Football Governance Bill

Steve Brine Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Frazer]

To address the point about the Bill being long overdue, the Labour party said for some time that it would do something about this issue but did absolutely nothing. Since I have been Secretary of State, we have had a White Paper and a response to it, and we have drafted a Bill at speed. We have introduced the Bill, and I am delighted that it is having its Second Reading today. I recognise that the Labour party supports the Bill, and I am very grateful for its collaboration. I am very pleased that Chesterfield are in a good place. We want to see ownership that works across the field.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I am very proud that our Government are bringing forward this Bill. Others had opportunities to do so but did not, and it is very important. I shall support its Second Reading tonight, because it is important to protect the football pyramid. The Bill talks about guaranteeing that fans will be consulted on key decisions that impact on them, which it will do in one respect, but fans of teams lower down the pyramid will be affected by the decision last week to get rid of FA cup replays, which are a lifeline for many clubs by providing opportunities to get a big draw at Anfield, Old Trafford or even Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. Obviously this Bill will not touch on that, but does the Secretary of State have any comments on this issue?

[Lucy Frazer]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, because those David and Goliath fixtures are part of the magic of football. I know that replays have been a welcome source of income for smaller clubs throughout the years. I spoke to the FA about this issue at Wembley on Saturday, but as he will know, these are decisions for the football authorities. This Bill will ensure that we have appropriate financial regulation in place.

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[Thangam Debbonaire]

My hon. Friend raises the most important point, which is about how fans feel. There should be no taking of reckless risks and there should be no jeopardising of a club’s future, and that is important. Any business owner—the hon. Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans) mentioned businesses—knows that they have to think about what level of risk they are going to take. Fans are at the heart of football, which is one of the things that makes football special and unique, and what fans want is such an important feature of our discussion.

[Steve Brine]

I will ask the same question that I asked the Secretary of State, because the hon. Lady could be the Secretary of State this year. I do not know whether she goes to watch football—perhaps she goes to watch Bristol Rovers in her own city—but she will know that, earlier this year Bristol Rovers had the mighty Norwich City at its stadium. It had 10,000 fans for a mid-week FA cup replay, which was really important to the club. Bristol Rovers has called on the FA to reverse its decision to scrap FA cup replays. This Bill is about financial resilience and viability throughout the pyramid, so what is the Opposition’s view of the FA’s decision last week?

[Thangam Debbonaire]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who says that the Bill is about financial resilience. Obviously, Bristol Rovers is my local club, and I listen to what it has to say, but I also listen to what fans across the country have to say, and they are clearly very upset about that decision. My right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition has made his views on this extremely clear, because we really think that replays are part of the game. [Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] He has said that replays are an important part of our game, and we can hear that in the reactions of my right hon. and hon. Friends behind me. However, as the hon. Gentleman says, replays are not part of this Bill, and we are focused on financial resilience. He will know how much I have enjoyed being at Bristol Rovers. I was on the terraces only the other week watching them lose to Reading, but that is part of the joy of football—that and the pies—isn’t it?

I want to talk about how revenue is distributed throughout the football pyramid, because that is an important consideration of this Bill. One of the many ways the Bill sets out a future for the regulator is on financial distribution. It is down to the leagues themselves to reach a deal on broadcast revenue distribution, but it saddens us all that, at the moment, a deal still seems a long way off. It seems that there has been something of a breakdown in communication. I have met many of the interested parties and listened to concerns, and I appreciate that this is complex and not easy, but I urge both sides to come to an agreement.

However, if those negotiations cannot result in a deal once the Bill is enacted and the regulator is in operation, the regulator will have the power to select one of the two options put forward by the parties. That important backstop power should be used as a last resort, but it is clearly important that such a power exists. Given how important the backstop is, will the Minister say what work has been undertaken to ensure that that specific part of the Bill works in practice? Is it legally watertight? Are there questions that still have to be answered? From my engagement with stakeholders there seem to be many important questions that still need to be answered and we will be exploring them further in Committee, but will the Minister give us a bit more of an indication at this stage regarding what work has been done and what that will mean in reality?

Proportionality will be key for us all. As many Members across the House have said, we want the game to succeed and to continue in the great future that it has for the whole country. Proportionality is important. With all legislation and regulation we must strike the right balance, and nowhere more so than with the licensing scheme for clubs. That is the mechanism through which a majority of the regulation and enforcement will be delivered, and it is right that the regulator will be able to tailor a club’s obligations proportionately, especially when it comes to clubs in the national league—many hon. Members represent constituencies in which there is a national league team. We support an appropriate transition period, to enable clubs to prepare for this process. We must bring clubs of all sizes into the system in an appropriate way.

Colleagues have also mentioned sanctions. As the Bill stands, the regulator will not be able to impose points deductions on clubs that break the rules. Labour backs that decision, but I know how much this issue matters to colleagues across the House and to fans up and down the country who are understandably devastated when their clubs are hit with points deductions as a result of decisions that the fans have no power over. After the formation of the regulator, the leagues will continue to have their own financial rules, and there is nothing to suggest that points deductions for breaches of the league’s own rules will not continue. Nobody wants to see points deductions for corporate or financial mismanagement, least of all fans. I hope, and I know fans hope, that the regulator and licensing scheme will mean that clubs are more financially sustainable, and that breaches of league rules and the associated points deductions are much less likely. Again, if the Minister would like to address that when summing up the debate, that would be helpful.

Football clubs are the pride of our towns and cities. They are an important part of our civic identity and the heart of our communities. New owners often bring important investment, but I know from speaking with clubs that it is about more than that. It is a big responsibility and honour to be the custodian of a football club, and owners should take that seriously. I know that is how it feels for the owner of my local club, Bristol Rovers.

Channel 4

Steve Brine Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Michelle Donelan]

As I said, we will be working very closely with Channel 4, the independent production sector and public service broadcasters at large, and we will bring forward the details in the media Bill in due course.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

It is the right decision not to proceed with the sell-off of Channel 4 and the end—I hope—of picking fights. The channel told me at the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee last year that it spent £220 million in 2021 supporting about 10,000 people down the supply chain in the nations and regions. Indeed, that was one of the main reasons I did not want to see this jewel sold. May I press the Secretary of State on the important independent sector? She mentioned increasing that portion to 25%: how might we get there and reach deeper into the creative industries in places such as Hampshire?

BBC Local Radio: Proposed Reduction in Provision

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Commons Chamber

[Julia Lopez]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for raising the importance of Merseyside radio. On the matter of holding people to account, my understanding is that the proposals include an investment in investigative journalism, which could be a positive thing, but if we had been given further details, information and notice, I would have had a better understanding of the proposals. We were not given notice beyond the news release yesterday.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

The Minister is right to say that the Select Committee is very concerned about this announcement. We have taken a lot of evidence, including from her, on this subject. On BBC Radio Solent, which my constituents listen to, we think that, at weekends, there will be no purely local output at all—not even breakfast programmes—except, potentially, sports commentary. That is decimation. We hear that these regional investigative hubs will be put in place of truly local radio. Will the Minister ask the BBC, and will she give the House her opinion, as to whether that is what the licence fee payers—the BBC’s customers—actually want, because I very much doubt that that is the case?

