Media Bill

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 30th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[George Eustice]

My right hon. Friend makes a powerful point, but I am seeking to reach a compromise. His argument is for keeping section 40 in its entirety, so that those who do not have financial means and who face a publisher who refuses to act within any kind of reputable regulator would have some redress in the courts. Of course, in section 40 there was only a weighted presumption in favour of a particular approach to costs. It was never a hard and fast rule.

My right hon. Friend makes a strong case, but I am seeking to form a compromise with the House and with those on the Government Front Bench, and if it is their intention to do what the press want, they can accept my amendment and still look the press in the eye and say, “We gave you everything you wanted, which is the removal of the stick.” Maybe they hope they will get some positive coverage as a result of doing this favour; I suspect they will end up being disappointed by that between now and the general election. Nevertheless, I am trying to make a compromise with them. I hope that the Government will look seriously at this.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend help the House by saying whether he has had any communication with The Guardian or Private Eye on this proposal?

[George Eustice]

I had multiple conversations with lots of publishers when the original Leveson architecture was put together, particularly around the royal charter. I know that Private Eye has always objected to joining anything at all, and it would be completely unaffected by the proposal. It is not a member of the Independent Press Standards Organisation, and it was never a member of the Press Complaints Commission. It has always remained entirely aloof, and there is nothing in the proposal that affects its position. Nor would anything in the proposal affect, say, The Spectator, which also has a view that it would not join a recognised regulator.

As I said, small publishers that want to do genuine investigative journalism and that do not have people with deep pockets standing behind them could benefit from the proposal by signing up to a recognised regulator. Many of them are already members of Impress, which is the recognised regulator at the moment, but others may form different regulators or encourage IPSO to join and seek recognition, so that they can benefit from that cost protection.

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[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

This is one of the issues on which my right hon. Friend and I agree. May I suggest that those who wish to follow this up afterwards read a book called “The Laughter of Triumph”, by Ben Wilson? It is about William Hone and the fight for a free press back in 1817. The press should not be forced into any Government regulation; there should be the law of the land, and that is it.

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[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Rosie Winterton)]

I call the Father of the House.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for previewing the suggestion that time-shifted excerpts from listed events be available through public service broadcasters. I regret that test matches are not presently listed events, because I think that this country would have wanted to see the remarkable parts of the test match in India this week.

Some people may have only read press descriptions of Ben Stokes doing a backhanded flip to the wicket. That can be well described by people such as Neville Cardus and his successors, but it is even better to watch it in real life.

I believe that the number of listed events should be expanded. However, as the BBC and others have reminded us, the number of people watching events on the other side of the world at midnight or four in the morning might be 400,000, whereas those who would want to watch those events the next day might be 4 million or 14 million.

I believe that the new clause should be accepted, and I hope that the Minister will say some comforting words. Like many others, I do not propose to push my new clause to a Division today, but I do hope that the Government will respond by tabling an amendment or a new clause in the House of Lords that has the same effect. I could read out my full briefing, but the point has been well made by the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, and may be made by others.

What is the reason for embracing the future? It is not just about linear television; there is the opportunity for other rights. So many rights are bought by commercial businesses outside this country. What do they care about what happens in one part of the world broadcasting framework? We must have a requirement to stop those who think they can make money by making most people not watch key events, and making those who do watch pay a lot. People should be able to watch coverage on ordinary public service broadcasting.

My belief is that, for major events, the competition between the public service broadcasters will be sufficient to ensure a fair return for those who buy the rights. I do not believe in having an unrestricted auction, so that people can buy rights that will exclude most people in the country from watching sporting events of great importance. There have been examples of rights holders—Sky has done this well—making an event available on normal public service broadcasting, as well as on their own service, when one of our national teams has got into a final. I pay tribute to Sky for doing that.

I want to follow up on the words of the right hon. Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell), who talked about genres in public service broadcasting. I thought I would table an amendment or a new clause that does what he argued for. I believe that Ofcom should have an explicit duty to make sure that public service broadcasters are held to account and explain how they are meeting the requirements for the various parts of public service broadcasting. Public service broadcasting can be very interesting and fully commercial; a large number of people may want to watch it, and it may be very popular, but not necessarily. Religion, science and many other areas listed in the right hon. Member’s amendment 86 are important.

I say to the Government: pay attention to what he has said, look to Colin Browne for what viewers and listeners have said, and accept the amendment, so that the requirements are explicit, and the responses by the public service broadcasters are open.

I believe that we can make a success of this Bill. I know that broadcasting regulation is normally about 10 years behind the technology, and I remember that about 30 years ago, David Mellor had to change a virtually complete Bill on Report because so much had changed between the Bill being drafted and its Third Reading in the House of Commons. I believe that we can make a major change, and I can sum this up to the Government in words that someone has offered me, which are absolutely right:

“Don’t let this opportunity pass by. The time to act is now. Once these moments go behind a paywall, that’s the final whistle.”

Let us make all major events available to all people, at least in excerpts, so that they can watch them in daylight.

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[Julia Lopez]

We have concerns about my right hon. Friend’s amendments as a package. One issue is about delay, but another is about some of the smaller publishers that do not wish to be part of a regulator. That has been debated at some length this afternoon.

I am glad that my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon is pleased about the Government amendment on AM. We discussed the matter together. I note his points about local television. He kindly accepts the unlikelihood of our accepting his amendment, but we will continue to consider his representations.

As always, I am glad of the support of the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone). He suggested that the proposal to privatise Channel 4 was part of a vendetta, but it was borne of a fundamental concern for its sustainability. We have put forward measures in the Bill to give Channel 4 greater freedom. We want the channel to survive and to have the flexibility to continue doing what it does. To the point raised in relation to those new powers, it will be granted the freedom to produce its own content, but it does not have to use them if it does not feel that is necessary.

