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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“He set great store by the need for accountability to Parliament and the possibility of an appeal. Almost no regulator has an appeal process. If Ofcom or Ofgem reaches a decision, it remains its decision. The BBFC acts as a regulator, and I am not convinced that a general appeals process such as my hon. Friend describes is a good idea. It would also raise potential difficulties for the industry. I accept that we should not worry just about what the industry wants, but it is an important industry. At present, a film maker or distributor has lengthy discussions with the BBFC about what it will and will not accept and what cuts might be needed to achieve a certain classification. As I have said, classifications matter greatly to a film’s potential revenue.”
“Who knows what the Prime Minister’s view will be? It does not appear to be that the Select Committee should scrutinise appointments to the BBFC. Another concern that I have is that my hon. Friend’s Bill mentions the appointment of the “principal officers” of the BBFC being subject to scrutiny. It is proposed that a public body’s appointments subject to examination by a Select Committee will be restricted to its chairman. I am not clear about who the principal officers are and how wide that description is. The BBFC has a number of senior staff, and it would be somewhat impractical for the appointment of more than the chairman to be subject to scrutiny by the Select Committee. Perhaps my hon. Friend can address that point. My next concern, which I referred to in an intervention on my hon. Friend, is about the nature of the appeals process.”
“I hope that my hon. Friend is right, but it would be a strange use of early-day motions. All of us sign a large number of them. [Hon. Members: “No, we do not.”] There are exceptions in the Chamber, but many Members sign them in large numbers, often at the request of their constituents. I know of Members who sign them because they are asked to, a bit like GPs saying that somebody should qualify for incapacity benefit.”
“It is a way of keeping people quiet and happy, in the knowledge, as my hon. Friend rightly says, that early-day motions are graffiti and have no effect. The Bill would mean a new departure in their use. I do not single anyone out, but Members have often condemned films, perhaps even “SS Experiment Camp”, without having seen them. I suspect that there would be a danger that people would read the Daily Mail ’s account of what a film contained, which might not be wholly accurate, and then sign an early-day motion about it, thinking that they would be pleasing the Daily Mail and their constituents. That might be a more frequent occurrence than my hon. Friend the Member for Wellingborough (Mr. Bone) suggests.”
“The biggest danger lies in the internet, not in the cinemas in our high streets.”
“It started with music, but now films can be downloaded with ease, often from websites based way outside the jurisdiction of any responsible authority. Very soon, video games will also be distributed online. There is a concern that young, vulnerable people will be able to access and will be exposed to harmful content, which we all agree that they should not see and which is therefore banned—or they are at least protected from it—in this country. The global distribution offered by the internet means that those protections can be circumvented. That is why I welcomed the setting up of Dr. Tanya Byron’s inquiry and why my Select Committee is examining the issue. There is a serious concern about how we protect our young people and ensure that they are not exposed to harmful material.”
“I am sure that there are no hon. Members present who would view them in that light, but I accept my hon. Friend’s point that some do. I have some concerns about the Bill, first because, in the main, the BBFC does a reasonably good job. I do not always agree with its decisions, but I do not think that it repeatedly gets things wrong. Secondly, there are practical difficulties to the Bill’s proposals, and thirdly, they could do damage to the film industry. The right hon. Member for Leicester, East focused on the serious concerns about the unregulated environment, and my Select Committee is currently addressing those. We have controls over films and video games, but more and more material is being made available online.”
“Let me confirm to the hon. Gentleman that the inquiry that the Select Committee is undertaking is into harmful content online and in electronic games, that we shall be taking evidence from the BBFC, and that it is very possible that we might make such a recommendation.”
“It is important that we understand clearly what the Minister is saying, because “This is England” won the award for best British film. Does she think it was not properly classified or that it should have been censored more?”
“I agree entirely with the Minister. I wonder whether she can confirm my recollection that no evidence was produced to suggest that the young boys responsible for the murder of Jamie Bulger ever saw “Child’s Play 3”.”
“Is the Secretary of State aware that most people will regard his statement this afternoon as the final chapter in a saga of total shambles and incompetence? Does he understand the resentment that is bound to be felt in authorities such as Blackpool that chose to put in an application only for a regional casino licence? It is one thing to lose in fair competition, but the competition has now been scrapped entirely. Should such councils not at least have another opportunity to apply for a licence for a large or small casino?”