BBC Funding

Steve Brine Excerpts

Monday 17th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Ms Dorries]

As I said, when the new model starts in 2027-28, many of us may not even be here—we are talking six years away. I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s contribution and look forward to his being part of the discussion and debate about what we do in the future.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

As the Secretary of State will know, the Select Committee report that my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashford (Damian Green) just referred to acknowledges in its very first recommendation that

“the Government will need to act…to ensure that the public service broadcasting system remains sustainable in…today’s…global media market.”

In that sense, I am glad that we are having the debate, even if I am a little unclear about where it came from this weekend.

Given that the Select Committee report is also clear that the Government need a credible view on what any alternative to the licence fee might be and on what their vision is for the future of public service broadcasting, what are my right hon. Friend’s instincts as she kicks off this welcome national debate?

[Ms Dorries]

My instincts are let’s start the discussion. Let’s have a look at the—[Interruption.] That is what I am starting, Mr Speaker—unless, of course, Members of the House would just like us to decide and not have the debates and not have the discussion. That is where we are going: we are going to start that discussion—[Interruption.] The hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) is speaking from a sedentary position; perhaps she would like to confirm whether she supports the freeze to the licence fee? A yes or a no—a nod or a shake—would be great. No? There we go.

Live Events: Government-backed Insurance

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd March 2021 Westminster Hall

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

It is nice to see you in the Chair, Mr Rosindell. I thank the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross (Jamie Stone) for opening the debate today. I am co-sponsoring this debate with the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), with whom I serve on the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee.

I want to focus again on the festival industry. I say “again” because I spoke about it in the DCMS estimates day debate a couple of weeks ago. The risks to events taking place this year revolve around three things: uncertainty, even with the road map; lack of working capital for our festivals; and the ongoing absence of the insurance solution.

There are, believe it or not, around 975 festivals in the UK every year—an incredible number. We reckon they generate around £1.75 billion to £1.8 billion for the UK economy every year and support around 85,000 jobs. According to the excellent UK Music, more than 5 million people attended a festival in 2019—including me. It was a Boomtown Fair in my Winchester constituency, and, for the record, Pattishall—a small community music festival in Northamptonshire. That really shows the difference between a very big event of tens of thousands of people and a very small village affair.

I would attest that a Government-backed insurance scheme is essential to the festival industry. I am not saying that insurance is the sole barrier to kickstarting festivals, and it is a leap of faith, in some respects, with taxpayers’ money. However, organisers cannot enter into the usual planning for 2021 without an insurance solution in place. It is simply the key that unlocks the process. As the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross said, it is unfortunate that we have not yet managed to persuade the Government of the case. I have to say that it is almost too late for 2021, but we must try, and we will. That is the purpose of today.

The sector is not churlish; it very much welcomes the Prime Minister’s road map out of lockdown, that it has “no earlier than” dates, and the news that many festivals may be able to go ahead in some capacity later this year. However, we must understand that this is surrounded by caveats, and the problem is the planning cycle. There will be no more than a week’s notice of step 4 being brought in. If all factors line up and 21 June is possible, festivals may not get the go-ahead until 14 June. The Government’s event research programme—which I welcome very much—including the pilots, will need to be successfully completed by 21 June to enable step 4. Yet this does not start until 12 April. Clearly, that has a significant impact on whether some festivals can proceed with planning for July and August this year, given the timeline without an insurance solution and the average go/no-go cut-off point being the end of this month. That is why I say it is almost too late.

The insurance we are talking about does not exist in the commercial market, which is unlikely to mobilise this until at least 2022, so there is a market failure, or a market gap. Even if festivals sell out well ahead of time, many organisers cannot draw down the revenue from the ticketing companies, as it remains ring-fenced to be paid out, rightly, post event or refunded to customers if necessary. It remains an enormous risk for any independent festival to proceed with costs up to 14 June, without insurance and many just will not take it. Major festivals such as Reading and Leeds have said that they will go ahead this year—Glastonbury, of course, has not—but it is important to say that they are not the barometer for the entire festival industry.

Members of the DCMS Committee wrote to the Treasury on 6 January. We reminded the Government that they have backed insurance for the film and television industry to the tune of some £500 million. It is now time to do this for other creative industries. That could take a number of forms: one requires no up-front contribution from the Government and utilises the existing Pool Re structure, developed in response to unpredictable and devastating acts of terrorism. That would leave the Treasury with a maximum liability, we think, of £1.5 billion and could be adapted to cover a range of sectors, including hospitality, sports and leisure, as well as festivals and live performances and events. The point is that none of this need ever be needed. As the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross said on opening the debate, all the Government need to do is back their own road map. In his reply on 8 February, my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary to the Treasury said:

“My officials are working with DCMS officials to understand what a viable roadmap would be for the reopening of the events sector and therefore the right point to consider potential support options which could unlock a reopening of the sector, including insurance-based solutions.”

That sounded positive, but it was obviously over a month ago. Please will the Minister update us on that today?

The key question put by UK Music ahead of today’s debate is: do the Government believe that festivals should start planning for post-21 June without insurance in place? It made Government-backed insurance a key plank of its excellent “Let the Music Play: Save Our Summer 2021” report, which made it clear that it was welcome that the Government delivered on so many points in the report—an indicative date and extending financial support, to name but two. But without insurance, UK Music feels—and we agree—that the benefits to the sector are restricted.

The live sector desperately needs to return to work. The Minister is a great champion of that sector and she knows this. The Government have stated that they will do “whatever it takes” to support the economy and jobs and boy, have we done that. Seventy per cent. of musicians have seen their work fall by at least 75%; grassroots music venues, such as the Railway Inn in my constituency, have lost an average 75%—two thirds—of their income. Arenas are in the same position and technical companies have lost on average 95% of their income. This is devastation across the sector. The longer the live music sector is shut, the greater the damage and the more difficult the recovery. Therefore, quickly clearing this insurance barrier is key to guaranteeing recovery. UK Music has calculated that a £680 million Government-backed insurance scheme for music could underwrite £2 billion in activity.

The Government have stated that they are not intervening because insurance is not “the only barrier” to events taking place and has pointed to other interventions they have made, such as the job retention scheme, the self-employed scheme and the cultural recovery fund—all excellent schemes. The music sector is very grateful for those and other interventions, but they do not negate the need for insurance, and their utility in supporting reopening is less than it would be without an insurance solution.

It is unclear what the Government mean by “the only barrier”. If reopening goes ahead on 21 June, the only reason for live music events not to go ahead would be this inability to get the insurance—we keep coming back to that. If public health in defence of delaying reopening is the other barrier referred to, the industry is—let’s face it—in a Catch-22, because it is the possibility of that intervention that is distorting the commercial music market and raising the need for Government intervention in the first place.

In conclusion, this matters for all the reasons that I have touched on this morning, but it matters right now when events, short of insurance, short of certainty and short of cashflow, are selling tickets to young people desperate for something to look forward to.

