Media Bill

Peter Bottomley Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 21st November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I cannot say whether I would support an amendment until I have seen it, but despite a specific mention of “Gaelic-language content” in the briefing note on the King’s Speech, there seems to be no mention of protecting Gaelic language broadcasting in the Bill, which gives me cause for concern.

I am sure that the Secretary of State understands how frustrating the delay has been to everyone involved and how, unfortunately, it seems to our public service broadcasters, the creative industries and all the talented people who work in them that the Government do not care about them. Much of the delay was down to the pointless war on Channel 4: were the Government going to sell it off and did they think it was publicly funded? Nadine Dorries, their 10th Culture Secretary in 13 years, certainly seemed to think so, which slowed down the Bill.

Not content with chipping away for more than a decade at our remarkably resilient British creative industries, they attempted to take their Tory wrecking ball straight to one of our finest institutions, costing Channel 4 and other PSBs time that they could have used to get on the stronger footing with their international competitors that the Secretary of State has described today. If only the Bill had come sooner.

Selling off Channel 4 was never going to work. It was wrong for viewers and it has only done damage to our creative industries. The Government should not have been contemplating it in the first place. With all that time wasted, looking inwards and wrangling with themselves, they held our public service broadcasters back. The resulting delay to the Bill and all the consequences of that have to sit squarely with the Government. Never again must our PSBs be treated with such disdain.

It may seem like a non sequitur, but the Culture, Media and Sport Committee undertook incredibly thoughtful pre-legislative scrutiny. I am sure the Secretary of State will agree that the Committee’s work added considerably to the quality of the legislation across the piece.

PSBs are important to the wider creative economy because they stimulate growth, create quality jobs and nurture British talent across all our nations and regions, so I welcome the measures in the Bill to boost that success further, particularly those ensuring that PSBs are always carried and given prominence on smart TVs, set-top boxes and streaming sticks. There is still debate about whether “appropriate” prominence, as it is described in the Bill, goes far enough. Would “significant prominence” avoid confusion? As we set the framework and as the Bill moves to Committee, we have to explore what being clear about the mandate to Ofcom actually means.

For many people, the most important part of the Bill is the recognition that PSBs bring us joy and their unique universality brings tens of millions of us together, whether to cheer on the Lionesses, watch Elton at Glastonbury or mourn the late Queen. At a time where loneliness is at an all-time peak, public service content keeps us connected. It is a string threaded through homes in every city, town and village in this country. I welcome the important modernisations to the listed events regime in the Bill—there is a lot to welcome in the Bill—including closing the streamer loophole, so that TV-like services that provide live content via the internet, such as the World cup and Wimbledon, will be brought within scope in the listed events legislation.

However, unfortunately the Government have not taken on the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s recommendation to include digital on-demand rights in the regime, so on-demand highlights and online clips can be kept behind paywalls. I know the Government are conducting a review on digital rights, but the deadline for responses to their consultation was last year. I urge the Secretary of State to look down the back of the Culture, Media and Sport sofa—I am very fond of sofa metaphors, I am afraid, so hon. Members may hear more about sofas later—pull that review out and tell us what is in it? If the results of the consultation are not ready in time to be included in the Bill, will the Government include an enabling provision to allow digital rights to be added later?

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

Some of the points raised, including those about digital rights, are made by Colin Browne of the Voice of the Listener and Viewer. I recommend that the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State meet him to understand what other points he is concerned about, so they can be addressed during the passage of the Bill?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

The Father of the House is quite right to draw attention to the Voice of the Listener and Viewer—I believe that organisation is on my call list, so I will chase that up following his kind and sensible suggestion.

Another broad area that I ask the Secretary of State to look at again is children and young people’s television, which has been one of public service broadcasting’s biggest contributions to the life of our country. I am sure we can all name our favourite programmes, which might reveal the age of hon. Members. For me, they are “Jackanory”, “Grange Hill” and “The Magic Roundabout”, but for others they might be “Byker Grove” and “The Story of Tracy Beaker”, tackling issues rarely seen elsewhere in the media. Colleagues are welcome to mention their own favourite TV programmes.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rob Butler (Aylesbury) (Con)]

I am delighted to see this Bill before the House today. It has been a long time coming, and its arrival is extremely welcome.

