Sir John Whittingdale
MP for Maldon · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I strongly welcome the Secretary of State’s confirmation of our continuing support for Ukraine. He has set out the sustained threat from Russia facing not just Ukraine, but this country and the whole of Europe, yet for too many people, it is still business as usual.”
“That is perhaps even more relevant to the second prong of the Government’s proposals, which is about social media. I will come to that point, but before I finish talking about local media, I want to mention that another of the Government’s flagship policies is devolution.”
“The hon. Member is completely right that this issue must be addressed before we proceed. There is also the question of cost, raised by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wetherby and Easingwold (Sir Alec Shelbrooke). There are people who probably do have access to broadband, if they choose to pay for it, but they cannot afford to do so.”
“I was the Minister responsible for the passage of the Media Act 2024, during the previous Parliament. It is a great delight to see some familiar faces with whom I have worked with in the past on the officials’ Bench.”
“Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart) that young people are turning more and more to social media, but I do not think that this policy is the answer, because it looks to me like a very dangerous extension of Government interference in the freedom of the press and the right to free speech.”
“My right hon. Friend asks a perfectly valid question, and I want to acknowledge that there are concerns. We had a debate in Westminster Hall not that long ago, and a number of my colleagues—particularly from Scotland—turned up to express concern about the fact that the quality of reception via broadband in their constituencies is very poo…”
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“Does my right hon. Friend agree with the Committee on Exiting the European Union that it would be in the best interests of both sides if we could conduct the negotiations on the divorce settlement in parallel with those on our new relationship? Does she therefore agree further that any flexibility on the size of our exit payment must be linked to flexibility in other areas to be negotiated?”
“While I recognise the BBC’s huge contribution to public service broadcasting, does the Minister agree that some TV genres are underserved and that a public service broadcasting contestable fund could increase competition and innovation? Will he confirm that the Government intend to go ahead with a pilot in due course?”
“I understand and support my right hon. Friend’s decision, or at least the decision she is minded to take. However, she will be aware that by the time the CMA reports, it will be well over a year since the matter was first proposed, which has created considerable uncertainty for the companies and for investors. Does she therefore agree that whatever verdict the CMA may reach, that ought to resolve the matter?”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that continued membership of the European single market, which some Opposition Members seem now to be advocating, would negate many of the advantages of leaving the European Union, while requiring us still to accept decisions that we could no longer influence? To that extent, it would actually be worse than continued membership as a full member.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that the pilot scheme that allowed the filming of judges’ sentencing remarks in criminal courts has been a success? Will he now consider going further in allowing the broadcasting of court proceedings, so that justice is not just done but seen to be done?”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that a failure to pass the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill, transferring European law into British law, would plunge this country into chaos when we leave the European Union? Does he find it extraordinary that any party claiming to respect the decision of the British people should contemplate voting against it?”
“I congratulate my right hon. Friend on the organisation last week of the Ukraine reform conference in London, which demonstrated that Britain will continue to play a leading role on the world stage in the years to come. Can he confirm that, while Ukraine still faces major challenges, progress is being made in areas such as tackling corruption? Will he also tell us what more can be done to assist it?”
“Will my right hon. Friend welcome the appointment of Alex Mahon as the new chief executive of Channel 4, who I hope will bring a fresh approach? Will she confirm that it remains the Government’s view that the distinctiveness of Channel 4 will be enhanced by its being relocated outside London?”
“May I commend my right hon. Friend for the scrupulous way in which she is following the advice she has been given while giving the maximum opportunity for interested parties to comment at each stage? Would she also agree that the only thing on which the Opposition spokesman was correct was that when it comes to plurality, it is becoming increasingly obvious—and the general election bears this out—that the printed press are a waning influence and the real media giants today are companies such as Google and the social media giants?”
“Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the principal reasons why the British people voted to leave the EU was to reassert the supremacy of this Parliament and the UK courts? Will she confirm that, when we do leave, that will be the position for all citizens resident in the UK, no matter from where they came?”
“I hope that it will mean that we can deliver more support to British farming, and at a cheaper price as we will not have to be sending the money across to Brussels to have it judged, recycled and sent back to us.”