We cannot have events that do not have a licence in place, as sometimes happens. I found one the other day that had not even contacted the safety advisory group of the respective local authority and was selling tickets—often at £100-plus a go—on the promise of hope alone. That will do the vast majority of this well-run and professional industry no favours whatsoever, but in many ways it is a symptom of the situation that we are in.

I appreciate that the insurance situation is difficult. It is not the only issue in play here and we do not pretend that it is, but it is the key that can unlock the door.

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[Caroline Dinenage]

What I am saying is that the decision is with the Treasury right now. We are working very closely with the Treasury to provide the evidence it needs to make a financial decision on this, and it is a big financial decision. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester hit the nail on the head when he said it is a leap of faith. It is obviously a big financial decision that the Treasury has to make. I am trying to articulate the background within which that decision will be made. But it is absolutely still on the table, and it is absolutely still a decision being looked at right now. In DCMS we are really keen to gather all the evidence that is needed to make that case.

[Steve Brine]

I want to stiffen the argument that the Minister is making to the Treasury. It is about the supply chain, which the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) touched on. It is not simply the case that they are going to have another rotten year; for many in the supply chain, two years of this will end their business, and then they will fall into other support schemes. The calculation that the Department can make to Her Majesty’s Treasury, therefore, is of a reduction in other areas if it saves here. I think that there is very much an argument about investing to save that the Department can make to Treasury colleagues.

[Caroline Dinenage]

I understand exactly what my hon. Friend is saying. Another Member—I cannot remember who it was—said that this is, by definition, quite a precarious industry anyway. My eldest son was due to go to the Boardmasters festival down in Newquay the year before, which was tragically cancelled because of the weather. The festival organisers have had to put up with two years of cancellations already before 2021, so Members can see what a huge pressure has been put on them.

However, hon. Members will recognise that the bar for considering Government intervention is set extremely high, as of course it has to be, especially in light of the considerable extension to so many financial packages that have already been helping our sectors—the furlough scheme, the business rate relief, the VAT cuts and local business support. The key thing that will give us much more certainty as we move forward is our world-class vaccination roll-out, along with all the steps we have been taking to beat the virus. This, along with reopening when we are confident that it is safe to do so, will reduce the chance of cancellation and interruptions due to covid-19, creating a much more predictable and secure opening context for all sorts of events to take place. Hopefully that will de-risk the sector as well.

In that context, we are continuing to engage with organisations to work through all the barriers to staging events, and indemnity insurance is of course one of those. It is part of our wider drive to reopen our crucial sectors as quickly as it is safe to do so. We are also working with other Departments. The Opposition spokeswoman, the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), asked me about that. We do meet regularly with other Departments. I met with representatives from a number of Departments last week, and we worked very closely with them to talk about the public health context and ensure that we are in a good position. In an ideal world, the insurance sector itself would step up to the plate and support this vital part of our economy, but in the absence of that, any decision on a sponsor package rests with the Treasury.

The Government recognise the challenges that have been faced by organisations and individuals alike and have ensured that support is available. The hon. Member for Cardiff West trailed this, but I will now talk about some of the specific things that have taken place across the wider economy. A number of Members have spoken about freelancers, and we know that so many of our live events depend upon an army of really talented freelancers, who do a whole range of really skilled jobs. Our sectors rely on freelance work more than any other, and I am keenly aware of the financial needs that many have found themselves in. That is why I was really pleased that in his Budget speech the Chancellor extended the self-employed income support scheme, which means an additional 600,000 people can access support on top of those who have already received it. In addition, Arts Council England has so far awarded £51 million to individuals needing support. Those things are important as well, as we try to work our way back.

The Chancellor also announced that the 100% business rates holiday for retail, hospitality and leisure in England has been extended by an additional three months. He has also extended the 5% VAT reduction until 30 September, before then tapering it for the rest of the financial year. It is worth saying that the VAT cut alone is forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility to be worth around £4.7 billion for hospitality and tourism and visitor attractions. A new recovery loan scheme will also be launched to replace the existing Government guarantee schemes that close at the end of March, which have supported £73 billion of lending to date. This will help businesses of all sizes, including in our vital DCMS sectors and numerous live events, to take the next stage of recovery.

A total of £700 million of extra funding to support our world-leading arts, culture and sporting institutions was announced in the Budget, all serving to protect what makes the UK a world-leading destination. The levelling-up fund—45 new town deals and city growth deals in Scotland and Wales—shows how the Government are investing right across our Union.

Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

Steve Brine Excerpts

Wednesday 10th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I want to talk about the festival industry. The risks to events taking place this year revolve around uncertainty, even with the road map, a lack of working capital, and the ongoing absence of—much mentioned this afternoon—the insurance solution. Why does this matter? Well, it is a massive, successful, vibrant industry. There are an estimated 975 festivals in the UK each year. The sector generates £1.75 billion for the UK economy every year and supports some 85,000 jobs. According to UK Music, over 5 million people—our constituents—attended a festival in 2019, including me: Boomtown in my own constituency. As important as all the figures are, though, festivals are just good fun—remember when that was allowed?

So the Government’s road map was very welcome to our festival sector. As soon as we nearly had a vaccine, the industry was calling for a clear timeline outlining “no earlier than” dates, and step 4 clearly gives that to us. To be clear, festivals do not work with social distancing; it is just not possible. There is also the risk that they can safely go ahead this summer but the sector is not given enough time to prepare. The planning cycle is a critical factor. Festivals need an average lead time of six to eight months. The majority will make a call on their summer events in the first three months of this year, so right now is the moment. We have seen some take the plunge, such as Reading, Leeds and Boomtown, and others such as Glastonbury—with the heaviest of hearts, and breaking mine—call theirs off for a second year.

Let me touch on lack of working capital. Festivals clearly need the working capital to stage their event. It is true that some festival businesses have been helped by the excellent culture recovery fund, with very high stabilisation figures among recipients meaning that they will have sufficient funds to stage their events this year if they are allowed, but it is equally true, as shown by surveys among members of the Association of Independent Festivals, that 100% of those who applied to the fund and were not offered a grant do not have sufficient funds to stage their events. I say to the Minister that for round 2 of the CRF—I understand that we expect grants to be announced this month—we need the eligibility of festivals to be strongly recognised again and we need to help those who missed out in round 1. For many festivals without sufficient audience loyalty and brand equity to return beyond this year, if that happens, mothballing the event companies that they rely on for another year effectively means shutting down their operations, with a very real risk that they will not return.

A Government-backed insurance scheme is essential to the festival industry. I appreciate that insurance alone is not the sole barrier to kick-starting festivals, but organisers cannot enter into the usual planning for 2021 without an insurance solution. It is the key that unlocks this process. It is unfortunate that we have not yet managed to persuade the Government of the case for this. It is almost too late now for 2021, but I would like the Minister to make reference to the issue when he winds up.

This matters for all the reasons that I have touched on, but it matters right now when events, short of insurance, short of certainty and short of cash flow, are selling tickets to young people desperate for something to look forward to. We cannot have events—sometimes without a licence in place or even having contacted the safety advisory group of the respective local authority—selling tickets, often at £100-plus, on the promise of hope alone. That will do the vast majority of the industry no favours whatever, but in many ways it is a symptom of the situation that we are in.

