UKPOL.CO.UK

Category: Culture

  • Andy Burnham – 2010 Comments on David Cameron’s Policy on School Sports

    Andy Burnham – 2010 Comments on David Cameron’s Policy on School Sports

    The comments made by Andy Burnham, the then Shadow Education Secretary, on 20 December 2010.

    David Cameron and Michael Gove have spent weeks seeking to justify a bad decision with dodgy statistics. Gove’s overruling by the Prime Minister is a victory for thousands of young people, teachers and athletes, and is a warning to this Tory-led Government that it cannot simply do what it likes. But this package from the Conservative-led Government, after weeks of scrabbling round for funding to save something it branded a “complete failure”, only raises one cheer at best.

    So today, in conceding the success of Labour’s School Sports Partnerships, the Government has nevertheless failed to put in place a proper funding package that will allow us to capitalise on the excitement of the 2012 Games. We are still looking at the prospect of fewer children playing sport in the run up to the Olympics, and no answer on what will happen to school sport following the Games.

  • Vera Baird – 2012 Speech at the Commonwealth Journalists’ Association Conference

    Vera Baird – 2012 Speech at the Commonwealth Journalists’ Association Conference

    The speech made by Vera Baird in Malta on 1 February 2012.

    The Culture, Practice and Ethics of the Press is the title of the Leveson Inquiry, set up to deal with the phone hacking scandal.

    So let us turn away from press restraint, oppressive laws, the persecution of journalists in the Commonwealth, on which you so proudly campaign, and consider the ethical issues confronting the profession in the UK, how this Inquiry came about, the issues it faces and the impact that may have on your work.

    In brief summary, in January 2007, the News of the World Royal reporter, Clive Goodman and a Private Investigator he used, Glenn Mulcaire, were convicted of phone hacking in respect of what the Metropolitan Police called “a handful” of people. It appears that it came to light because of fears that Princes William and Harry’s phones were hacked. Goodman was a “Rogue Reporter” and the matter was at an end, said the paper’s owner’s News International, though there were some footnotes.

    Firstly, the editor of the NOTW at the time, Andy Coulson, though he was clear that he hadn’t authorised hacking, fell on his sword, as the man who had overall responsibility for the conduct of the paper. He didn’t stay impaled for long, however, because, in May 2007, he was appointed as Director of Communications by the Conservative Party. If the pollsters were right, he would shortly be running the press corps at No 10 Downing Street.

    My guess is that this is what motivated the hero of this story, the Guardian’s Nick Davies, into takig the matter further. He was clearly satisfied that more people had been targeted and worried that Coulson might be a completely inappropriate person to be at the centre of government. So, he continued to investigate.

    The second footnote was interest in why Simon Hughes MP and Gordon Taylor, Chief Executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association were listed as hacking victims on the indictment against Goodman and Mulcaire when they seemed unlikely targets for a royal reporter.

    Then, Gordon Taylor sued for breach of privacy and received a settlement of £700K, when the usual level of damages would have been in the tens of thousands. People wondered what it was that the Murdochs were paying for.

    The police told some people around the original case that they may have been targeted and others began to ask the police if they had been. It gradually emerged that 4332 people were thought to have been hacked – quite a large “handful” The information came from a spreadsheet from Glenn Mulcaire that Scotland Yard had had all the time.

    There was clear need for another police inquiry and Operation Weeting was established in January 2011. A shoal of arrests following quite speedily, including a number of journalists and News International bigwigs, some of whom resigned and additionally, in about July 2011, Andy Coulson, Rebekah Brooks, and a man called Neil Wallis.

    The Commons Culture Media and Sport Select Committee started an Inquiry and, in July called Sir Paul Stevens, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. In questioning it became clear that the Met had appointed Neil Wallis, who had been deputy when Coulson was NOTW editor, to its press relations office. Presumably this was to ensure good relations between police and No 10. However, what was sinister was that the Met should have been investigating Coulson at the time, not cosying up to him.

    The Commissioner resigned the next day to be quickly followed by Assistant Commissioner John Yates, who had been in charge of the first inquiry with Assistant Commissioner Andy Hayman. Hayman could not resign from the police. He had already done so and got a job as a columnist with, you have guessed it, News International.

    There was little reporting of anything other than these few dramatic events about the hacking scandal as a whole. It was about the press elite making disclosures about celebrities and politicians and the public were not greatly interested. Perhaps newspapers were wary of writing critically too.

    In July 2011 the public discovered that the phone of a schoolgirl murder victim, Milly Dowler, had been hacked between her being lost to her parents and the finding of her body. It was thought at first that the hackers had deleted her messages and given her parents false hope that she was deleting them and was still alive. It now seems that the messages deleted automatically and is ironic that the huge public anger this caused was actually due to mis-reporting.

    It soon became clear that victims of the London bombings had had their phones hacked, so had relatives of soldiers killed in Afghanistan. News International was running a campaign called “Help for Heroes” at the time, in apparent support of the very people whose phones they were hacking.

    Perhaps most breathtakingly hypocritical, was the hacking of Sara Payne’s phone. She is the mother of a child murdered by a paedophile, campaigning to change the law on sex offenders, and someone who had been personally supported by Rebekah Brooks.

    In July, the Rupert and James Murdoch gave evidence to the Commons Select Committee, culminating in the throwing of a custard pie at Rupert Murdoch, shortly after he had said, clearly badly tutored by a publicity trainer “This is the humblest day of my life”. The Murdochs said that the NOTW was only 1% of their empire and anyway though shameful, this was an old story now.

    So little was it an “Old Story” that Mark Lewis, the solicitor who had got such a staggering settlement for Gordon Taylor, and consequently accumulated a host of celebrity hacking victims, found that he had been hacked, his estranged wife and two daughters followed and a plan hatched to allege that he was having an affair with a colleague at his firm. So, in the summer of 2011 when these events were at their height, News International was using dirty, perhaps unlawful, tricks to discredit someone who was crossing Murdoch.