From a very young age, I wanted to be a broadcaster. So committed was I to this goal that I wrote to BBC Radio Oxford at the tender age of 15, and complained that it did not produce any programmes for teenagers. Somewhat to my surprise, it told me to put my money where my mouth was, and invited me to go in and make them myself. My first series covered such weighty topics as spots and school dinners; life as a teenager was rather more naive in that long ago era.

After university, I joined the BBC full time in its news and current affairs department, working as a reporter, presenter and producer. As the Spice Girls, in a blaze of colour, heralded the launch of Channel 5 in 1997, I perched on the newsroom desk to prove that current affairs did not have to be stuffy and boring. Indeed, so keen were we to be modern and relevant that I was even allowed to have a cameo as a newscaster in “Shaun of the Dead”. There being no greater possible pinnacle of an on-air career, I then moved behind the scenes to work as an adviser to ITV for several years.

I recount this biography not as an application to make a late appearance on the new series of “I’m a Celebrity”—I feel these Benches have provided enough victims of that recently—but to show that I have been lucky enough to have some experience of the subject matter, and perhaps more importantly, to illustrate the wide range of the country’s public service broadcasting landscape. All the broadcasters I have mentioned—the BBC, Channel 5 and ITV—have in common that they are PSBs, and it is on them that I wish to devote most of my remarks.

Public service broadcasting is not just about news and current affairs, crucial though they are; it is about reflecting all parts of our country, not just the metropolitan elites, not just London—and, indeed, not just England, as we have heard from our colleagues in the Scottish National party. It is also about showing programmes that do not just have an immediate commercial rationale. As one example, I think Channel 5’s commitment to children’s programming is commendable, and its recent commission of an animated series with disabled lead characters for pre-school children is incredibly important.

As the Government themselves have stated, this Bill will

“reform the legal framework for the regulation of public service broadcasting”,

and there can be no doubt that this is sorely needed, because the media and entertainment landscape, as we have heard several times, has changed almost beyond recognition over the past 20 years. My right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) and my hon. Friends the Members for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins) and for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) have touched on some of the circumstances we faced in 2003, such as watching analogue TV, Netflix still posting DVDs to its customers and Blockbuster Video still existing on our high streets. YouTube, iPhones and Twitter had not been invented, yet they are the ways in which we watch much of our content these days.

Let me add some other cultural memories of that year. Jemini—with a J—scored “nul points” at Eurovision, Cilla Black quit “Blind Date” live on air and Jonny Wilkinson scored a last-minute drop goal that won the Rugby world cup and the nation’s hearts. That same year, 2003, more than 19 million viewers were glued to their screens as the “Coronation Street” serial killer Richard Hillman abducted the Platts and drove the family into the canal. It was must-watch TV the length and breadth of the country. However, those TV audience numbers for drama could only be dreamt of today. Indeed, the entire TV landscape is almost unrecognisable, thanks to rapid developments in technology that have in turn brought about fundamental changes in viewing habits. Today, 75% of households have an on-demand streaming service, and according to Ofcom, 90% of 18 to 24-year-old adults bypass TV channels and head straight to streaming, on-demand and social video services when they are looking for something to watch.

While the likes of Netflix, Prime and Disney offer a panoply of great programming, they are not bound by the requirements on our public service broadcasters—the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. The responsibility that PSBs bear to present socially valuable content carries a burden, and it is only right that that is reflected in the regulatory regime. Key to achieving that is ensuring due prominence for PSBs on whatever device. At its simplest, there is no value in having high quality, publicly important programming if viewers cannot find it quickly and easily, yet that is increasingly the risk with the market as it is today.

We are all familiar with the shift away from an on-screen list of TV programmes—electronic programme guides—to a set of tiles along the bottom of our screens, but whereas the lowest numbers on an old EPG could easily be reserved for the PSBs, the tiles can be set in pretty much any order. Inevitably, those linked to the highest paying providers of content, or otherwise prioritised, are frequently the first to be seen. It can take many clicks on the remote to get to the smaller PSBs: Channels 4 and 5.

