seeks to update, gave a fair expression of the PSBs’ Reithian principles. Over time, these have become partly enshrined in particular genres. These amendments attempt to take the debate beyond genres and to talk to the issue of the fundamental purpose of public service broadcasting, in particular the purpose of broadcasting in a multimedia world now tackling the challenges of the digital age and digital content.

At Second Reading I said that, while the Bill was very welcome—it continues to be very welcome—and for the most part highly supportable, it seemed to lack an overarching purpose and principle: an abiding vision, if you like. As we have heard, Lord Reith believed that PSBs should “inform, educate and entertain”. The 2003 Act sought to flesh out what that meant. Labour enshrined those principles in legislation. In that regard, it did a more than serviceable job. This new legislation seeks to do it slightly more flexibly. Flexibility is one thing, but I think we need firm statements of principle and purpose. These amendments move to set Reithian standards and values in a more modern context.

We want public service broadcasters to retain high standards of content. We want them to maintain high- quality production and editorial integrity, as referenced in Amendment 1. We want to see content that meets the Reithian dictum of informing, educating and entertaining, while recognising the role of the sector in stimulating, reflecting and supporting the cultural and creative industries.

Finally, these amendments take us to the educative purpose of public service broadcasters and help promote a culture that values learning as a lifelong activity to serve all. Together, one could paraphrase a sort of John Prescott-ism and place old-style Reithian values in a modern setting. For that, and for the other reasons I have set out, we are very happy indeed to support this group of amendments. We hope to receive some words of encouragement from the Minister. I do not think public service broadcasters will object at all to this renewed obligation. It does much that will help Ofcom in its periodic reporting on this aspect of the public broadcasters’ remit.

Media Bill

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

My Lords, it is an extremely surreal moment to stand up just as the Prime Minister is about to walk out of the door of No. 10, maybe to announce a general election for 4 July. Of course, if that does happen it means we will be dealing with these very important issues during the wash-up process.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

I just wanted to let the noble Lord know that Downing Street is delaying the announcement for 10 minutes so that we can hear his speech in full.

[Lord Foster of Bath (LD)]

I am always grateful for suggestions from my friend, the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey.

The amendments that have already been debated are extremely important. I am particularly grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, for explaining the somewhat complex details surrounding the amendment proposed by the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge. These amendments are really important in the context of going back to the sort of local radio stations we used to enjoy. He is also right to point out that a number of our debates have already demonstrated how important it is for Parliament to give a clear direction to Ofcom about its various activities.

I will concentrate on my Amendments 75 and 76. On Monday, I referred to the vital importance of Sections 319 and 320 of the Communications Act in creating an impartiality framework for TV and radio, building on earlier ones. That tradition of impartiality is the basis for the very high level of trust in our broadcast journalists—a tradition as vital for radio as it is for television. As I said on Monday, in an era of disinformation and conspiracy theories, spread so easily and quickly via social media, those impartiality requirements and the trust they engender in broadcast news and information are more important than ever. However, they are now under threat from a combination of a new generation of opinionated news stations and what appears to be the increasing reluctance of Ofcom to implement Parliament’s will.

Those impartiality rules, laid down by Parliament in 2003, are very clear. Section 319(2)(c) of the Act lays down that one of the standards objectives to be enforced by Ofcom is that

“news included in television and radio services is presented with due impartiality and that the impartiality requirements of section 320 are complied with”.

Section 320 states clearly that, for every radio and television service, due impartiality must be preserved in—this is critical—

“matters of political or industrial controversy; and … matters relating to current public policy”.

In simple terms, I believe that means that the due impartiality requirements must apply equally to both news and what we might call current affairs.

Recently, however, Ofcom seems to be making a distinction, allowing greater latitude for current affairs programmes to escape the due impartiality requirement. The distinction was first raised on 21 March last year in an Ofcom blog posted by its then group director for broadcasting and online content, Kevin Bakhurst. It was headlined, “Can politicians present TV and radio shows? How our rules apply”. Mr Bakhurst stated that,

“generally speaking, if it’s a news programme, a politician cannot present”,

but

“They are allowed to present other kinds of shows … including current affairs”.


