Media Bill

Roger Gale Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 30th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Damian Green]

I congratulate the Minister and the Department on getting the Bill this far. If I may be presumptuous, in the unavoidable absence of the Chair of the Culture, Media and Sport Committee, I thank the Minister for her kind remarks about the Select Committee’s contribution to the scrutiny of the Bill.

This is probably the appropriate time to note the Bill’s historic nature. It is 20 years since the House passed an equivalent Bill. Twenty years ago, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat and Twitter or X—whatever we call it these days—did not exist. The entire landscape has changed completely. Regulating with tools that are 20 years out of date is impossible. That is why it is important that the Bill is future proofed. The thought occurs to me that if it takes 20 more years before the House comes back to the subject, by then we will doubtless get sound and vision beamed straight into our ears and eyeballs after pressing the chip that will have been implanted in us. Regulating that will be even more difficult. I was pondering which Minister will be here in 20 years to cope with that, and it will almost certainly be my right hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale), who has done the job on and off for several decades already. I have every confidence that he will still be doing it perfectly well in the 2040s when we next come back to the subject.

I echo the remarks of my hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Rob Butler) about the importance of public service broadcasting, which is one of the glories of this country. That is something that we have got right over many years. I hope and expect that the Bill will allow us to continue to get it right for many years to come. I wish the Bill well for the rest of its passage.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

May I simply say that if the right hon. Member for Maldon (Sir John Whittingdale) is here for the next Bill, I hope that I will be in the Chair to see it?

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.