    A few days after the Commons hearings, the Murdochs closed the 168 year old NOTW, sacking several hundred people, most of whom had nothing to do with hacking. If the plan was to give the appearance that this was the “rogue paper” the equivalent of Goodman being the sole culpable “rogue reporter” it did not work.

    David Cameron announced the Leveson Inquiry in August to look into conduct of News International but there is an important tributary story too.

    Between 2003 and 2006, Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, had presided over something called Operation Motorman. This investigation showed that at least one private detective, working through a spiders web of bribed insiders and despite the Data Protection Act, was supplying data from HMRC and DWP, from the Police National Computer, from the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Centre and from mobile phone companies to journalists.

    305 named journalists had paid to receive this information unlawfully, but top of the list were 952 requests through 58 journalists for the Daily Mail, 802 requests from 50 journalists at the People, followed by the Daily Mirror and the Mail on Sunday, none of which is part of the News International stable. Only fifth on the list with 228 inquiries from 23 journalists, was the NOTW.

    Here was a different kind of illegality, being used, as simply as going to a shop to buy goods, by journalists throughout the UK press world and not even principally by News International. The questions for Leveson therefore stretch beyond phone hacking and beyond News International.

    His Inquiry is currently hearing the first module of Part One of his Inquiry, looking into press relations with the public and featuring the whole hacking history. Innumerable victims have been called, from Hugh Grant to the Dowlers and more than a dozen Fleet Street editors have appeared, each regretfully accepting that the Press Complaints Commission is not strong enough but each cleaving, nonetheless, to a system of self-regulation.

    That is has gone far wider than the issue of hacking is evidenced by evidence last week from some women’s organisations, one of which I chair, about the way in which the press depicts women. They gave an example of the sexual abuse of two twelve year olds by a group of footballers which was described as “an orgy” when it was a sexual assault, capable of being seriously damaging to the girls. It featured too, stories of the sexist abuse poured upon women in public positions who are depicted as ugly and stupid while women cooks are idolised as domestic goddesses – examples of a culture of keeping women in “their place”. I relate these not for your views but to demonstrate that the Inquiry is looking at an array of ethical questions.

    A summary of the issues “in the air” in the UK at present would include:

    1. The interplay of Articles 8 and 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

    ARTICLE 8 provides:

    Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

    ARTICLE 10

    Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

    The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or the rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

    Clearly both are inherently conditional rights and have, additionally, to be balanced against each other on a case by case basis by the judiciary. I don’t think that it is an unrealistic generalisation to say that the judges have tended to favour privacy. There are calls from time to time for a statutory right to privacy, for its own sake and, alternatively, for such a statute in order to stop the judges from creating a right to privacy, without democratic sanction.

    2. The intense commercial competition in the newspaper world in the context of challenge from the electronic media. Increasing pressure for stories with weaker control over how they are obtained as papers cut staff and rely more on freelances.

    A cut throat approach to this has undoubtedly been led by Murdoch with his doctrine of doing whatever it takes to get a story, destroying the competition and the result justifying all.

    His politics have been brought into all his newspapers and his power and influence are well-known and have been effective for more than a decade. Tony Blair cultivated him as did Gordon Brown (with less effect) and now Cameron not only appointed Coulson but is said to ride with Rebekah Brooks, as part of “the Chipping Norton set” and there are stories about Murdoch going into No 10 by the back door so that the frequency of his meetings isn’t seen.

    People are afraid of Murdoch. The DCMS Select Committee was advised that if it started an inquiry into Murdoch it could expect intrusions into members private lives with a view to discrediting them.

    However the Daily Mail is equally ruthless and destructive now.

    There are taste issues with little apparent political content. The Daily Star, whose editor is a woman, not only objectifies women in photo after photo but has been described as “only a newspaper in the loosest sense” and its editor did have to admit to Leveson that story after story put to her by counsel to the Inquiry was completely without factual foundation.

    An important point is that these intrusions into people’s lives are extremely injurious. The damage done to the Dowler family and to others who are undermined by lies or private information, published to millions is immense.

    However, it is important to remember that phone hacking and paying police, or other officials, for information, has always been a crime and we could legislate to guarantee better media plurality if we wished, so that bias could be rectified, diversity improved and power limited.

    Perhaps the most important balancing fact is that almost the whole phone hacking scandal was disclosed, not by press regulators or police, but by the press itself, in the form of Nick Davies of the Guardian with his team, fully supported by the editor Alan Rusbridger.

    The late Hugo Young said that it was time to stop “the blackmail … that the interests of the Sun and the Guardian have anything to do with each other.” Why should investigative journalism be restrained because the redtops cannot act responsibly?

    I return to where I started, Leveson’s recommendations are bound to have an impact on the Commonwealth and your campaigns for press freedom, against oppressive legislation and to protect commonwealth journalists. It is important that CJA puts in a submission to his Inquiry so that he takes cognisance that his findings will be capable of having a deleterious effect, on the very different press in the Commonwealth, if he doesn’t frame them with care.

  • Nigel Huddleston – 2022 Speech on UK House Legacy Day

    Nigel Huddleston – 2022 Speech on UK House Legacy Day

    The speech made by Nigel Huddleston, the Minister for Sport, on 8 August 2022.

    Thank you. I’m absolutely delighted to be here today, at UK House, to join you all, on Legacy Day, to reflect on, not just what has been a truly fantastic Games, but on the array of future opportunities it presents to the region and the rest of the country.

    We’ve seen 10 incredible days of sport, cultural and business events, and it’s amazing to see the West Midlands front and centre on the world stage, something that will hopefully continue for a long time to come.