“The immigration Bill will allow us to design our own system of determining whom we should welcome into this country and to whom we should say that we simply cannot accommodate them given the need to reduce the overall level. It means that we can create an immigration system that is fair to all and that does not discriminate in favour of European citizens against non-European citizens. We can judge everybody on the basis of what contribution they can make. The agriculture Bill will allow us to design a system of support for farmers that is tailor-made for the benefit of British agriculture. It is not a one-size-fits-all system, which has to accommodate Greek olive growers just as much as it does wheat farmers in Essex.”
“I would have thought that everybody in this House welcomed the fact that, as we are going to leave the European Union in two years’ time or thereabouts, the repeal Bill will give certainty as it ensures that European law, which currently applies, will be transferred into British law. It also gives us the opportunity to consider at our leisure each of those individual measures to decide whether they are most appropriately framed and whether we could reduce some of the burden, or, in some instances, perhaps even increase the protection if we think that that is the right thing to do. The repeal Bill is not necessarily about reducing regulation— although there may well be plenty of examples where it is sensible to do so—but about giving us back the control to decide for ourselves the most appropriate level of regulation.”
“Friend the Secretary of State, and the talks are just beginning. I do not agree with the right hon. and learned Gentleman when he says that no deal is necessarily worse than whatever bad deal we may get. It would be crazy for us to go in at the start stating that we could not contemplate not reaching a deal. That is a guarantee of not getting the best outcome. I do not want to spend too much time on the negotiations. I hope that, if I am successful in re-joining the Select Committee under the chairmanship of the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn)—if he is chosen as the Chairman—we will be seeing a great deal of the Secretary of State. The opportunities that come from our decision are set out very clearly in the Queen’s Speech, and the first is the repeal Bill.”
“Where I agree with the right hon. and learned Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Keir Starmer) is on the fact that the decision that was taken just over one year ago was probably the most momentous political decision taken in my lifetime and that it will have profound consequences for this country. Obviously, it is essential that we should try to get the best possible deal. Unlike him, though, I campaigned in favour of a leave vote and I continue to believe that the decision that was taken is in the best interests of this country and offers huge opportunities for us both to reassert the supremacy of Parliament in our becoming an independent self-governing nation again and to take advantages of the opportunities that are opening up to us around the world. Negotiating many of the detailed issues will be the responsibility of my right hon.”
“Many people were quite distressed to see in the streets of London very recently the flags of Hezbollah in the al-Quds day rallies. Hezbollah is a terrorist organisation. The military wing is already proscribed in this country, but there is frankly very little distinction between it and the so-called civilian wing, the political wing. I know the Home Secretary has said she will look at this. It is already proscribed in many countries such as the United States, Canada and the Netherlands. Given the distress that was caused by seeing the flags paraded through London, and people calling for the extermination of Israel and supporting what is a terrorist organisation, I hope she will look at that matter urgently.”
“In another part, a separatist movement supported by Russia is waging war. We support the Minsk process to try to put that right, but we do have a responsibility as one of the original signatories to the Budapest memorandum, which guaranteed the territorial integrity of Ukraine. I very much welcome the attention that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is paying to this, and I hope that he will take the opportunity next week to express once again the very firm support of the British Government for the people of Ukraine. I welcome the counter-terrorism review that has been initiated, but there is one aspect that I want to highlight in the hope that my right hon. Friends will draw it to the attention of the Home Secretary.”
“Frankly, soft Brexit is worse than remaining a member of the European Union. The reasons that we wanted to leave the European Union require us no longer to be a member of either the single market or the customs union. Therefore, I strongly support the approach taken by my right hon. Friend and the Prime Minister. I am pleased to see the Foreign Secretary in his place. He may know that I have taken a long-standing interest in events in Ukraine, and I am delighted that he will be meeting the Prime Minister of Ukraine next week. Ukraine may have passed out of the headlines, but the conflict going on in that country is still raging. About 2,700 troops have died since 2014 and nearly 10,000 have been wounded. This is a country on the mainland of continental Europe, part of which is still under occupation in Crimea by Russian troops.”
“The trade Bill allows us now to reach new agreements with the countries that offer the greatest opportunities—the countries that are experiencing the fastest growth and where there is the most likely demand for British exports and British goods. It is no coincidence that there is no European trade deal with China, India, Australia, Brazil, New Zealand, or the United States of America, and yet all those countries want to do business with us and trade with us, and this gives us the opportunity to do so. This debate about hard Brexit versus soft Brexit is a complete fiction. Soft Brexit does not exist. Apparently, it means remaining within the single market and customs union, which means that we will not be able to set our own immigration policy or our own trade policy and that we will still be subject to the European Court of Justice.”