Let us stick to the road map. Let us focus on the data and reward vaccine success with some fun this summer. With a fair wind, we may even—I know you look forward to this, Madam Deputy Speaker—see the return of Crouchfest. To borrow a phrase, that really would be back stronger.

UK Musicians: EU Visa Arrangements

Steve Brine Excerpts

Tuesday 19th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Steve Brine.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

Is it not the case that the longer the situation persists, the worse it gets—

[Madam Deputy Speaker]

Order. This is my fault, but I missed out Mary Kelly Foy. I beg the House’s pardon and that of the hon. Gentleman. Mary Kelly Foy.

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[Steve Brine]

Surely the longer this situation persists the worse it gets for UK artists, and the longer their recovery from covid becomes. Right now, musicians, agents and those who book for them have way too much risk in fixing European gigs. It is no good Opposition Members who voted for no deal joining the debate now. We have the deal, but surely we need to return to it with the sensible UK proposal that was on the table, which presumably, as the Minister has said today, still stands.

[Caroline Dinenage]

My hon. Friend has just hit the nail on the head, and does so in a much more articulate way than I could. That is absolutely right: the deal is still on the table and our door is open for the EU to come back and take up that deal if it wants to. In the short term, we are speaking to member states bilaterally about the visa regime and whether there is any facilitation, as opposed to a waiver, that could be put in place. What the sector now needs is certainty and for us to be able to put in place the guidance and support for it to move forward.

Digital, Culture, Media and Sport: Support Measures

Steve Brine Excerpts

Thursday 8th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I wish to centre my remarks on two areas. First, our Government deserve great credit for the unprecedented support they have given companies, charities, workers and individuals in this sector during the pandemic. It would also be awesome if we could not continually misquote the Chancellor. Any of us who has served in government knows how slow the Whitehall machine can be, so we should marvel at the furlough scheme, the SEISS, the grants we have put out there through local authorities in England, and the Government-backed loan scheme. There is no doubt that they have saved millions of livelihoods and businesses, so credit should go to Ministers for making them happen, while we recognise, as we must, that every single penny is the British public’s—I always say that in this Chamber—and one way or another every single penny will have to be paid back. These support measures have absolutely helped the DCMS sector, albeit with notable exceptions, which I wish to focus on.

The first of those exceptions is the UK events sector, which has been brought to its knees by covid, as the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) mentioned. It is so sad, because the exhibition and events industry was a vibrant, growing sector before covid hit, contributing some £70 billion of economic impact to the nation. At a stroke, the industry became unviable, because Government restrictions mean that, basically, no UK events are permitted to take place—I should imagine this will last until March at the earliest. The Meetings Industry Association estimates that some 700,000 people are employed in this industry and there have been just north of 120,000 job losses so far. We are talking about catering and front of house staff; event and account managers; the technical staff; the many freelancers who build the events; the sound engineers; the people who hire out the stands and the furniture; and, of course, the audiovisual guys and girls.

I do welcome the Chancellor’s new job support scheme, but a salary subsidy for companies that are not able to trade is not the stuff of dreams. I totally get the honesty in government talking about “viable jobs” in the changed post-covid economy, but we have to be honest and say that there is a difference between an unviable business and one that is not allowed to be viable, as is the case with the UK events sector.

Furthermore—this goes back to the much wider point about the events world, although it involves many who work within it—the self-employed support scheme has troubled me from the off, and I have said that many times in this House. The intention to achieve parity between self-employed workers and those on PAYE was absolutely the right thing to do but, as paragraph 12 of the conclusions in the Committee’s report on the “Impact of COVID-19 on DCMS sectors” states, the fact that

“too many self-employed people have missed out on support to date, means the future of our creative workforce remains at significant risk.”

It continues:

“From October 2020 at the latest”—

this month—

“the Government should introduce flexible, sector specific versions of the… SEISS guaranteed for the creative industries until their work and income returns to sustainable levels.”

The Treasury Committee’s report on the “Economic impact of coronavirus” proposed some practical solutions as to how that might be achieved, and we endorse it.

To return to the UK events sector specifically, I understand that DCMS proposes a targeted economic support package for the business visitor economy, which will be a crucial and welcome move. If the Minister can say anything about that, we will be all ears.

Last year, the UK festival and live music sector contributed £4.5 billion to the UK economy, supporting over 200,000 jobs. Festivals themselves—I declare an interest—generate £1.75 billion and support some 85,000 jobs. The catastrophic impact of covid on the sector cannot be underestimated. According to the most recent survey by the Association of Independent Festivals, at least 50% of the workforce faces redundancy. The festival season, which is obviously between April and September, was of course totally abandoned this year, and the sector is working towards, but not hopeful of, returning next year.

Part of that hopeful return involves the DCMS festivals working group, for which I thank the Department. It has now had three meetings, and several drafts of the covid operational festival planning guidance have been produced. I understand that a working draft will be produced next week and hosted on The Purple Guide website, which is a “good to go” industry standard for health, safety and welfare at music and other events. It is imperative that we take that seriously.

In closing, the £1.57 billion culture recovery fund is excellent. Heaven only knows why it has taken so long to get the money out, but I understand that it starts tomorrow and then again on Monday. Above all, when the funds do get to the arts sector next week, I hope that that the wonderful Theatre Royal in Winchester, which has done so much to help itself, will have some help from Government to continue its great work. That will be a nice October surprise.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Stevens (Cardiff Central) (Lab)]

I thank Members from across the Chamber for a really strong and powerful debate about all the sectors covered by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport—sectors that touch every aspect of our lives, every day of the week. As we have heard, they have been hit horribly hard by covid. I thank all the trade unions in the sector who are fighting so hard for their members and their livelihoods, along with the ExcludedUK campaign and the trade bodies and associations and advocacy groups. Their tireless work and expertise have also informed a lot of today’s debate so powerfully. Finally, I thank the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to the debate; the Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the hon. Member for Solihull (Julian Knight); and my neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), for securing the debate.

We have heard a lot of consensus during today’s debate. I think upwards of 35 Members have spoken—too many to refer to individually. I would particularly like to thank colleagues on the Opposition Benches for their contributions.

We have heard that the majority of the DCMS sector is in complete despair. The impact of covid has been exceptionally hard on culture, sport, tourism and the charitable sector. It has hit advertising, which supports much of our broadcast and print media, and we have heard about funding cuts to the BBC, which have meant the loss of 450 jobs in local news. While digital has boomed, especially for those big global tech companies, those across the country with slow broadband, or who have not had access to skills to benefit from digital, are excluded further; and as in so many areas, the pandemic is exposing all too clearly the deep-bedded fault lines in our society.

We appreciate that the Government have tried to help the sector but, as we have consistently said, that help has been limited in DCMS, the bulk of it being too slow. The following hard truth for the Government also needs to be said: if we had a properly functioning test, trace and isolate system, much of the sector would be flourishing right now. We know that, because that is what is happening in other countries—just look at Germany, with its creative industries back on track, and Denmark’s sporting sectors. So that is what is holding us back.