    Firstly, I wanted to offer my thanks to everyone involved in staging this incredible event and in working so hard to ensure it leaves behind a lasting legacy. Putting on the Games and harnessing the myriad benefits it can bring to the region and the UK has been a true partnership.

    It is only through collective effort that the Games has been the success that it has. My thanks to each and every one of you who has engaged in the event and the opportunities it has brought about. And a particular thanks to Andy for the vital role that he personally played in helping to secure this fantastic event.

    And let me say that this collective effort has resulted in what truly has been a Games of amazing achievements.

    The fastest Games ever delivered, four and a half years rather than the standard seven.

    An ambition to be the most sustainable Games yet, and first to strive to be carbon neutral.

    The most inclusive Games ever, with the largest ever integrated parasport programme and for the first time, more women’s medal events than men’s.

    But, beyond the event itself, I also want to reflect on the vast array of legacy opportunities that have been created, and that will continue to be created long after the closing ceremony has concluded.

    As a government, we’ve been resolutely focused on ensuring that Birmingham 2022 leaves a lasting legacy for the host city and region, and the whole of the UK.

    £778 million of public money has been invested to deliver the Games itself. This core £778 million, as well as providing for an amazing legacy itself, has enabled a further £85 million of additional funding to be unlocked from a wide range of organisations.

    The legacy of the Games ranges far and wide, with the ‘Games for Everyone’ vision embedded from the start.

    The Games has supported communities to access its opportunities and benefits, with equality, diversity and inclusion embedded in everything that partners have done.

    There has been significant new infrastructure with a new aquatics centre at Sandwell and the redevelopment of the Alexander Stadium that local communities will be able to benefit from, long after the Games is over. Plus the regeneration of Perry Barr has created 1,400 new homes.

    In addition, the Legacy programme for the Games has delivered:

    A £10 million Jobs and Skills Academy that’s made sure local residents have the skills they need to capitalise on the opportunities driven by the Games.

    More than £35 million invested by Sport England in delivering a physical activity and wellbeing legacy, supporting those who are least active to engage with sport and physical activity.

    A youth and schools engagement programme, ensuring that we’re engaging children and young people across the country in the story and excitement of the Games and the Commonwealth.

    A 6 month free-to-access Cultural Programme across the West Midlands, supported by £12 million investment from Arts Council England, the Heritage Fund and Spirit of 2012, as well as other partners.

    Ambitious sustainability commitments including, as I’ve already mentioned, an ambition to be the most sustainable Games yet and the ‘first ever carbon neutral Games’.

    And on top of this, £350 million worth of procurement opportunities, the majority of which were secured right here by firms from the West Midlands.

    And of course, the £24 million investment that we, along with the Combined Authority, have made into the Business and Tourism Programme.

    Here, at UK House, over the last 11 days, we’ve seen the power of this investment, bringing together business leaders from across the world, showcasing the West Midlands, as a place to live, work, visit and do business.

    This programme is a vital part of harnessing the positive profile generated by the Games to boost the global reputation of Birmingham, the West Midlands and the UK as a leading destination for tourism, trade and investment.

    In partnership with the West Midlands Combined Authority, the West Midlands Growth Company, the Department for International Trade and Visit Britain, as well as sponsors in our audience today, we’ve seen it deliver some incredible in opportunities.

    The opportunity to connect with Commonwealth nations and territories and other key global markets.

    The opportunity to re-establish a resilient and sustainable tourism sector in the West Midlands and, more widely, to contribute to the recovery of UK tourism as we emerge from Covid-19.

    And the opportunity to demonstrate to the world that the West Midlands and the UK are innovative, dynamic and investor-friendly.

    But this is far from the end for the Business and Tourism programme, in fact it’s only just the beginning. Building on the profile and momentum of these fantastic past two weeks we’ve rightly set ourselves some lofty ambitions. By 2027 we’re aiming to:

    Generate more than £700 million of investment, including more than £370 million in the West Midlands

    Attract 39,000 new visitors, including 12,000 to the West Midlands

    Create 1,000 new jobs, with up to 600 of these based in the West Midlands

    The drive and commitment of the Mayor and colleagues at the Combined Authority, West Midlands Growth Company, the Department for International Trade and Visit Britain has been a crucial part of ensuring the success of the programme. My thanks to them for all that they have contributed over many months and years.

    In many ways, the Business and Tourism Programme, as a partnership between national, regional and local government and with the private sector, represents devolution in action. Working together, as more than the sum of our parts, to achieve extraordinary things and level up our places.

    And on behalf of the Government, I look forward to working with the West Midlands as we explore opportunities to build on the success of the Games.

    The Games have been a fantastic experience and we’ve achieved so much.

    But as I’ve always said, this is about much more than the event itself. It’s about capitalising on the momentum of the Games to unlock the enduring benefits it can bring for the West Midlands region and its communities, and the UK as a whole.

    I look forward to seeing the fruits of our collective efforts materialise over many months and years to come. Thank you.

  • Nigel Huddleston – 2022 Speech at the International Working Group on Women and Sport Handover

    Nigel Huddleston – 2022 Speech at the International Working Group on Women and Sport Handover

    The speech made by Nigel Huddleston, the Minister for Sport, Tourism, Heritage and Civil Society, at New Zealand House, Edgbaston Golf Club on 4 August 2022.

    Thank you to New Zealand for your generous hospitality.

    I am genuinely delighted to be able to attend today’s event which starts the official handover of the International Working Group on Women and Sport from New Zealand to the UK.

    It is great that the event could be happening at the very same time as Birmingham 2022, which – and this is worth repeating – has the largest female sport programme in the history of the Commonwealth Games and will be the first time a major multi-sport event will feature more women’s than men’s medal events and I think that is fantastic.