“I accept your stricture, Mr Amess. I agree completely with my hon. Friend, whom I am delighted to see back in his place in the House of Commons. British farming is already doing a great deal to support the environment. In designing a new system of support, we should emphasise that farmers need to be rewarded for what they are doing to conserve the landscape for future generations. The fisheries Bill allows us to right a wrong that was done about 40 years ago. Many fishermen in this country feel that they were sold out when we joined the European Union and were the price that we had to pay for membership. This Bill will allow us to restore their traditional fishing rights.”
“Will my right hon. Friend join me in paying tribute to the workforce at Bradwell-on-Sea in my constituency? They are doing a magnificent job in decommissioning the power station there. Will he confirm that nothing in his statement will prevent that work from continuing? Will he also listen to their concerns about the effect on their pension entitlements of certain changes that have been made regarding the cap on exit payments?”
“I welcome my right hon. Friend’s recognition of the importance to the creative industries of their ability to license on an exclusively territorial basis. Will she ensure that that message gets across to the UK permanent representation in Brussels so that it argues that case as strongly as possible while we remain in the EU?”
“Although it is clearly sensible to ask the regulator to examine this bid, does my right hon. Friend recognise that this transaction represents a £11.7 billion investment by an international company in a British broadcaster and is, as such, a fantastic vote of confidence in the UK’s remaining an international centre of broadcasting long after we leave the European Union?”
“On the establishment of inquiries, my hon. Friend will be aware that the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is considering whether to reconvene the Leveson inquiry, which has already sat for 15 months, at a cost of more than £5 million, to examine events approaching 10 years ago. What advice would he give to the Secretary of State?”
“Does my right hon. and learned Friend share my concern that more than half of local newspaper editors have said that they think the courts are no longer being reported properly? Does he agree that justice needs not only to be done but to be seen to be done and that the decline of local media represents a real threat to that principle? What more can be done to address this issue?”
“This was a nationwide referendum of the British people, and the British people spoke. I agree with the Prime Minister that we have no alternative but to leave the single market, as it is essential that we have control over our borders once more and that we are no longer subject to European Union law.”
“It was a project on which the British people had not been consulted and which they did not support. I had hoped that the Prime Minister, David Cameron, would negotiate an arrangement that allowed us to opt out from the elements that we did not want. He tried valiantly, but what he came back with was insufficient, which left us with no alternative but to leave and then to seek new arrangements allowing us to co-operate in those areas where there was a benefit. The result of the referendum was clear. In my constituency, it was nearly two to one, and people did understand what they were voting for. It does not matter that a majority of younger people may have voted to remain, that a majority of those with degrees may have voted to remain, or even that some parts of the UK may have voted to remain.”
“I did so because I believed in free trade, and because I believed the assurances that were written on those leaflets that the decision taken would not affect the sovereignty of the UK Parliament. I was working for Margaret Thatcher when she first delivered the Bruges speech, which highlighted the fact that that assurance was being steadily eroded and that the European Community was heading in the wrong direction. As a result, when I entered this House I opposed the Maastricht treaty, the Amsterdam treaty, the Nice treaty and indeed the Lisbon treaty as it was becoming steadily clearer that, although there may or may not have been economic benefits from our membership, this was a political project that was heading in the one direction of ever closer union.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Normanton, Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). I did not agree with everything that she said, but the one thing with which I most certainly did agree was her congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Dr Johnson) who made an excellent first speech in this House. It is probably the case that she will never speak in a more important debate in this House no matter that she has, I am sure, a long career ahead of her here. My first political act was to take part in the referendum campaign in 1975. I put leaflets through doors calling on people to vote yes in that referendum.”
“I would like us still to be recognised under the country of origin principle. However, it is vital for European businesses still to have access to our markets, so they will be putting pressure on their Governments to reach a sensible deal. The one thing I have found most astonishing is that when Britain voted to leave the European Union, the reaction of other member states has been more to seek to punish Britain than to ask the question why. The European Union is a flawed—”
“I really am sorry, but I do not have time. We have to leave the customs union if the condition of remaining in it is that we are unable to negotiate our own trade agreements. There are precedents, although I would not necessarily want to follow them completely. The new arrangements, for instance, between the European Union and Canada, and between the European Union and Ukraine, offer no application of European law in those countries and no free movement, but do give them access to the internal market and allow them to negotiate their own trade agreements. Ultimately, the European Union is flexible and an arrangement is perfectly possible. The negotiations will be complicated. I am concerned, for instance, that we must have recognition of the adequacy of our data protection, so that data can continue to flow across borders.”