Yet that distinction between news and current affairs appears nowhere in the relevant statute; nor did it appear in Ofcom’s Broadcasting Code or in the guidance that accompanies the code, yet Ofcom now clearly sees a distinction.

Last month, looking further into the issue of politicians presenting programmes, Ofcom commissioned IPSOS to carry out some focus groups among audiences. One of the conclusions in the IPSOS report was:

“Participants thought they could easily distinguish between news and current affairs … However, in practice, the presentation and style of these types of content blurred the line between news and current affairs which confused participants”.


IPSOS concluded that:

“The most prevalent opinion was feeling uncomfortable with politicians presenting current affairs content”.


While Ofcom appears to want news and current affairs to be treated separately, audiences have difficulty distinguishing between the two, so, just as the 2003 Act intended, news and current affairs programmes should both be covered by Sections 319 and 320 of the Act. The arbitrary distinction that Ofcom appears to have made between news and current affairs has no basis in law. After all, both quite clearly relate to

“matters of political or industrial controversy; and … matters relating to current public policy”.

Were the distinction to continue, it would significantly weaken the impartiality framework, so Amendment 75 makes it clear that Parliament always intended news to incorporate current affairs, in line with audience expectations.

This brings us back to the issue about partisan presenters. We have some outstanding radio show presenters with well-known political allegiances, including some from this House. I mention in passing the excellent programmes on Times Radio presented by the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, and the newly ennobled noble Baroness, Lady Hazarika. We would not want to banish them from the air waves any more than we would want to banish, say, Nigel Farage from GB News. We are a liberal democracy, and we want to protect those contributions, but surely only if their shows live up to the same standards of impartiality required for news programmes.

Given the very high trust that audiences have invested in our broadcast services, as well as the clear audience discomfort with politically partisan presenters, we should seriously consider whether additional impartiality guardrails might be necessary for programmes hosted by well-known figures with well-recognised political allegiances. Amendment 76 addresses the rules around partisan presenters, whether on news or current affairs programmes, and it offers the simple proposal that the Secretary of State should review whether an enhanced duty of impartiality for such presenters might be necessary. The current rules around impartiality should not be allowed to be weakened by a regulator, certainly not without Parliament’s permission. Taken together, Amendment 75 and 76 seek to protect the legacy of trust which our broadcast media has taken decades to construct and which must not carelessly be disregarded.

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

Well, if no one is going to fill the gap, I will. I can confirm that a general election has not yet been announced—in deference to the excellent speech on radio from the noble Lord, Lord Foster. I thought I would make a few brief remarks —while we wait for this imminent event—with some reflections on radio.

I was lucky enough to be the Radio Minister for six years in the DCMS and now I am lucky enough to be a broadcaster on Times Radio—which is duly declared in my register of interests—so I have seen both sides of the fence. Ofcom has had a fantastic team looking after radio for many years and they are great experts on it. They were very much on the front foot when we discussed some of the mechanics and the engineering needed to extend digital radio.

The watchwords for radio are that we in Britain have an extremely successful radio ecosystem. We love our radio. We are also very far in advance of many other countries. To all intents and purposes, we have a universal digital network, which not many countries have. We still have our FM network. We have a plethora of radio stations, from legitimate national stations to quasi-national stations—which are really a group of regional stations knitted together—through to local radio stations and community radio stations. One of the things that I wanted to do most as a Minister was to support community radio. There is not enough money for it; there should be more money for it and for the engineering to support it. It is truly local radio. I used to visit places such as Swindon community radio which provided a vital service. It was run by volunteers and, rather like hospital radio, it is a great gateway into the radio industry and lots of young people still want to work in radio. That is very important.