    I am absolutely committed to supporting women’s sport at every opportunity – pushing for greater participation, employment, commercial opportunities and visibility in the media. The fantastic success of the Lionesses this weekend shows just how far we have come.

    The UK has a strong track record and strong history of empowering women and girls through sport. There is a long way to go but we have much to be proud of in this area.

    The media profile of women’s sport is continuing to rise and recent research shows that two-thirds of UK sport fans currently follow some form of women’s sport, and half have attended an event featuring women’s athletes.

    Our domestic initiatives, like This Girl Can, are inspiring millions of women and girls to get physically active. Something that is particularly important as we recover from the pandemic.

    We have also seen the growth in audiences for women’s sport.

    Recent research published by Women’s Sport Trust shows that domestic women’s sport attracted a record British broadcast audience of nearly 33 million in 2021, the main drivers being The Hundred and the FA Women’s Super League.

    And the leadership role of certain media outlets is very important, including the BBC, which made the strategic decision to make sure that many of those matches were on BBC One, peak time. It worked. It showed that there is a mass audience for women’s sport. And that is pivotal. If the eyeballs are there, then the money and commercial opportunities start flowing. Instead of just doing that because it is the right thing to do, we will have increasing competition to hold these events and make sure these events are on TV because they are commercially viable and commercially lucrative.

    And a record crowd of more than 87,000 attended this year’s UEFA Women’s Euros final – the highest attended match at either a men’s or women’s European Championship.  I was lucky enough to attend some of the matches including the final and I can honestly say that there was a superb atmosphere. The spectators were evenly balanced and importantly, more than 100,000 children were spectators in those matches. I know the whole nation will have been inspired by the Lionesses.

    There have also been record sponsorship deals struck with women’s sports leagues, such as Barclays’ sponsorship of the Women’s Super League, the premier women’s football league in England.

    And the UK is due to host a number of high profile women’s sports events this year, including the Rugby League World Cup and the Billie Jean King Cup. Plus Birmingham 2022 of course which is going on at this moment in time.

    We are working tirelessly to make the most of these events in showcasing women’s sport, and encouraging more women and girls to get active as a result. But we recognise that we need to go further.

    The IWG is a great opportunity to build on this success and not only share the fantastic work we are doing but to learn from other countries too.

    The UK Secretariat’s vision for a ‘just and sustainable post-pandemic world where women and girls play a full and equitable role’ is something that I feel passionately about.

    It is vital that we continue to strive for greater equality and opportunity in sport.

    We have been working with our women’s sport working group in the UK, which many of you have attended, to look at some of the challenges and opportunities that exist and I am really keen that we continue to make progress as a result of these discussions.

    I would also like to commend the work of the current hosts New Zealand in sharing, promoting and supporting stories of inspiring change from around the world.

    Their development of the world’s first IWG Insight Hub as a home for the world’s best research, insight, case studies, news and interactive programmes such as training and seminars has also been ground breaking.

    I believe the IWG can be a catalyst for women’s sport as we recover from the impact of the pandemic.

    I would like to take this opportunity to thank you for the role you have all played in securing the IWG secretariat for the UK.

    It’s absolutely essential that we work collectively to share the messages behind the bid of inclusivity, equity and collaboration.

    I look forward to continuing to work with you to ensure that women’s sport continues to thrive not just in the UK but on the international stage.

  • Boris Johnson – 2022 Letter to England’s Women’s Football Team

    Boris Johnson – 2022 Letter to England’s Women’s Football Team

    The letter sent by Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, to the England Women’s Football Team ahead of the World Cup final on 31 July 2022.

    Text of letter (in .pdf format)

  • Nadine Dorries – 2022 Comments on Loot Boxes

    Nadine Dorries – 2022 Comments on Loot Boxes

    The comments made by Nadine Dorries, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, on 17 July 2022.

    We want to stop children going on spending sprees online without parental consent, spurred on by in-game purchases like loot-boxes.

    Games companies and platforms need to do more to ensure that controls and age-restrictions are applied so that players are protected from the risk of gambling harms. Children should be free to enjoy gaming safely, whilst giving parents and guardians the peace of mind they need.

  • Nadine Dorries – 2022 Statement on Channel Four Television Corporation

    Nadine Dorries – 2022 Statement on Channel Four Television Corporation

    The statement made by Nadine Dorries, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, in the House of Commons on 13 July 2022.

    The Channel Four Television Corporation (C4C) report and financial statements 2021 have today been laid before Parliament.

    The 2021 annual report shows that C4C performed well last year, delivering on its remit and obligations and reporting a strong set of results, particularly in terms of growth in digital revenue and viewers. To enable C4C to continue to build on this success over the long term, it needs greater access to capital and the option to make and own content to ensure it has the best tools to support a long-term sustainable future. In this context, it is right that the Government acknowledge both the considerable opportunities and challenges presented by the dynamic market context in which C4C operates. The Government are committed to take the steps necessary to protect one of our most important public service broadcasters not just today, but in the years to come. That is why, as part of a package of reforms set out in the recent White Paper “Up next”, the Government are moving ahead with plans to move C4C out of public ownership to become a privately owned, free-to-air public service broadcaster, alongside other successful privately owned PSBs, including ITV, STV and Channel 5.

    On 14 June 2022, the House of Commons debated a motion on the future of C4C. This statement fulfils the Government’s obligation to respond to this debate.

    The motion called on the Government to reverse its decision on C4C. Like every broadcaster, C4C faces huge competition for viewers, for programmes and for talent. Streamers such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video and global media groups such as Disney and Paramount have far deeper pockets than our PSBs. C4C is uniquely constrained. Under its current ownership model, C4C has fewer options to invest, fewer options to innovate, and, crucially, fewer tools to support its growth than its competitors.