“I strongly support the requests of my hon. Friends the Members for Hertsmere (Mr. Clappison) and for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis). Whatever Simon Mann may have done, or not done, does the Leader of the House accept that he is entitled to reasonable treatment and fair legal representation? There is real concern that he will get neither of those in Equatorial Guinea. Will she try to arrange an opportunity for the Foreign Secretary to tell us what the Government are doing to help him?”
“I am grateful to the Minister for his kind words. My hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) made the valid point that there are many Departments involved in this issue. It appears that Dr. Byron is taking the lead in setting up her review, and that is being conducted mainly under the Department for Children, Schools and Families, supported by officials from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, so while I am delighted to see the Minister here this evening, I am slightly puzzled about why the Home Office is responding to the debate. Perhaps he could say something about how all these different Departments will work together.”
“The Minister is right that the IWF has done a great deal to tackle the problem of child pornography on the internet, but the “Panorama” programme a few weeks ago exposed the problem of paedophiles posing as young girls to access social networking sites. That enables them to find out information that they are then able post for almost anybody to see. What progress has been made in dealing with that?”
“Notwithstanding the Secretary of State’s comments, is he aware of the serious concerns expressed by many arts organisations, including the Compass theatre in Sheffield, that decisions by the Arts Council are dictated more by questions of social engineering than of artistic merit? Will he undertake an urgent review of the guidelines under which the Arts Council operates?”
“Does the Secretary of State agree that healthy minds are as important as healthy bodies, and that access to high-quality United Kingdom-produced children’s programmes contributes to that? Will he bear in mind the damaging impact that restrictions on advertising have already had on the UK children’s programming sector, and will he resist any moves to extend the advertising ban further? That would do little to tackle obesity, and would do more damage to an important part of the broadcasting landscape.”
“T3. Is the Secretary of State aware of the huge increase in the cost of the statutory bus concessionary travel scheme, which has far outstripped the additional grant given to local authorities and has caused serious difficulty for many councils, including Maldon district council? Will she meet a delegation from affected local authorities in Essex to see what can be done to help?”
“We are alarmed, however, by the evidence that has already been given by the permanent secretary in the Department, who stated that he expected that it might well all be necessary—and the Minister has said that she cannot guarantee that the final figure might not prove even higher. We understand that she can offer no such guarantee. I regret the necessity for this order, as I still believe that the Government could have found other sources for the funding that would have been less damaging to the good causes, and I must express my strong hope that it will not be necessary to come back to this issue, either to raid the national lottery or to find some other source of funding because the bill has risen even higher than it is currently predicted to do.”
“The Secretary of State has clearly been extremely persuasive in his discussions with the Treasury, so perhaps he could push his luck and ask whether it will reconsider its intention to have its tax take from the national lottery game. That money, too, could provide extra funding that could be better used elsewhere. I welcome the Secretary of State’s concession, and I also strongly welcome his pledge that there will be no further raid on the national lottery. I hope that that will not be necessary, in any case. Of the £9.375 billion, £2.75 billion represents a contingency fund, and we all hope that that fund will not be fully drawn down.”
“The lottery will therefore have to put up with a substantial hit for a considerable time, and it will not be a great reassurance to the bodies that hope to receive lottery funding to hear that the amount of money available will increase again by 2030. The one other concession that the Secretary of State has made this afternoon, which I strongly welcome, is his pledge that the Treasury will look again at the case for a gross profits tax for the national lottery. I am always slightly suspicious when I am told that a taxation change will increase not only the amount of revenue to the Exchequer but the amount available to good causes—but PricewaterhouseCoopers has apparently assured us that that would be the case, and that should be grounds for at least examining the idea.”
“However, when I look at the memorandum of understanding I see no mention of the word “if” in relation to the land sales achieving the necessary £1.8 billion to repay the London Development Agency and the lottery distributors. In fact, it uses clear language, stating: “the National Lottery income…will be re-paid”, and that the LDA will be reimbursed. However much it is now suggested that this does not represent a new story, a degree of uncertainty that did not previously exist seems to apply to the likelihood of the lottery being reimbursed for its contribution. That is obviously a matter for concern. Even if the money is repaid in full, it seems unlikely that that will happen until about 2030.”
“We therefore very much welcomed the then Secretary of State’s announcement, a few months later, that part of the money that would become available from the sale of that land in due course would be repaid to the lottery. As has been said in this debate, she set out a clear order of priorities for how it would be allocated. It appears, however, that some doubt has arisen over how much will be available. The Mayor’s office, which gave evidence to the Committee this morning, dismissed the story in The Times and said that it had always been the case that the amount of money raised from land sales could be between £800 million and as much as £3 billion.”