In arts and culture, experienced, skilled and talented live performers, and the people who create, produce and make those economically successful events happen, are being treated by the Treasury as though their jobs were mere hobbies. As we have heard today from across the House, many have had no support since the pandemic hit. People and businesses across the sector constantly tell me that they do not believe the Government understand how the ecology of the sector fits together.

We have had the terrible news this week of the 5,500 job losses at Cineworld, and earlier today, 1,300 job losses at the National Trust were announced. It did not take a crystal ball to work out, at the beginning of this pandemic, that much of the sector would be the first to close and the last to reopen. We had hoped that the Chancellor’s winter economic plan would correct some of these failures, but instead we were left disappointed because, as I am sure the Minister understands, you cannot work a third of your hours if your workplace is shut. I know that the Minister will cite the £1.57 billion cultural recovery package, which is obviously welcome, but 97% of that figure has not even reached anybody yet, nearly 100 days on from when it was announced. The focus of the fund is buildings and institutions, not people. Of course buildings are important, but the people who create what is inside those buildings need urgent help—and it is really urgent, as ONS figures suggest that a quarter of a million people in the creative arts sector will lose their jobs within weeks.

The creative industries and sport will be vital to our national recovery, to the public’s health and wellbeing and to our economic recovery. These are not things that are nice to have if we have spare money; as we have heard, they have been and can be economically successful, and powerful drivers of future jobs growth and regeneration.

We have heard lots of contributions about sport. Just like the creative industries, I am hearing from sports stakeholders that they feel the Government do not understand how their sector works. I have been contacted overnight by various clubs, talking about what they feel is the illogical nature of today’s announcement about a socially distanced event at the O2. It is great to hear about an indoor event, but sports clubs cannot understand why we cannot have some fans back in stadiums, given that stadiums are outdoors. They need clarity and clear communication from the Government on this issue.

Let me turn to tourism. We have heard about the challenges facing our town centres and seaside towns. These are not new, but the pandemic—added to 10 years of a lack of investment—has accelerated the problems and inequalities faced by these areas. The tourism industry projects a drop in income of almost £70 billion this year, and fears there will be a loss of almost 1 million jobs. The unemployment crisis facing this and other sectors is set to wreak devastation throughout the country, but especially in areas where tourism and the interlinked hospitality sector are the main employers.

At the very moment when our society is crying out for help, those who provide it in the charitable sector are also struggling. Some £12.4 billion has been lost from the sector and 60,000 jobs hang in the balance. The #NeverMoreNeeded campaign has highlighted this exact issue—that charities have supported us, but now feel abandoned.

The message to the Government from across the House in this debate is very clear. Much of the sector risks decimation. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West described a cultural climate emergency and employment extinction. We cannot just help the Crown jewels—as the Government like to call them—because there will not be any jewels if we cut the pipeline of talent that creates them. We cannot simply support buildings and not support those who work in them.

We have a Chancellor who, on 24 September, dismissed these skilled specialist jobs—which have created so much value and wealth for the country, and are the envy of the world—as unviable.

[Steve Brine]

Except he didn’t.

[Jo Stevens]

He did. How economically illiterate and fiscally irresponsible is that? In other countries, Governments value their cultural heritage, supporting them through this time, ready for when we can emerge from this crisis.

We stand at a crossroads. We can either allow the serious wounds inflicted on the digital, culture, media and sport sector to become fatal, and embrace the Chancellor’s viability distinction; or we can, as the Labour party does, soundly reject that idea. This sector was viable before. It was growing and successful. It needs help now, and it needs Test and Trace to work to provide that help so that it can grow again. We have heard plenty of ideas today about how the Government could help that to happen. I hope that they will look at all those ideas, because this is urgent.

I conclude by paraphrasing—and cleaning up—a recent tweet from the musician Liam Gallagher, who said that this country would be nothing without its sport, its music, its TV and its art. I agree with Liam; it’s the good stuff in life, and that is what the Opposition will fight for. I hope that the Government will too.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Matt Warman)]

I congratulate the Chair of the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), and the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) on securing the debate. This is a critical topic that must remain at the forefront of our considerations as we continue to tackle the challenges of the covid-19 pandemic. That is what we have heard from a diverse range of speakers today. I congratulate all of them and apologise for not being able to mention everyone in detail.

Our arts shape us. Our heritage and our history shapes us, and our communities around our sports clubs at every level shape us. That is why this Government have put £1.57 billion into supporting our arts—an unprecedented package. It is why we have put £200 million into supporting our sports, and it is why we will continue to do so to the best of our abilities. This Government are here for culture, here for the arts and here for sport, and we will continue to be so. Whatever ITV might tweet and then have to delete, that is true for the Chancellor as well.

Let us go back to the beginning of this extraordinary pandemic. The Prime Minister rightly instructed us to work at home if we could. That meant millions of people suddenly relying on the internet for endless Zoom calls. It meant millions more people relying on the internet to educate their children, even if they could not work from home, and it meant millions of people relying on the internet for entertainment. Let us not forget that, thanks to the work of our telecommunications networks, the digital lights did not go out. That is hundreds of thousands of men and women working incredibly hard, and I thank them for that. I also thank the BBC, Netflix and other providers that agreed to take some of the load off our networks, so that we could all carry on.

At the outset of this pandemic, we made it clear that we would move to protect our cultural institutions, which are rightly famous around the world. Moreover, they are vital to our economy, to our theatres, to our live music venues and to our museums. They brought in £32.3 billion in 2018, and they employ 680,000 people. It is that income and those jobs that we have moved to shield. It culminated in the £1.57 billion culture recovery fund to tackle the crisis in our most loved arts organisations and heritage sites and help weather the storm of coronavirus. I want to be clear: we are working as hard as we can to get this money out of the door as quickly as possible. That will begin on Monday, and it will continue throughout October and November.

[Steve Brine]

That is good to hear. If there is any money left in the culture recovery fund after Monday, how soon will the pot be emptied? We do not want any money left in the pot when there are people going to the wall.

[Matt Warman]

I understand my hon. Friend’s enthusiasm. Perhaps it would help if I unpack some of the culture recovery fund, because I, too, do not want to see any money left unclaimed. There is £88 million for heritage institutions, which will provide grants of £10,000 to £3 million; £622 million in recovery grants, and a further £270 million in repayable finance on very generous terms; £120 million to invest in rebuilding and upgrading our cultural infrastructure, as part of a wider effort to bounce back stronger; £100 million for arm’s-length bodies such as the British Library, the British Museum and the BFI; and £188 million for the devolved Administrations.

This is not just about big names in London. It is about all our small venues and our communities up and down the country. It is important to ensure that they are not forgotten, and with this fund, they are not. This is about protecting our cultural assets. That is why we have already provided £3.36 million in emergency funding, which has gone to grassroots venues up and down the country, and 42 cinemas across England have already been supported in the first wave of BFI funding. I know how important cinemas are, and the independent sector is a crucial part. The Department has also worked closely with our arm’s-length bodies to deliver tailored support packages at speed, including £200 million in emergency public funding to stabilise organisations and protect jobs. We have engaged extensively with the breadth of the sector since the pandemic began, and that is how we will ensure we get the culture recovery fund distributed as quickly as possible.