    As a responsible Government, we must recognise these constraints and be prepared to act now to address them. We therefore believe it is the right time to unleash C4C’s full potential, and open the broadcaster up to private ownership while protecting its public service broadcasting remit. A sale will allow C4C to access greater investment—meaning it can create more great programming made by people who live and work in the UK—without losing what makes it distinctive and without exposing taxpayers and the public finances to greater risk.

    The motion called on the Government to protect C4C’s contribution to levelling up and maintain its Leeds headquarters and commissioning expenditure outside of London. The Government recognise and value C4C’s ongoing commitment to levelling up, as emphasised in its annual report, and its support for national and regional economies. We will maintain C4C’s existing obligations in terms of production outside London and England. We expect C4C’s access to networks outside London and its ability to speak to a diverse range of audiences across the UK to be an attractive asset that any potential buyer will look to nurture and develop. Across PSBs, it is clear that ownership is not correlated with regional spending. In fact, though its latest annual report shows it is on an improving path, C4C spent less in the north of England as a percentage of its total production spend than PSBs as a whole in 2020, and less than privately owned ITV, with C4C spending 19.3% in 2020 in Northern England, compared with ITV’s 30.4%. There is no reason that a sale could not accelerate the process of growing the broadcaster’s impact outside London.

    The motion also called for the Government to maintain the publisher-broadcaster restriction. The Government will remove this restriction to enable C4C to diversify its revenue streams into content and improve its business resilience. C4C will still be required to commission a minimum volume of its programming from independent producers, in line with the quotas placed on other PSBs, ensuring its continued contribution to the sector. The Government believe that in the long run, the UK production ecosystem will benefit from a more sustainable C4C. A change of ownership that improves Channel 4’s access to capital could increase spending on production. For example, Channel 5’s overall content budget increased following its acquisition by Viacom in 2014, with first-run spending up by an average of 7% per year between 2014 and 2018. C4C has excellent relationships with independent producers right across the UK, and there is no reason this should change. Indeed, we expect a new owner to value and want to build on those relationships.

    The Government are clear that C4C will remain a public service broadcaster. Its public service broadcasting remit will remain written into law, and the right buyer for Channel 4 will be one who shares our ambition for the business and our belief in what makes it special. We are not trying to change the distinctive role C4C plays; we are seeking to give it the best set of tools and the freedom to flourish and thrive long into the future.

  • Damian Collins – 2022 Statement on the Online Safety Bill

    Damian Collins – 2022 Statement on the Online Safety Bill

    The statement made by Damian Collins, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, in the House of Commons on 12 July 2022.

    Thank you, Mr Speaker. I am honoured to have been appointed the Minister responsible for the Online Safety Bill. Having worked on these issues for a number of years, I am well aware of the urgency and importance of this legislation, in particular to protect children and tackle criminal activity online—that is why we are discussing this legislation.

    Relative to the point of order from my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), I have the greatest respect for him and his standing in this House, but it feels like we have been discussing this Bill for at least five years. We have had a Green Paper and a White Paper. We had a pre-legislative scrutiny process, which I was honoured to be asked to chair. We have had reports from the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee and from other Select Committees and all-party parliamentary groups of this House. This legislation does not want for scrutiny.

    We have also had a highly collaborative and iterative process in the discussion of the Bill. We have had 66 Government acceptances of recommendations made by the Joint Committee on the draft Online Safety Bill. We have had Government amendments in Committee. We are discussing Government amendments today and we have Government commitments to table amendments in the House of Lords. The Bill has received a huge amount of consultation. It is highly important legislation, and the victims of online crime, online fraud, bullying and harassment want to see us get the Bill into the Lords and on the statute book as quickly as possible.

    Sir Jeremy Wright (Kenilworth and Southam) (Con)

    I warmly welcome my hon. Friend to his position. He will understand that those of us who have followed the Bill in some detail since its inception had some nervousness as to who might be standing at that Dispatch Box today, but we could not be more relieved that it is him. May I pick up on his point about the point of order from our right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis)? Does he agree that an additional point to add to his list is that, unusually, this legislation has a remarkable amount of cross-party consensus behind its principles? That distinguishes it from some of the other legislation that perhaps we should not consider in these two weeks. I accept there is plenty of detail to be examined but, in principle, this Bill has a lot of support in this place.

    Damian Collins

    I completely agree with my right hon. and learned Friend. That is why the Bill passed Second Reading without a Division and the Joint Committee produced a unanimous report. I am happy for Members to cast me in the role of poacher turned gamekeeper on the Bill, but looking around the House, there are plenty of gamekeepers turned poachers here today who will ensure we have a lively debate.

    Mr Speaker

    And the other way, as well.

    Damian Collins

    Exactly. The concept at the heart of this legislation is simple. Tech companies, like those in every other sector, must take appropriate responsibility for the consequences of their business decisions. As they continue to offer their users the latest innovations that enrich our lives, they must consider safety as well as profit. They must treat their users fairly and ensure that the internet remains a place for robust debate. The Bill has benefited from input and scrutiny from right across the House. I pay tribute to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who has worked tirelessly on the Bill, not least through 50 hours of Public Bill Committee, and the Bill is better for his input and work.

    We have also listened to the work of other Members of the House, including my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam (Sir Jeremy Wright), the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden and the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), who have all made important contributions to the discussion of the Bill.

    We have also listened to those concerned about freedom of expression online. It is worth pausing on that, as there has been a lot of discussion about whether the Bill is censoring legal speech online and much understandable outrage from those who think it is. I asked the same questions when I chaired the Joint Committee on the Bill. This debate does not reflect the actual text of the Bill itself. The Bill does not require platforms to restrict legal speech—let us be absolutely clear about that. It does not give the Government, Ofcom or tech platforms the power to make something illegal online that is legal offline. In fact, if those concerned about the Bill studied it in detail, they would realise that the Bill protects freedom of speech. In particular, the Bill will temper the huge power over public discourse wielded by the big tech companies behind closed doors in California. They are unaccountable for the decisions they make on censoring free speech on a daily basis. Their decisions about what content is allowed will finally be subject to proper transparency requirements.