“However, there is no doubt that taking £675 million, in addition to the original £1.5 billion, will have a further detrimental effect. Indeed, that sum alone will result in £420 million being taken from Big Lottery Fund, £90 million from the Heritage Lottery Fund and £63 million from Arts Council England. Those sums cannot be taken out without a detrimental effect on those bodies’ funding programmes. That will make it harder to sell the Olympic games to the other parts of the country, which are not seeing the immediate benefits from the investment in east London. At the time of the report last year, the Committee suggested that the rise in land values that would undoubtedly result from such investment should not benefit just the London Development Agency.”
“That was why the Select Committee concluded that any further transfer of funds out of the lottery to support the Olympics would penalise good causes yet further. We made it clear that that was not our preferred option. When the Secretary of State had to reveal a budget of £9.325 billion—a considerable extra cost, which had to be found from somewhere—it was with some trepidation that we read reports that the extra would come from the lottery. It appears that the Minister for the Olympics achieved a better deal in her negotiations with the Treasury than some suggested she would. We should therefore be grateful that we are debating an order that will take only a further £675 million from the lottery, and not an even bigger sum.”
“In the report that the Select Committee issued a year ago, we expressed concern about the impact that the original £1.5 billion take would have on good causes, in particular sport. We quoted the Central Council of Physical Recreation, which my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt) has also quoted, which said that the move “would…reduce…funding available to all other aspects of community sport”, which would “undoubtedly be detrimental to achieving the lasting legacy of sporting participation”. We also received evidence from the non-Olympic distributors, such as the Heritage Lottery Fund and Arts Council England, which expressed concern about the money going into the Olympic pot that would be lost to them.”
“In that respect, the order before us will not assist, because not only will there be no huge investments outside London, but money is being siphoned from the pot—the national lottery—from which other parts of the country might otherwise have benefited. That will jeopardise part of the soft legacy, which is the Government’s aim, and it comes on top of the Department’s recent decision to cut the amount of money going to VisitBritain, which will jeopardise another part of the soft legacy of the Olympic games—the tourism potential. When the Government originally drew up their funding package, it was to meet an estimated cost of £2.375 billion, of which £1.5 billion was intended to come from the lottery—£750 million from the new game, £340 million from the sports distributors and £410 million from the non-Olympic distributors.”
“I am encouraged by the evidence that we in the Select Committee have received that progress is on track so far. Although the costs have escalated, at least the timetable appears to have been observed. The Secretary of State and the Minister for the Olympics would have been encouraged had they joined us this morning when we took evidence from the five host boroughs and heard the enthusiasm with which their leaders spoke of the benefits that they saw coming to their part of London. However, if more than £5 billion is being spent in an area, it is not surprising that the local people should expect quite a lot of benefits to come from it. The challenge for the Government has always been not just to ensure that there are benefits for that part of London, but to persuade the other parts of the country that they will benefit, too.”
“I will do my best to keep my remarks brief. As so often, it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster). I agreed with much of what he said. As the Secretary of State knows, when the Government first decided to bid for London to host the 2012 games, I held the position now filled by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt). At that time, I expressed the Conservative party’s support for the Government’s decision to bid. I remain of the view that it was the right thing to do, and that the Olympics will greatly benefit the country. The Secretary of State and the Minister for the Olympics occasionally interpret any criticism of the preparations for the games as a lack of support for their coming to London at all, so I put my support on record at the outset.”
“At the time of the passage of the Licensing Act, the Government dismissed warnings that one of its consequences would be to damage the performance of live music in town centres and elsewhere. The Secretary of State will be aware that Live Music Forum has concluded that the Act is having that effect, so will he now consider making changes to it, as recommended by the forum, to ensure that live music continues to flourish throughout Britain?”
“A year ago, in relation to the Olympic budget, the Minister told the Select Committee: “I want to be absolutely sure that nobody draws any conclusion that ‘programme contingency’ translates inevitably into ‘additional cost’.” Now that the chairman of the ODA and the permanent secretary have both suggested that it is likely that it will all be extra cost, can the Minister say whether she expects that any of the programme contingency will remain unspent?”
“But does the Secretary of State not accept that unless he moves quickly to announce the decision to go ahead with the new generation of nuclear power stations, energy companies will have no alternative but to invest in new conventional power if they are to fill the coming energy gap? Does he accept that there is growing public support for investment in new nuclear power, not least in communities such as Bradwell-on-Sea in my constituency, which have had long experience of living next door to a nuclear power station?”
“12. What estimate he has made of the impact of the spending plans announced in the comprehensive spending review on the level of council tax in the next three years.”