We continue to work at speed with sports clubs across the country to understand the best way of providing as much support as we can. Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport officials are working with their Treasury counterparts to ensure that as many sports clubs as possible are not adversely affected. The Government’s first duty is to public health, but we must ensure that there are clubs for fans to go back to.

In addition to sector-specific interventions, DCMS sectors have of course benefited from a year’s business rates holiday for leisure businesses, bounce back loans and the reduction in VAT from 20% to 5%.

Thanks to our arm’s-length body, Sport England, grassroots sport is in the process of receiving a £195 million package of support to help community sports clubs, which are so important at this time. We have recently boosted the community emergency fund by a further £15 million, taking the total to £210 million.

We have supported the return of elite sport to behind-closed-doors competition, which has also enabled vital broadcast revenue to flow into elite sport. The Government ensured that Project Restart was shared with everyone by getting Premier League football on the BBC for the first time ever.

There has also been important support for rugby league and, following the postponement of fans’ return to stadiums in general, the Government will come forward with a package to support the most affected sports. That includes help with the immediate needs of the National League football teams that are at the heart of many communities.

Work continues apace to explore new ways of getting fans into stadiums as soon as we can. We have hosted several successful pilots and we have launched the sports technology and innovation group. Its work and our learning from our successful pilot sports events with crowds will ensure that we are best prepared to get fans back into stadiums as soon as it is possible to do so.

I recognise that the business events industry, which is often related to stadiums, is also affected. That is why the Government have put in place the unprecedented package of general support. We will also work with the industry specifically to restart. Pilots undertaken in September have demonstrated that that can be done in a covid-secure way. We will continue to do that as much as we possibly can.

Tourism was one of the first industries to be hit, but the Government acted quickly to help businesses. On top of the wider economic support package, we have provided business rates relief and one-off grants and introduced the hugely significant cut in VAT for tourism. We recognise that the times remain extremely difficult for the sector. We are acutely aware of the seasonal nature of many businesses’ trade and we continue to engage with stakeholders to assess how we can most effectively support tourism’s recovery across the UK. I point my hon. Friends to the work with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and VisitBritain on the aim to extend the season in coastal communities where that can safely be done.

We have announced the £500 million film and TV production restart scheme to assist our creative economy. The scheme will be able to compensate film and TV productions after they have restarted. It is a temporary measure that supports productions that commence filming before the end of the calendar year and compensates for coronavirus losses until the end of June 2021.

We will work as quickly as we can to reopen theatres. We will continue to work with the sector to develop the pilot that we need to get theatres open. That is a vital part of getting support to freelancers. Our world-beating creative industries are nothing without the work of freelancers and we are working hard to help provide financial support for them in those sectors.

We should not forget the charitable and voluntary sector. It has done great work in these extraordinary times.

I am aware that I have not been able to cover every single aspect of the work of DCMS. We will continue to work with colleagues across the House to ensure that we can answer questions, provide the clarity the sector needs and support that most important of sectors in our country.

BBC Regional Politics Coverage

Steve Brine Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Neil Parish]

I am not an expert on the Gaelic language, but I can understand the hon. Gentleman wanting to make sure that there is enough coverage. I think it is about the number of people who speak a language at a given time, and there is an argument as to how much coverage there is, but he has certainly put a good point on the record.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I can see how much my hon. Friend is enjoying this four-hour Adjournment debate. There are presenters on the BBC’s “Newsnight” who earn more than the entire BBC South politics team put together, but the show they put out in our patch achieves a bigger audience than Andy Marr. May I disagree somewhat with his thoughts on regional coverage? Yes, there might be regional parts of local broadcasting, but in the digital age we should be able to achieve more local television broadcasting, because, with the greatest respect to what goes on in East Sussex, it is not of huge interest to my constituents in Winchester and Hampshire. We should really be seeing investment in localised broadcasting by the BBC, not disinvestment.

[Neil Parish]

Yes, my hon. Friend makes a really good point. As I said, the south-west region is split up by the BBC, so we could get even more local. He is saying quite clearly that in the digital age we can break it down much more, almost by county or even town. That is a very interesting point.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Perkins]

Once again, I absolutely agree. I think it was Tip O’Neill who was credited with the phrase, “all politics is local”, and in the last general election we saw that more strongly than ever before. I represent Chesterfield, an area that, as long ago as 2010 when I came to Parliament, was surrounded by Labour seats, but there has been a big change in our area. Similarly, in the cities there has been a change in the opposite direction. I am very conscious of that point, and as colleagues such as my hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Luke Pollard) know, in areas where there is perhaps less representation from one party, it is particularly important that people still get to hear a voice from the Labour party, or, in areas where Labour is strong, a voice from the Conservative party. I think that “Sunday Politics” does that, and it is important to ensure that in areas where one party is in the minority, that voice is still heard in a local dimension.

As Member of Parliament for Chesterfield I have both the privilege and the slight irritation of being straddled between two areas. The majority of my constituents watch the Yorkshire version of “Sunday Politics” and regional news, but we are also covered by the east midlands region, and different people in my constituency watch different programmes. Because of that, when I have been on the two separate programmes, I have been minded of how different they are, and how they reflect the different issues that exist in West Yorkshire at one end, and Northamptonshire at the other end of the east midlands coverage. That gives me a strong sense of how different those areas are.

I would not say that my constituents appreciate my appearances, but they certainly respond to the appearances I make and appreciate that local coverage.

I noticed that the “Sunday Politics East Midlands” Twitter account has now been taken down. Someone at the BBC has made the decision, while the review is apparently still ongoing, to take down that account, to which people could go and see the coverage produced by the “Sunday Politics East Midlands” team. Recent such programmes have brought a local dimension to national stories: we hear a lot about HS2 on a national basis, but we have been able to debate what it means locally in the east midlands. Areas of the east midlands such as Chesterfield, Derby and Nottingham will be served by HS2, whereas in other areas HS2 provides a blight but will not provide a service. There is a perspective that is different from the national debate about HS2.

If “Sunday Politics East Midlands” disappears, I worry about how the people of the east midlands will learn about the latest prediction from the hon. Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) as to when the scrapping of HS2 is going to be announced. I do not know how they would ever find that out. Every six weeks or so, the hon. Gentleman comes on to tell us that it is about to be cancelled. I worry how people would find that out without the “Sunday Politics East Midlands” programme.

[Steve Brine]

I enjoy the hon. Gentlemen’s contributions; he is a big thinker on these matters. The Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, of which I am fortunate to be a member, is currently holding a big inquiry on public sector broadcasting. What the hon. Gentleman and everybody else is saying goes to the heart of the question of what we want a public sector broadcaster to be. Do we want hundreds of thousands of pounds to be spent on salaries for small, niche programmes on national network television? Do we want a commercial entity such as Radio 2 to be financed by the taxpayer—by our constituents—on penalty of going to prison if they do not pay? Or do we want the sort of coverage that the hon. Gentleman is talking about? Ultimately, as we lead up to the charter review—I am sure that the Select Committee’s report will feed into that and into Ministers’ thinking—the debate is really about what sort of public sector broadcaster we want to have, is it not?