    Dame Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)

    My hon. Friend did not have the joy of being on the Bill Committee, as I did with my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), who was the Minister at that point. The point that my hon. Friend has just made about free speech is so important for women and girls who are not able to go online because of the violent abuse that they receive, and that has to be taken into account by those who seek to criticise the Bill. We have to make sure that people who currently feel silenced do not feel silenced in future and can participate online in the way that they should be able to do. My hon. Friend is making an excellent point and I welcome him to his position.

    Damian Collins

    My right hon. Friend is entirely right on that point. The structure of the Bill is very simple. There is a legal priority of harms, and things that are illegal offline will be regulated online at the level of the criminal threshold. There are protections for freedom of speech and there is proper transparency about harmful content, which I will come on to address.

    Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)

    Does the Minister agree that, in moderating content, category 1 service providers such as Twitter should be bound by the duties under our domestic law not to discriminate against anyone on the grounds of a protected characteristic? Will he take a look at the amendments I have brought forward today on that point, which I had the opportunity of discussing with his predecessor, who I think was sympathetic?

    Damian Collins

    The hon. and learned Lady makes a very important point. The legislation sets regulatory thresholds at the criminal law level based on existing offences in law. Many of the points she made are covered by existing public law offences, particularly in regards to discriminating against people based on their protected characteristics. As she well knows, the internet is a reserved matter, so the legal threshold is set at where UK law stands, but where law may differ in Scotland, the police authorities in Scotland can still take action against individuals in breach of the law.

    Joanna Cherry

    The difficulty is that Twitter claims it is not covered by the Equality Act 2010. I have seen legal correspondence to that effect. I am not talking about the criminal law here. I am talking about Twitter’s duty not to discriminate against women, for example, or those who hold gender critical beliefs in its moderation of content. That is the purpose of my amendment today—it would ensure that Twitter and other service providers providing a service in the United Kingdom abide by our domestic law. It is not really a reserved or devolved matter.

    Damian Collins

    The hon. and learned Lady is right. There are priority offences where the companies, regardless of their terms of service, have to meet their obligations. If something is illegal offline, it is illegal online as well. There are priority areas where the company must proactively look for that. There are also non-priority areas where the company should take action against anything that is an offence in law and meets the criminal threshold online. The job of the regulator is to hold them to account for that. They also have to be transparent in their terms of service as category 1 companies. If they have clear policies against discrimination, which they on the whole all do, they will have to set out what they would do, and the regulator can hold them to account to make sure they do what they say. The regulator cannot make them take down speech that is legal or below a criminal threshold, but they can hold them to account publicly for the decisions they make.

    One of the most important aspects of this Bill with regard to the category 1 companies is transparency. At the moment, the platforms make decisions about curating their content—who to take down, who to suppress, who to leave up—but those are their decisions. There is no external scrutiny of what they do or even whether they do what they say they will do. As a point of basic consumer protection law, if companies say in their terms of service that they will do something, they should be held to account for it. What is put on the label also needs to be in the tin and that is what the Bill will do for the internet.

    I now want to talk about journalism and the role of the news media in the online world, which is a very important part of this Bill. The Government are committed to defending the invaluable role of a free media. Online safety legislation must protect the vital role of the press in providing people with reliable and accurate sources of information. Companies must therefore put in place protections for journalistic content. User-to-user services will not have to apply their safety duties in part 3 of the Bill to news publishers’ content shared on their services. News publishers’ content on their own sites will also not be in scope of regulation.

    New clause 19 and associated amendments introduce a further requirement on category 1 services to notify a recognised news publisher and offer a right of appeal before removing or moderating its content or taking any action against its account. This new provision will reduce the risk of major online platforms taking over-zealous, arbitrary or accidental moderation decisions against news publisher content, which plays an invaluable role in UK democracy and society.

    We recognise that there are cases where platforms must be able to remove content without having to provide an appeal, and the new clause has been drafted to ensure that platforms will not be required to provide an appeal before removing content that would give rise to civil or criminal liability to the service itself, or where it amounts to a relevant offence as defined by the Bill. This means that platforms can take down without an appeal content that would count as illegal content under the Bill.

    Moreover, in response to some of the concerns raised, in particular by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kenilworth and Southam as well as by other Members, about the danger of creating an inadvertent loophole for bad actors, we have committed to further tightening the definition of “recognised news provider” in the House of Lords to ensure that sanctioned entities, such as RT, cannot benefit from these protections.

    As the legislation comes into force, the Government are committed to ensuring that protections for journalism and news publisher content effectively safeguard users’ access to such content. We have therefore tabled amendments 167 and 168 to require category 1 companies to assess the impact of their safety duties on how news publisher and journalistic content are treated when hosted on the service. They must then demonstrate the steps they are taking to mitigate any impact.

    In addition, a series of amendments, including new clause 20, will require Ofcom to produce a report assessing the impact of the Online Safety Bill on the availability and treatment of news publisher content and journalistic content on category 1 services. This will include consideration of the impact of new clause 19, and Ofcom must do this within two years of the relevant provisions being commenced.

    The Bill already excludes comments sections on news publishers’ sites from the Bill’s safety duties. These comments are crucial for enabling reader engagement with the news and encouraging public debate, as well as for the sustainability of the news media. We have tabled a series of amendments to strengthen these protections, reflecting the Government’s commitment to media freedom. The amendments will create a higher bar for removing the protections in place for comments sections on recognised news publishers’ sites by ensuring that these can only be brought into the scope of regulation via primary legislation.