It is a good thing, as it were, that the Government never made a firm decision on whether to switch over FM to digital and have allowed the radio industry in effect to lead that process and wait for it to come and say when it might be ready—when the dual costs may be too much or it might be sensible to go to a purely digital system. The other important point about radio is that the BBC sits at the heart of that radio ecosystem. That is one the important reasons to support the BBC but, at the same time, the BBC should be very mindful of its place and, in my view, be leaning in to providing the kind of radio services that commercial radio cannot afford to provide. In particular, that is local radio.

I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Foster, that there is far too much broadcast regulation being made up on the hoof by Ofcom, without any guidance from Parliament. That is partly up to the Government to drive consultation and to frame the debate so that Parliament can have that debate and make some decisions. However, I accept that, as a Conservative Peer, broad- casting a show on Times Radio, it feels very odd to interview Wes Streeting about Labour’s health policy. The people who run Times Radio and who run other radio stations take their obligations to Ofcom very seriously. They have compliance departments and ask whether something will comply with Ofcom or cross a line. They are very mindful of the existing guidance that Ofcom prepares.

As I said in the Second Reading debate, we should not be misled in terms of thinking about this kind of regulation for opinionated news—if you like—a sort of hybrid. We should not be misled because we might not like GB News, because it is deemed to be a right-wing station. We should have a proper debate about whether there is room for opinionated news in the broadcast ecosystem, particularly as we are now so deep into such a rich information environment with social media.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, I can usually spot a cunning plan when there is one afoot, and I fancy that our debate this afternoon is going to be overshadowed by events outside this House as the lectern has already been rolled out. This is an eclectic group of amendments which raise some important issues on radio regulation. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, in Amendments 71, 73 and 74 seeks to establish a baseline of locally provided programmes. I suspect we all have some sympathy with this.

There was a time when local radio was genuinely that: local. I well remember, as a local government leader, a time when both commercial and public service broadcast—BBC—radio stations used to call me up to face a quizzical reporter or phone-in audiences on local issues. But it has been a while since those days, as less and less content is generated from a locality. Basically, “local” means anything but that, as the programmes can be made and broadcast anywhere, as the noble Lord, Lord Storey, accurately described, and have no particular geographical audience.

Most commercial radio stations now work to the same format and are owned by fewer and fewer companies, with little or no community input. Sadly, they have contributed to the overall decline of local news as well. As we know, the BBC has much reduced its local services—several noble Lords have mentioned this—as part of its slimming down of local radio. It remains an open question as to how practical and workable the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, are in the current context, and that is a question for us to consider.

I turn to the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, particularly Amendment 72, which I think we would all accept hits on a very significant issue. If we want to look at radio coverage in the context of levelling up—and I think we should—we clearly have a long way to go, because there are definitely issues of access. Last year, we passed legislation that in theory should enable better coverage digitally, but it remains the case that rural areas are still significantly disadvantaged. In replying to the noble Baroness, can the Minister update the Committee today on progress and how the Government see, and are seeking, other means to redress this widely perceived imbalance? Are there, for instance, any government targets in place that are designed to move the UK towards a more universal quality of coverage that will take account of rural and local needs?

Turning to the amendments from the noble Lord, Lord Foster, on radio news impartiality, I say that, yes, of course there should be careful consideration by Ofcom, both for television and radio, when current affairs shows are on either news stations or channels, or stations that focus heavily on news and current affairs. The noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, seems to have introduced a new expression into our debate today: “opinionated news”. I thought that was a very good expression and not one I had heard before. I do not think that we can easily move away from challenging that. How we resolve the fact that politicians of a particular party host such shows in the face of regulations that are pretty clear on impartiality and balance is something we need now to seriously consider, and the noble Lord raises a telling question.

We must also ensure that Ofcom has the tools it needs to decide on impartiality when it comes to politically hosted shows. Perhaps the Minister could outline what discussions he and his department have had with Ofcom on this matter, because it is a matter of serious concern. We need considerable reassurance on this because, hand on heart, we cannot say that it is working as well as it should—despite what the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, says about Ofcom having a very good team covering radio. I am sure that is true and that great diligence is exhibited there, but we need to move on and ensure that Ofcom can get on with the job in a way that satisfies widespread public concern about impartiality rules.