On public service content being prominently and easily accessible, as is already the case in the linear space, we want PSB content to be as prominent as possible, but there is a question in relation to appropriate language. As has been discussed at length, the core aim is to secure prominence for PSB services and content online, but for it to be flexible, operable and proportionate, so that we can design the Bill for innovation and consumer choice. We are giving Ofcom the power to establish that balance.

The Father of the House, my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley), along with my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford and others, raised the issue of digital rights. We recognise the intent behind the amendment to bring digital rights within the scope of the listed events regime. The Select Committee, ably chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage), made a recommendation that would support that outcome. While there is a great deal of support in Parliament for that and I am sympathetic, it is a complex issue.

We have seen how technical just the Government amendments to close the streamer loophole are. Adding digital rights would be a much bigger change, bringing more complexity. It is important that we maintain the right balance between access for audiences and the commercial freedoms that allow rights holders to reinvest in their sport at all levels. We want to get the balance right, and our priority is the impact on the public. It is important that audiences can watch and celebrate major sporting moments, but broadcasting rights provide sports’ national governing bodies with essential income, enabling them to invest in their sports, whether at elite or grassroots levels. We want to fully evaluate the issue, including how it could be best delivered, before considering legislation that enacts any particular conclusion. I assure Members the issue is under careful consideration and we have not yet made a decision.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

The House will have listened with interest to the Minister’s response to the points made by Members from across the Chamber, but the Government have got to try to sort this out while the Bill is before Parliament. We want to hear from her that the Government are capable of coming to the Lords with an amendment or new clause that does not get rid of the interest for the commercial bidders, but says that, when digital and reproduction rights come up for sale, the interests of people in our country, our team and the sports that we regard as important, whether they are new or old, established ones, are taken into account. The House will not be satisfied unless the Government come forward with a proposal about what they can either agree with the rights holders or the potential rights bidders. The House of Lords will be right to insist on something that addresses that issue, and we want to support them.

[Julia Lopez]

I appreciate that my hon. Friend wants to put down a marker on the issue—I have heard that, and so has the Secretary of State. I maintain that the issue of rights is more complex than one might imagine. We want to get the balance right, and we will continue to look at that.

Moving to the amendments on the issue of age ratings, we are in complete agreement on the need to protect children and vulnerable audiences from harmful and inappropriate video on demand content. I have two children; I have pushed for children to remain in the remit and for there to be protections for them. The hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) talked about the importance of public service broadcasters and access to them. A fundamental driving force of the Bill is that we want children to be able to continue to access public service broadcasters.

For the first time, we are bringing mainstream TV-like, on-demand services in the scope of a new video on demand code, to be drafted and enforced by Ofcom. I welcome the general support for the Bill given by my hon. Friends the Members for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) and for South West Devon (Sir Gary Streeter). Ofcom will be getting new powers under the Bill to look at broader protection measures and to mandate specific approaches in the code, if deemed necessary, which could be BBFC age ratings. We are trying to move to a more outcomes-based approach rather than a prescriptive approach. We think that there has been great innovation in the space of parental controls, which have often been more effective than a badge rating. However, I have heard what has been said in the House today and we will continue to listen on this subject.

The hon. Member for Aberdeen North also raised the issue of protections for viewers watching on devices such as PlayStations. I simply wish to reassure her that the definition of “on-demand programme services” is not platform-specific; Disney and Netflix viewed on a games console would be covered. She also raised questions about the size of producers of content. Smaller producers are not keen on some of the proposals that she has made, as they are concerned that they might one day be larger producers and therefore be penalised. We would not want to disincentivise their growth.

Let me move on to Scottish broadcasting in general. We believe that the Bill will bring significant benefits to the Scottish broadcasting sector and creative economy. I do not underestimate the vital role that our public service broadcasters play in supporting that Scottish screen sector. The Bill contains provisions to encourage our PSBs to broadcast programmes in indigenous, regional and minority languages, such as Gaelic, by including them in our new PSB remit for television. I know that this is extremely important to numerous Scottish Members in this House, and I hope the Government’s efforts here are recognised. The partnership between MG Alba and the BBC is particularly significant for Gaelic language broadcasting. I can assure Members that the ongoing provision of Gaelic will be a key consideration as the Secretary of State and I progress the BBC funding review and the forthcoming BBC charter review. Of course, Scottish audiences will also continue to benefit from the prominence provisions in the Bill.

The Government are also aware of Members’ concerns about being able to access TV via terrestrial means, and I have spoken to my hon. Friend the Member for Moray (Douglas Ross) about that directly. The Bill does not include provisions on that, but I wish to reassure the House that the Government remain committed to the future of DTT and to protecting the millions of households who continue to rely on it. That is why we have legislated to secure its continuity until at least 2034, but let me be clear that 2034 is not a cliff edge for DTT. We have allowed the renewal of the current multiplex licences so that they last until the end of 2034, but that does not mean that DTT will not continue after that point. Even if the Government simply sat on their hands, Ofcom would still be able to re-advertise the multiplex licences, and our public service broadcasters could continue distributing their linear channels over DTT. Furthermore, specific primary legislation would be required to remove the multiplex licensing regime, for example.

We are always keen to make sure that major sporting events are publicly available as widely as possible, which is why we have the listed events regime, but this is a balancing act. It is another issue where we are trying to find a course through. Sports rights holders use income from the sale of rights to the benefit of the wider sporting sector. A lot of sports do not want the listed events regime to be opened up. I know that the Scottish National party likes the idea of a Government listed events fund, but SNP Members do not acknowledge the distortive effect it would have on the value of rights, nor do they say who would pay for it. I suspect that the UK taxpayer would and, once again, SNP promises would be paid for by everybody else.