“Is the Chief Secretary aware that the Local Government Association has described the spending plans as the worst financial settlement for councils in a decade? Is not it the case that, in counties such as Essex, where demand-led social services such as social care are increasingly costly—the costs are rising far faster than inflation—the inevitable result of the settlement will be higher council tax bills, which hit pensioners and many of the most vulnerable in society hardest?”
“On a positive note, I can tell the Secretary of State that the farmer in my constituency who suffered from a bluetongue outbreak told me on Sunday that his cattle are recovering well. That illustrates the different nature of the disease. However, does the Secretary of State accept that the movement controls put in place to deal with bluetongue have equally as damaging an effect on the industry as the movement controls relating to foot and mouth disease? When might farmers expect some lifting of the movement controls relating to bluetongue?”
“Is the Minister aware that the Environment Agency map shows some 2,600 properties around Maldon alone to be at risk from flooding, not to mention the Secretary of State’s ancestral home? Does the Minister agree that the risk he describes is increasing, owing to rising sea levels, greater storm pressure and a subsiding land mass? Does he accept that much more money needs to be spent on sea defences and that if money is spent now the sums needed are likely to be far less than the catastrophic losses that would be incurred if a flood were to occur?”
“I welcome the Chief Secretary to his post. Is he aware, however, that it is now three and a half years since the publication of the Goodison review—a report that was commissioned by one of his predecessors as Chief Secretary? When will the Treasury respond to the report’s tax recommendations, which have universal support in the arts world as a means of substantially increasing private giving at relatively modest cost? May I draw his attention to the unanimous recommendation of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport to that effect?”
“Is the Minister aware of the growing evidence that people who live in close proximity to wind turbines suffer significant risks of adverse health effects? Will he give urgent consideration to increasing the minimum separation distance from large turbines to at least 2 km, and is he aware that this is another reason why my constituents in Bradwell and Tillingham are utterly opposed to the proposal to build 10 400 ft wind turbines within a mile of their homes?”
“I thank the Under-Secretary for his remarks about the Select Committee report, which unanimously recommended an extension in the term of copyright to 70 years. When he considers the matter, will he bear it in mind that the beneficiaries of a copyright extension will not only be friends of the Prime Minister, such as Cliff Richard and the Bee Gees, but thousands of musicians? Perhaps he will especially bear in mind the remarks of Fast Eddie Clarke of Motörhead, who wrote to me and said: “You may think that as a rock musician I should not expect to live until 80. I can assure you I did not think this was going to happen but... My royalties will be my pension and something to pass on to my family, so to learn that they will be stripped away before my 80th birthday is frankly unacceptable.””
“For that reason, I hope the House will vote not against Manchester, as some have suggested, but in line with the recommendation in the House of Lords that the matter should be referred back to a Scrutiny Committee. Whereas in the House of Lords it appears that the Government’s belated acceptance of Baroness Golding’s amendment will change nothing, the proposal should be considered by a Scrutiny Committee, and the order should be laid and permission given only after that Committee has had a chance to report.”
“Certainly, it would have been preferable had the Secretary of State separated the two issues and put before the House two orders, so that the 16 locations that are likely to benefit from large or small casinos could proceed without being delayed while the matter was re-examined. The location of a regional casino is extremely important. There is a real risk that if we get it wrong, that will lead to a significant increase in problem gambling, which is what we have always sought to avoid throughout the consideration of the legislation. If that risks exists, it is worth pausing, as my hon. Friend said, and referring the matter back to a Committee which can take account of the concern about problem gambling, rather than to the advisory panel, which seems to have excluded that issue from its consideration.”
“That leads us to believe that the panel conducted its own inquiry in the light of its terms of reference, but that the Government set it terms of reference that excluded from consideration what we always believed to be the most important issue. On that basis, the panel’s report is flawed, as the Government misled the panel about the issues and criteria that it should have used to make a judgment by excluding what we in the House had always considered to be the most important issue when determining the future location of any regional casino. It is on that basis that I continue to believe that the recommendation is flawed. My hon. Friend the Member for East Devon has argued that we do not have a problem with the recommendation for the locations of the eight large casinos, or, indeed, for the eight small casinos.”
“However, the panel plainly states that it did not consider that that was a matter for it. Its interpretation of the test of social impact appears to have been to look at the various applications and decide which one was most likely to lead to an increase in problem gambling, and choose it, because it would offer the best test, which is an entirely perverse interpretation of the way in which most people thought that it would undertake its task. When the Secretary of State wrote to Lord Filkin after the publication of the advisory panel’s report, she stated that minimising harm from gambling was not “the primary consideration” that she set for the panel.”