“It seems entirely premature to table an amendment requiring the Government to commit now to a further inquiry when we have not even begun to assess the results of the consultation. For that reason, I strongly oppose Lords amendment 24.”
“The main issue that has dominated the debate has been the implementation of section 40, which is not covered by this amendment. I share the views that have been extremely well expressed by my hon. Friends the Members for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) and for Torbay (Kevin Foster). However, the Secretary of State has set up a consultation. It concluded today, but it will take some considerable time before the results are made public. I believe that there has been a very substantial response to the consultation, so I do not expect the Government to be in a position to announce any conclusions about the implementation of section 40 or about whether there should be a further inquiry until that work has been done. I suspect that it will take several weeks, if not months.”
“I want to refer briefly to the case made by the relatives of Daniel Morgan when considering whether there should be a further inquiry. I have every sympathy with the family of Daniel Morgan, who was murdered, because there was considerable evidence of police corruption. I can entirely understand their wish to have his killers brought to justice. A Home Office panel is examining that case at the moment, and we await its conclusion. It may well be that further action needs to be taken to deal with police corruption, and I shall wait to see what the panel concludes. Let us bear in mind that the Leveson inquiry was an inquiry into the culture, ethics and conduct of the press. It was not an inquiry into police corruption.”
“However, most of those prosecutions have now been concluded and it is worth looking at the outcomes of those prosecutions when deciding whether there is a case for proceeding. Operation Elveden, which was the police investigation into corrupt payments from newspaper organisations, overwhelmingly resulted in the acquittal of the journalists who had been charged with those offences. I think only two journalists were convicted; the vast majority were acquitted. We need to bear that in mind, because the suggestion that there was a massive corrupt relationship has not proven to be the case. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) talks about the importance of weeding out police corruption and of having confidence in an institution of the state. I completely agree with him on that.”
“I had not intended to take part in the debate, but I want to say a few words about Lords amendment 24. A lot of the debate so far seems to have been about whether section 40 should be implemented, but that does not actually have anything to do with Lords amendment 24, which is specifically about whether there should be a further inquiry into the behaviour and performance of the police in relation to their dealings with news organisations. Leveson 2, as it is now colloquially known, has been put on hold until the conclusion of all the criminal cases, and the amendment rightly recognises that it would be wholly wrong to have any kind of inquiry that could jeopardise criminal prosecutions.”
“Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that, contrary to the assertion of the right hon. Member for Doncaster North (Edward Miliband) in The Guardian , Sky’s share of the television news market is actually 5%, not 20%? Although there may well be a case for asking the regulator to look at this bid, does she recognise that it represents a £12 billion investment into a British company, and is a vote of confidence that Britain will remain a centre of international broadcasting after it leaves the European Union?”
“As my right hon. Friend knows, more than 10,000 Ukrainian servicemen have been killed since the beginning of the Russian-backed conflict, and progress on Minsk appears to have stalled. Does she agree that, as signatories to the Budapest memorandum, we have a special responsibility? Will she look into what further pressure we can put on Russia, and also what additional assistance we can give the people of Ukraine?”
“Does my right hon. Friend accept that in the event of a bid there is a strong case for asking the regulators to provide advice about any concerns on competition or plurality grounds? Does he agree that this bid would essentially be an investment decision rather than an acquisition, as 21st Century Fox already has effective control of Sky? Does he also agree that since the last bid, which was approved by Ofcom subject to certain remedies, there has been a considerable increase in competition in the pay TV market?”
“My right hon. Friend will be aware that one means by which young people are, more and more, accessing pornography is social media and sites such as Twitter. How will his age verification requirements apply to Twitter?”
“My right hon. Friend says it is illegal for children to view adult material, but she will be aware that vast amounts of adult material are broadcast by our national broadcasters after the watershed at 10 o’clock, and it is not illegal for children to watch that, although it may be undesirable. How does she propose to deal with BBC iPlayer, ITV Play and 4oD, which broadcast 18 material?”
“That is not to say that we should not take action against pornographic sites. The original Bill contained a number of quite significant enforcement measures, such as requiring payment providers, website hosting companies and advertisers to stop dealing with websites that had been identified as not complying with the law under the Bill. There are already signs that a number of the big providers are going to comply. MindGeek, which is probably the biggest operator, has said that it will introduce age verification systems, although it wanted others to do so as well. I hope that it will happen.”