    Government amendments 70 and 71 clarify the policy intention of the clause 13 adult safety duties to improve transparency about how providers treat harmful content, rather than incentivise its removal. The changes respond to concerns raised by stakeholders that the drafting did not make it sufficiently clear that providers could choose simply to allow any form of legal content, rather than promote, restrict or remove it, regardless of the harm to users.

    This is a really important point that has sometimes been missed in the discussion on the Bill. There are very clear duties relating to illegal harm that companies must proactively identify and mitigate. The transparency requirements for other harmful content are very clear that companies must set out what their policies are. Enforcement action can be taken by the regulator for breach of their policies, but the primary objective is that companies make clear what their policies are. It is not a requirement for companies to remove legal speech if their policies do not allow that.

    Dame Margaret Hodge (Barking) (Lab)

    I welcome the Minister to his position, and it is wonderful to have somebody else who—like the previous Minister, the hon. Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp)—knows what he is talking about. On this issue, which is pretty key, I think it would work if minimum standards were set on the risk assessments that platforms have to make to judge what is legal but harmful content, but at the moment such minimum standards are not in the Bill. Could the Minister comment on that? Otherwise, there is a danger that platforms will set a risk assessment that allows really vile harmful but legal content to carry on appearing on their platform.

    Damian Collins

    The right hon. Lady makes a very important point. There have to be minimum safety standards, and I think that was also reflected in the report of the Joint Committee, which I chaired. Those minimum legal standards are set where the criminal law is set for these priority legal offences. A company may have higher terms of service—it may operate at a higher level—in which case it will be judged on the operation of its terms of service. However, for priority illegal content, it cannot have a code of practice that is below the legal threshold, and it would be in breach of the provisions if it did. For priority illegal offences, the minimum threshold is set by the law.

    Dame Margaret Hodge

    I understand that in relation to illegal harmful content, but I am talking about legal but harmful content. I understand that the Joint Committee that the hon. Member chaired recommended that for legal but harmful content, there should be minimum standards against which the platforms would be judged. I may have missed it, but I cannot see that in the Bill.

    Damian Collins

    The Joint Committee’s recommendation was for a restructuring of the Bill, so that rather than having general duty of care responsibilities that were not defined, we defined those responsibilities based on existing areas of law. The core principle behind the Bill is to take things that are illegal offline, and to regulate such things online based on the legal threshold. That is what the Bill does.

    In schedule 7, which did not exist in the draft phase, we have written into the Bill a long list of offences in law. I expect that, as this regime is created, the House will insert more regulations and laws into schedule 7 as priority offences in law. Even if an offence in law is not listed in the priority illegal harms schedule, it can still be a non-priority harm, meaning that even if a company does not have to look for evidence of that offence proactively, it still has to act if it is made aware of the offence. I think the law gives us a very wide range of offences, clearly defined against offences in law, where there are clearly understood legal thresholds.

    The question is: what is to be done about other content that may be harmful but sits below the threshold? The Government have made it clear that we intend to bring forward amendments that set out clear priorities for companies on the reporting of such harmful content, where we expect the companies to set out what their policies are. That will include setting out clearly their policies on things such as online abuse and harassment, the circulation of real or manufactured intimate images, content promoting self-harm, content promoting eating disorders or legal suicide content—this is content relating to adults—so the companies will have to be transparent on that point.

    Chris Philp (Croydon South) (Con)

    I congratulate the Minister on his appointment, and I look forward to supporting him in his role as he previously supported me in mine. I think he made an important point a minute ago about content that is legal but considered to be harmful. It has been widely misreported in the press that this Bill censors or prohibits such content. As the Minister said a moment ago, it does no such thing. There is no requirement on platforms to censor or remove content that is legal, and amendment 71 to clause 13 makes that expressly clear. Does he agree that reports suggesting that the Bill mandates censorship of legal content are completely inaccurate?

    Damian Collins

    I am grateful to my hon. Friend, and as I said earlier, he is absolutely right. There is no requirement for platforms to take down legal speech, and they cannot be directed to do so. What we have is a transparency requirement to set out their policies, with particular regard to some of the offences I mentioned earlier, and a wide schedule of things that are offences in law that are enforced through the Bill itself. This is a very important distinction to make. I said to him on Second Reading that I thought the general term “legal but harmful” had added a lot of confusion to the way the Bill was perceived, because it created the impression that the removal of legal speech could be required by order of the regulator, and that is not the case.

    Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)

    I congratulate the Minister on his promotion and on his excellent chairmanship of the prelegislative scrutiny Committee, which I also served on. Is he satisfied with the Bill in relation to disinformation? It was concerning that there was only one clause on disinformation, and we know the impact—particularly the democratic impact—that that has on our society at large. Is he satisfied that the Bill will address that?

    Damian Collins

    It was a pleasure to serve alongside the hon. Lady on the Joint Committee. There are clear new offences relating to knowingly false information that will cause harm. As she will know, that was a Law Commission recommendation; it was not in the draft Bill but it is now in the Bill. The Government have also said that as a consequence of the new National Security Bill, which is going through Parliament, we will bring in a new priority offence relating to disinformation spread by hostile foreign states. As she knows, one of the most common areas for organised disinformation has been at state level. As a consequence of the new national security legislation, that will also be reflected in schedule 7 of this Bill, and that is a welcome change.

    The Bill requires all services to take robust action to tackle the spread of illegal content and activity. Providers must proactively reduce the risk on their services of illegal activity and the sharing of illegal content, and they must identify and remove illegal content once it appears on their services. That is a proactive responsibility. We have tabled several interrelated amendments to reinforce the principle that companies must take a safety-by-design approach to managing the risk of illegal content and activity on their services. These amendments require platforms to assess the risk of their services being used to commit, or to facilitate the commission of, a priority offence and then to design and operate their services to mitigate that risk. This will ensure that companies put in place preventive measures to mitigate a broad spectrum of factors that enable illegal activity, rather than focusing solely on the removal of illegal content once it appears.

    Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)

    I congratulate my hon. Friend on his appointment to his position. On harmful content, there are all too many appalling examples of animal abuse on the internet. What are the Government’s thoughts on how we can mitigate such harmful content, which is facilitating wildlife crime? Might similar online protections be provided for animals to the ones that clause 53 sets out for children?

    Damian Collins

    My hon. Friend raises an important point that deserves further consideration as the Bill progresses through its parliamentary stages. There is, of course, still a general presumption that any illegal activity that could also constitute illegal activity online—for example, promoting or sharing content that could incite people to commit violent acts—is within scope of the legislation. There are some priority illegal offences, which are set out in schedule 7, but the non-priority offences also apply if a company is made aware of content that is likely to be in breach of the law. I certainly think this is worth considering in that context.

    In addition, the Bill makes it clear that platforms have duties to mitigate the risk of their service facilitating an offence, including where that offence may occur on another site, such as can occur in cross-platform child sexual exploitation and abuse—CSEA—offending, or even offline. This addresses concerns raised by a wide coalition of children’s charities that the Bill did not adequately tackle activities such as breadcrumbing—an issue my hon. Friend the Member for Solihull (Julian Knight), the Chair of the Select Committee, has raised in the House before—where CSEA offenders post content on one platform that leads to offences taking place on a different platform.

    We have also tabled new clause 14 and a related series of amendments in order to provide greater clarity about how in-scope services should determine whether they have duties with regard to content on their services. The new regulatory framework requires service providers to put in place effective and proportionate systems and processes to improve user safety while upholding free expression and privacy online. The systems and processes that companies implement will be tailored to the specific risk profile of the service. However, in many cases the effectiveness of companies’ safety measures will depend on them making reasonable judgments about types of content. Therefore, it is essential to the effective functioning of the framework that there is clarity about how providers should approach these judgments. In particular, such clarity will safeguard against companies over-removing innocuous content if they wrongly assume mental elements are present, or under-removing content if they act only where all elements of an offence are established beyond reasonable doubt. The amendments make clear that companies must consider all reasonably available contextual information when determining whether content is illegal content, a fraudulent advert, content that is harmful to children, or content that is harmful to adults.

    Kirsty Blackman (Aberdeen North) (SNP)

    I was on the Bill Committee and we discussed lots of things, but new clause 14 was not discussed: we did not have conversations about it, and external organisations have not been consulted on it. Is the Minister not concerned that this is a major change to the Bill and it has not been adequately consulted on?

    Damian Collins

    As I said earlier, in establishing the threshold for priority illegal offences, the current threshold of laws that exist offline should provide good guidance. I would expect that as the codes of practice are developed, we will be able to make clear what those offences are. On the racial hatred that the England footballers received after the European championship football final, people have been prosecuted for what they posted on Twitter and other social media platforms. We know what race hate looks like in that context, we know what the regulatory threshold should look at and we know the sort of content we are trying to regulate. I expect that, in the codes of practice, Ofcom can be very clear with companies about what we expect, where the thresholds are and where we expect them to take enforcement action.

    Dame Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)

    I congratulate my hon. Friend on taking his new position; we rarely have a new Minister so capable of hitting the ground running. He makes a crucial point about clearness and transparency for both users and the social media providers and other platforms, because it is important that we make sure they are 100% clear about what is expected of them and the penalties for not fulfilling their commitments. Does he agree that opaqueness—a veil of secrecy—has been one of the obstacles, and that a whole raft of content has been taken down for the wrong reasons while other content has been left to proliferate because of the lack of clarity?

    Damian Collins

    That is entirely right, and in closing I say that the Bill does what we have always asked for it to do: it gives absolute clarity that illegal things offline must be illegal online as well, and be regulated online. It establishes clear responsibilities and liabilities for the platforms to do that proactively. It enables a regulator to hold the platforms to account on their ability to tackle those priority illegal harms and provide transparency on other areas of harmful content. At present we simply do not know about the policy decisions that companies choose to make: we have no say in it; it is not transparent; we do not know whether they do it. The Bill will deliver in those important regards. If we are serious about tackling issues such as fraud and abuse online, and other criminal offences, we require a regulatory system to do that and proper legal accountability and liability for the companies. That is what the Bill and the further amendments deliver.

  • Nigel Huddleston – 2022 Comments on Standing at Football Matches

    Nigel Huddleston – 2022 Comments on Standing at Football Matches

    The comments made by Nigel Huddleston, the Sports Minister, on 4 July 2022.

    Based upon what I have experienced and we have learnt through the pilot programme, safe standing is set to deliver an electric atmosphere at our football stadiums.

    Fans have long campaigned for its introduction and we have worked carefully with supporters groups, including the families affected by the tragic Hillsborough football disaster.

    I am proud of the work that has gone into this rigorous process and that we have delivered on our manifesto commitment to get fans back on their feet in stadiums.

  • Nadine Dorries – 2022 Comments on Standing at Football Matches

    Nadine Dorries – 2022 Comments on Standing at Football Matches

    The comments made by Nadine Dorries, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, on 4 July 2022.

    We want to make the experience of watching football as magical as the play on the pitch. Fans will now be able to cheer on their team from a seat or join others in a safe standing section to really get behind the players and roar on their heroes to victory.

    We are not reintroducing terraces and only clubs which meet strict safety criteria will be permitted. Thanks to a robust trial, thorough evidence and modern engineering, we are now ready to allow standing once again in our grounds.