“It was not unreasonable to believe that that would be one of the guiding principles of the advisory panel’s work. We were therefore astonished—at least, I was certainly astonished—when the Secretary of State announced a few weeks ago that the panel had decided that the regional casino should be located in Manchester, as that plainly was an area in close proximity to residential properties. As I said at the time, I was even more astonished to find that the panel’s report stated that “problem gambling is more a town planning consideration rather than one for us”. The hon. Member for Manchester, Central (Tony Lloyd) has sought to argue that Professor Crow has since said that he did accord importance to social impact and problem gambling when making his decision.”
“However, they were extremely brief: “The criteria against which the panel will assess these submissions were set out in the government’s national policy statement on casinos…The primary consideration will be to ensure that locations provide the best possible test of social impact.” As previous speakers have said, it was extremely unclear precisely what that meant, and the panel clearly had great difficulty interpreting what was meant by social impact. It was clear to us, however, that the national policy statement, which was issued when it was proposed that there should be eight regional casinos, rather than one, nevertheless set out at the very outset that the Government’s first objective was to protect children and other vulnerable people from harm.”
“We strongly supported the Committee’s recommendation that the regional casino should not be located in close proximity to residential properties. At the time, we said that that should be the overriding consideration, and while we certainly were not in a position to say that it necessarily should go to Blackpool, we recognise the strength of the case that Blackpool made. The Secretary of State said that no one objected to the panel’s terms of reference, which is correct.”
“It was even less clear why, just a few weeks later, they came back with further caps of eight on the number of large casinos, and on the number of new small casinos. Certainly, in the case of regional casinos, we felt that the figure was too large and should be reduced. In the end, we argued that there should be just one, and the Secretary of State was forced to accept that position. In arguing about where that one regional casino should be located, we were entirely happy to accept the Secretary of State’s decision that the decision should be given to an advisory panel. However, we have always made it clear that we share the Joint Scrutiny Committee’s view that the impact on problem gambling would be minimised if the location were a destination resort.”
“There was a real fear that that would lead to an increase in problem gambling. The Government’s problems on that score began when they ignored the recommendation in the report of my hon. Friend the Member for Ryedale (Mr. Greenway), who chaired the Joint Scrutiny Committee. Initially, the Government had proposed no real limit on the number of regional casinos, but my hon. Friend’s Committee came up with a sensible scheme, under which we would use an economic mechanism that would limit the number. The Government did not accept that recommendation, but instead, halfway through the passage of the Bill, they had to come up with a cap of eight casinos, which flew in the face of what they had previously argued. It was never entirely clear to us why the number should be eight.”
“I want to reflect on some of the arguments that I presented at the time, and to say why I believe that the position outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr. Swire) is entirely consistent with all the points that we made during the Bill’s passage. There was much in the Bill that we always supported. We believed that there was a strong case for introducing a regime to regulate online gambling, and we supported the abolition of the 24-hour rule and the removal of the ban on advertising. The problem with the Bill was always regional casinos. They represented an entirely new form of gambling that had never before been seen in this country. They would introduce category A gaming machines, too; the proposal was, and is, that each of the regional casinos should have 1,250 of them.”
“Almost weekly, the Minister for Sport had to make an announcement of Government policy to the Standing Committee that was almost in direct contradiction to what he had argued the previous week. Then in the Bill’s final stages in Parliament, the Secretary of State was forced to reduce the number of proposed regional casinos from eight to just one. That cannot have been easy for her, but I suspect that she must have sighed with relief when the Bill finally received Royal Assent. She could not have anticipated that not so long afterwards, she would be back in the House of Commons having to defend this order, and facing possible defeat. I currently chair the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, but during the passage of the Bill I was the shadow spokesman, and it is in that capacity that I want to speak.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Blackpool, North and Fleetwood (Mrs. Humble), who made a powerful speech. She referred to the early-day motion that she tabled, which was in the Order Paper, and to the fact that a number of north-western Members on both sides of the House had signed it. I represent a coastal town, too, but I suspect that it is as far away from Blackpool as it is possible to be. However, I was happy to sign her early-day motion, because she presents a persuasive case. I begin by expressing some sympathy for the Secretary of State. Those of us who were involved in the debates during the passage of the Gambling Act 2005 always suspected that she was never that enthusiastic about the legislation. Certainly, the passage of the Bill was dogged by disaster throughout.”