[Mr Perkins]

It absolutely is. I am conscious that local media—particularly radio—are very much under threat. I have previously mentioned Peak FM, which has been a great, small local radio station in my area. It has recently been taken over by Bauer and its programming is going to go to the east midlands. We are now told that a traffic jam just outside Corby is local news; that makes no difference to people in Chesterfield. As the local dimension of the private sector media increasingly diminishes, there is an opportunity for the BBC to say, “Look, this is what we are great at. Of course we are going to compete on a national basis with national programmes on a Saturday evening, but this is what is special about the BBC.” It will lose that at its peril: if the BBC loses programmes such as “Inside Out” and “Sunday Politics”—if it loses that sense of its ability to influence things locally—it will rue the day and we will all be the poorer for it.

Other Members, particularly the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton, have mentioned the extent to which there is a sense that if something happens in London, it is national news—that if there is flooding in London or riots in London, we should all care about that. We all know that when we have flooding in different areas, it gets much more difficult to get local coverage. I entirely accept the point made by the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) about London having local news too, but for many of us who are more distant from London, there is a strong sense that what happens in London is given greater import than what happens in our areas. We are going to have the local elections in 2021, and we all know that what happens in London will be seen as national news. The London mayoralty is of course an important national post, but there are elections everywhere, and it is important that those elections are covered too. I do not think that will happen if these programmes disappear.

I could say other things, but I shall end my speech there because many other Members wish to speak. I thank the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton for securing this debate. I hope that when the Minister responds, he will give a really strong assurance that the strength of feeling in this debate will be conveyed to the BBC, and that it will be conveyed in the strongest possible terms just how crucial these programmes are to our constituents.

[Mr Mark Harper (Forest of Dean) (Con)]

A few thoughts occurred to me when I was listening to my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) and some of the interventions that I think the BBC board would do well to reflect on.

The first is the question of the licence fee. I have my thoughts, and although I have not reached a conclusion about the licence fee, I can see both sides of the argument. One of the important things for the BBC to reflect on is that if it wants to retain the support of people across the country—although the hon. Member for Glasgow East (David Linden) is no longer in his place, this is a debate that happens in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, as well as in England—it needs to retain the support of people from across the country for a compulsory fee. My hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) said that if people do not pay that fee, they will go to prison. The BBC does need to think about what it is delivering. If it is not going to deliver anything different from what is available on a purely commercial basis, actually the licence fee is difficult to justify, so that is worth its reflecting on.

I talked about cost in my intervention earlier; that is actually very interesting, and again the BBC should reflect on it. I was looking at an interesting tweet from Chris Mason yesterday about technology. He had the example of a piece to camera that he did for the “Six O’Clock News” yesterday. The camera in question was the size of a highlighter pen, and the monitor used to film it was on his mobile phone. It seems to me that the developments in technology—I know this from interactions I have had with our own journalists from BBC Radio Gloucestershire about some of the technology now—mean that people can do things remotely. We do not have a whole swathe of people turning up; it is an individual, and those individuals do the recording, clip up the programmes and transmit them electronically straight into the studio. Technology should enable the BBC to deliver more local coverage more cost-effectively than ever before.

Of course, the BBC also has more platforms. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton talked about some well-watched television programmes in our region including “Sunday Politics West” and “Inside Out”. However, it is worth reflecting on the fact that these BBC local journalists not only produce content for BBC local radio, such as the fantastic BBC Radio Gloucestershire, and for television—for example, “Points West”, the evening news in our region, and “Sunday Politics West”—but also generate content for the BBC’s own website. I know that that can be controversial, because many local journalists and local newspapers think that that local content unfairly competes with them, and indeed it does, but we should just think about the fact that if the BBC is producing local content, it is a bit silly if we cannot access it on all the different platforms. The cost of producing regional and very local content is coming down and the number of platforms available for people on which to view that content is going up so people can see that content more effectively. Those are both questions for the BBC to focus on.

The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Mr Perkins) also focused on accountability. This is not just about holding us here in Parliament to account on how we conduct ourselves locally and on our records as parliamentarians; it is also about local government, which he mentioned. It is important to have important local outlets—both newspapers and the BBC—because otherwise our local councils will not be held to account by anyone. Even in the time I have been involved in politics in my constituency, the level of coverage of what goes on in local council chambers has plummeted. We do not get the dedicated local government reporters that we used to get. There may be a big story going on in a local council—for example stories about social care or how we look after people with learning disabilities and how effectively we get them into work—but such local issues are never going to be covered properly by national broadcasters unless we have a truly national scandal. Instead, we have to depend on effective local coverage, which in terms of reach means the BBC.

It is also worth focusing on how many people actually see this content. I may not be completely up to date with the figures, but I remember, on my most recent visit to BBC Radio Gloucestershire, asking about the number of people who listen to its programmes. Its morning breakfast programme, the drive time programme, is listened to by many people in my own constituency as they commute —or at least as they used to commute by car, in the days pre-coronavirus—and in Gloucestershire more people listen to that programme than listen to Radio 4’s “Today” programme. So more people in Gloucestershire listen to that local radio station for their news and current affairs and to hold their democratically elected politicians to account than listen to a national leading broadcast programme.

That is really important, and it says two things to me. First, it says that if we did not have that local programme, we would not be holding local politicians, local business leaders and local decision makers to account. Secondly, the fact that the listening figures are so high suggests that my constituents and other Gloucestershire residents find that content more relevant and more interesting to them than that of the national broadcasting programmes that are available at the same time. If the BBC is thinking about its attractiveness to the public—this comes back to my point about the licence fee—it would do well to reflect on that before it wantonly casts these services aside.

My final point, on the cost-effectiveness of the regional services, is the point I made in my intervention. When I visit Radio Gloucestershire—and also when I visit BBC Bristol when I am there for “Sunday Politics”—I look around the studio and see how the staff have to multi-task to put programmes together. I do not see a lot of fat, a lot of waste or a lot of unnecessary fripperies. I see a very cost-effective operation covering what my hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton has described as a big region in the south-west. It is a shame that our colleague from Scotland, the hon. Member for Glasgow East, has gone, because my parliamentary neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), is fond of saying—I checked this once, to ensure that it was accurate—that his constituency in Tewkesbury is closer to the England-Scotland border than it is to Land’s End. That just demonstrates the size of one region in England, and it shows the nonsense of suggesting that even that one region can be adequately covered from London, let alone all the regions in England. That is a really important point for the BBC to bear in mind.

Those of us who have had the opportunity to go to BBC HQ at Broadcasting House will have noted the disparity in the resources put into the BBC centrally. I remember having a conversation with the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, who told me that, when he did a press conference, he used to marvel—that is perhaps not the right word—at the number of questions he used to get from different bits of the BBC. Every single BBC programme insisted on sending its own person, rather than there being a single person to ask a question. There would be a question from the “Today” person, a question from the “Newsnight” person and a question from the BBC’s political editor. That did not suggest an organisation that was focused on delivering value for money. The BBC should bear that in mind.