“I have yet to see exactly how age verification is going to work. We have seen examples of existing content access control systems through things such as credit cards, or mobile phones that have been verified as belonging to an adult. It is, in my view, asking a lot to ask people who want to access legal content to hand over their credit card numbers to pornographic website operators. The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr Carmichael) was absolutely right to flag up the data protection concerns about that. I hope that Ofcom will look very carefully at how the CAC systems work. As I mentioned earlier, one of the main ways in which young people are now exposed to pornography is through social media such as Twitter, and I do not really see that the Bill will do anything to stop that happening.”
“I start by making it clear that I fully support the provisions in the Bill to require age verification to access pornographic sites. As I observed on Second Reading, it is just as well, since my name is on the front of the Bill. I would like to introduce an element of caution. Unlike a lot of other material online that has been discussed—child pornography, racist material, hate speech, extremist encouragement and copyright breaches—we are talking here about legal content. Like it or not, the sites we are discussing are visited by millions and millions of people every day. They are some of the most popular sites on the entire internet. As I have said, I support the idea of age verification to ensure that only those who can appropriately view this material do so, although there are concerns.”
“To that extent, I rather hope that this Digital Economy Bill is like the Digital Economy Bill that we debated in 2010. That Bill provided for the Government to intervene and require ISP blocking, but the measure was never introduced.”
“If my hon. Friend will forgive me, I am very conscious of the Deputy Speaker’s strictures. I was not persuaded of the necessity of introducing ISP blocking. It represents a considerable infringement of the civil liberties of individuals who want to access material that, as everybody has recognised in this debate, they are perfectly entitled to access. At a time when we are very concerned about the growth of censorship online, and when certain countries would like to take this as a precedent for saying, “It is fine to block content that we do not particularly like,” I think that it is a dangerous road to go down. I hope that the measures originally in the Bill will prove sufficient, that operators will introduce age verification and that we will pause before taking the next step and introducing ISP blocking.”
“Gentleman will have had that advantage, too. Google makes the point that if we put into its search engine the name of the artist and the name of the track, the overwhelming majority are legal results. That is progress. There is no doubt that it is better than it used to be. That deals with the problem of people who do not necessarily want to break the law but just find themselves directed to illegal sites, even when they are not looking for them. That is a step forward, but it does not deal with the problem of people who do not want to pay for music. If we put an additional few terms into the search box, such as “MP3 free download”, the position is completely different and the overwhelming majority of results from that search are illegal. That remains a big problem.”
“I will resist the temptation to be drawn by the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) into discussing his new clause 8 covering the funding of free television licences. We have already debated the issue at some length. Instead, in the spirit of consensus, I would like to concentrate on some of his other amendments, with which I have greater sympathy. The first is new clause 15. On Second Reading, we discussed complaints by the creative industries that, when content is sought, the majority of sites produced by search engines such as Google and others are illegal. That has been the subject of discussion among the search companies, the rights owners and the Government for a long time, and progress has been glacial. Since that discussion on Second Reading, I have had the advantage of talking to Google. I suspect the hon.”
“We felt to some extent that this was more an issue for the industry and the market to address, and indeed the industry has worked hard to introduce technological requirements designed to stop people selling on tickets. However, I was interested to hear from the hon. Member for Cardiff West about my right hon. Friend the Minister’s Paul Simon experience. I have to say that I do not necessarily share his enthusiasm for Paul Simon, but when I sought to buy tickets for the V festival I was unable to get on the website for the first 10 minutes and then in the 12th minute was informed it was sold out, and in the 13th minute I discovered those same tickets on Seatwave for about four times their face value, so I have some sympathy.”
“Gentleman’s new clause is not perhaps the right way to proceed. I am sure that it is deficient and that the Government will find failings in it, but the problem it identifies is a real one, so I hope that the Government will look to see what additional measures we can take to ensure that our IP law remains up to date with the technological developments that are again threatening our creative industries. Finally, I want to talk to new clause 31. When I had the privilege of chairing the Select Committee, we spent a lot of time discussing ticket touting, and at that stage we were unconvinced that it was right either to ban the secondary market, for which there is a legitimate role, or to impose a flat rate top-up limit as to how much extra could be charged on a ticket; those were two possible solutions advanced at that time.”