I strongly welcome the Government’s provisions on the new online prominence regime, and I agree with ITV that a “clear mandate” must be

“given to Ofcom for a muscular implementation of the Bill…on terms that enable PSBs to flourish and deliver their remits.”

I would be grateful if the Minister set out in a little more detail how he envisages Ofcom implementing the new regime, and said whether he supports the regulator taking a bold stance to ensure that global companies comply with our decisions in Parliament for an appropriate level of prominence for our PSBs.

I would also be grateful for reassurance that a secondary power to designate platforms will be cast as broadly as necessary to achieve the aims of Bill. For example, that could potentially include gaming consoles, which I understand from much younger colleagues are often used to access PSB content. This is not just about watching the box in the corner of the room. The requirement to give PSBs prominence cannot become a licence to print money by the platforms carrying them, so I welcome the Bill’s proposals for a must-offer, must-carry regime, with an arbitration scheme as a backstop.

The other side of the coin is that the privilege of prominence carries with it a duty, and nowhere more so than at the BBC. It must do better if it is to retain its hallowed position as the most prominent and privileged of the PSBs, because it is funded by all of us through the licence fee. I have said before that I believe that that funding method is living on borrowed time; it is an anachronistic and frankly regressive tax. During my 12 years as a magistrate, I saw the painful impact, particularly on some women, of the draconian measures that are taken against those who cannot afford to pay that licence. Although the future of the licence fee is not part of today’s debate, the funding model puts additional and serious duties on the BBC as a PSB.

I fear that the BBC is no longer the organisation that I joined more than 30 years ago. We are all familiar with the growing torrent of criticism, not least of aspects of its coverage of the middle east crisis. Although there are undoubtedly some phenomenally good and brave journalists in the field, there have also been some appalling and inexcusable lapses in the BBC’s reporting. Responsibility for that must go to the very top of the newsroom, and it must always be remembered that the facts are far more important than a juicy headline. I fear that if it is not careful, BBC Verify will have to start scrutinising its own newsroom, and that was not the idea of it in the first place.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

Leaving aside the newsroom, when pensioners started paying the licence fee again, I had a large number of them in my constituency. Three of them made contact with me, one of whom objected, and two of whom were trying to pay in an old-fashioned way that the BBC’s agents could not cope with. That shows that the licence subscription system works pretty well and is welcomed. I say to my hon. Friend that if we had the alternative to the licence fee, or some other kind of household impost, we would have a subscription where the BBC stops serving everyone in the country, and starts serving those who choose to pay. As it is a national institution, we still face the question put by the Canadian, Graham Spry, nearly 100 years ago:

“It is a choice between the state and the United States.”

Let us choose the state and make it a public broadcaster still.

[Rob Butler]

I thank the Father of the House for his intervention. He raises important points, which is why we will need to have a long and detailed debate on the future of the licence fee at another time. I chose my words relatively carefully in saying that I hoped the licence fee was living on borrowed time, rather than saying that the end must come immediately. My hon. Friend raises points that will have to be addressed before we move to another system, but I personally feel that the current model is not sustainable in the medium to long term.

It is not just me who has raised concerns about the BBC. According to the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, trust in BBC News has plummeted from 75% in 2018 to 55% in 2022. That trend clearly cannot continue.

I have focused my remarks principally on broadcasters, as that is where the majority of my experience lies, but I will turn for a moment to the print media. I listened carefully to the comments of my right hon. Friend the Member for Camborne and Redruth (George Eustice), and I am afraid to disappoint him but I agree rather more with my right hon. Friend the Member for Suffolk Coastal (Dr Coffey) on section 40. I am glad to see the Bill removing that sword of Damocles from newspapers. It struck me that, although it was never commenced, it loomed over papers and magazines as a potential form of state control that would have been unconscionable interference in the freedom of the press. While I have many quibbles with both national and local newspapers about how they cover some stories, I felt that the draconian measures in section 40 were an entirely disproportionate way to tackle complaints.