[Steve Brine]

On that point, sort of, has it not been fascinating during the Downing Street press conferences to see the regional reporters ask their questions? They do it with a straight bat, without an agenda and without a tone. They just get to the nub of the question that matters to the people in their area. Has not that just been so refreshing?

[Mr Harper]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. That is absolutely accurate, and the questions from the local journalists are often far more difficult for the Minister to answer because they are focused on the issue at hand. They do not have any of the Westminster aspect to them; they are straightforward questions. Those journalists are doing what journalists should always do, which is to ask us the questions that the listener or viewer at home wants them to ask. The journalist should be putting the question that the person at home, looking at the screen or listening to the radio, has in their head to the people making the decisions. If they are doing that, they are absolutely doing their job properly.

My final point is about some of the subjects covered, which I think the hon. Member for Chesterfield also touched on, as did my hon. Friend for Tiverton and Honiton. I will pick two examples. The first, which was a little while ago—well, it seems like a long time ago, but it wasn’t really—is flooding, which impacted different parts of the country in different ways and was something that sadly we experienced ourselves in my county of Gloucestershire. That is one set of circumstances when local reporting is at its best—when journalists get out into communities and report on the aspects of the issue that really matter to individuals.

I also agree with what the hon. Gentleman said about the coronavirus outbreak, two aspects of which are worth noting. The first is that the huge amount of very locally focused responses in our communities—through local resilience forums, county councils, district councils, volunteers, and town and parish councils—has been covered in local media outlets, including the BBC, in a way that it simply would not have been, and has not been, in national broadcasting.

Telecommunications Infrastructure (Leasehold Property) Bill

Steve Brine Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading & 3rd reading: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 10th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Oliver Dowden]

We are clear in our commitment to diversification. That is the path by which we get to that point and those are the steps we are setting out today.

[Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his commitment that as well as the ISC—I would love to know when it will be re-formed—scrutiny in this space will be given to Select Committees; I am a member of the Select Committee that scrutinises his work. But there is clearly an impasse here and a problem. My right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) says there are other suppliers in the market that can do this now. The Secretary of State is talking about diversification in the supply side of the industry. I do not understand—where is the difference between those two positions? Can it be done now without Huawei, or not? Which is the truthful position?

[Oliver Dowden]

Of course it can be done now without Huawei, but what we have set out is, first, the cap, at 35%, and then the process of diversification to get from that point—

--- Later in debate ---

[Oliver Dowden]

The Government—I think we all share this objective—would like to get to the point where we do not need any high-risk vendors at all, and we are setting out that process. That said, I want to be candid with hon. Members: I am not today repeating the words of the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman), lest they be misunderstood. We are not today setting out a timetable or date to get to a point where we do not have to rely upon them at all. When we introduce the telecoms security Bill before the summer, hon. Members will have the opportunity to debate this further.

I will make a little more progress and turn my attention to amendment 2. The issue of who is able to request a service from an operator is something that we were conscious of when we were drafting the Bill. As drafted, the Bill, particularly the term “lessee in occupation”, refers to a person who occupies a property under the terms of a lease. For the avoidance of any doubt, this could include assured shorthold tenancy or assured tenancy agreements. It is these types of tenancy agreements that I believe the shadow Minister is seeking to ensure are captured by the Bill, so we will not be supporting that amendment. My concern is that to expand the definition of persons who can make the service request would be disproportionate and potentially undermine a key policy aim of the Bill, which is for operators and landowners to reach agreements between themselves.

The Bill also reflects the fact that the evidence we have received does not suggest that the policy needs to be expanded. I am sure Members will agree that this is a sensible approach that maintains a healthy balance between all parties involved. I hope this clarifies who is likely to be a lessee in occupation and that this satisfies the shadow Minister.

I turn now to my concerns about amendment 3. The Bill aims to support leaseholders to gain access to broadband services from the providers they want. As drafted, the Bill already ensures leaseholders are not locked into services provided by a single provider. Nothing in the Bill prevents a lessee in occupation with an existing gigabit-capable connection from requesting a new service from another alternative provider. That alternative provider will need to give notices to the landowner in line with the electronic communications code. Should that landowner repeatedly fail to respond, that provider could apply for a part 4A order of its own in order to deliver that service. The Government cannot and should not compel independent, commercial companies to alter the way they choose to deliver their services unless there is evidence that a problem exists. Furthermore, far from improving competition and access to services, the amendment might have the unintended consequence of doing the complete opposite. Much of the cost of connecting premises is in the initial installation.

Finally, let me deal with amendment 6. The new connections provided by operators as a result of the Bill will allow greater efficiency and connectivity for consumers and give them an opportunity to benefit fully from certain services including “smart” or internet-connected products, which are often described as the internet of things. The amendment proposes that any operator exercising a part 4A code right must supply provide written information to new customers in the target premises. That would cover best practice on cyber-security in the use of the network connections that have been provided.

I appreciate the sentiment behind amendment 6, and the Government are committed to ensuring that the UK is one of the safest places to be online, but the amendment would impose an additional and disproportionate burden on operators, who may not be best placed to provide consumers with up-to-date information.

The Government have ambitious plans for the roll-out of greater connectivity throughout the United Kingdom, and I can assure the House that in doing so we will never compromise the safety and security of our telecoms networks. Trust in these networks is vital if we are to encourage the take-up of new technologies that will transform our lives for the better.

I have talked at great length to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green and others about our proposals and their amendments. I understand their genuine concerns about the decision taken by the National Security Council and the Government, which was presented to the House about a month ago. I hope that I have given them some comfort, although I accept that it is not all that they have been seeking. I hope I have at least reassured them that the Government appreciate their concerns, and that we are embarking on a path towards the ideal point that we all want to reach where we will have no high-risk vendors. I also hope that they in turn will appreciate that this is not the end of the process but an opportunity for their concerns to be expressed in the amendment, and that the substantial debate will come when we introduce the telecoms security Bill.

Ahead of that, for several weeks—indeed, a few months—there will be the opportunity for intensive engagement in all these issues, including full access to, and scrutiny of, the National Cyber Security Centre and its representatives. I hope that that will enable the House to make progress, but when the Bill is introduced there will of course be huge opportunities for all Members to table appropriate amendments, and the Government will address each one of them.

[Steve Brine]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Oliver Dowden]

I will take one last intervention, but then I really must stop.

[Steve Brine]

This has been a good discussion, although heated. I do not think that this is the right Bill for the amendment, so I will not be supporting it. My right hon. Friend has mentioned the telecoms security Bill. Will it come before the relevant Select Committee and the aforementioned Intelligence and Security Committee for pre-legislative scrutiny, or will it be introduced in the House first?

[Oliver Dowden]

The convention is that representatives of the NCSC appear only before the ISC, but when I spoke to the NCSC’s director this morning, I suggested—and he agreed—that he should appear before any appropriate Committee, such as, perhaps, the Defence or the Foreign Affairs Committee. We will seek maximum engagement before that, so that the Committee can have all the relevant information.

I have made my points about the Government’s position, and about the opportunity to debate these issues again. I do not know whether I have convinced my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, but I hope that he will consider withdrawing his amendment and allowing the House to discuss his proposal in due course when the telecoms security Bill is introduced, before the summer recess.