On 28th February 2024, the House of Lords debated the Media Bill in its second reading. The Bishop of Leeds spoke in the debate, welcoming the bill whilst raising concerns on issues of metrics, language, prominence and genres:
The Lord Bishop of Leeds: My Lords, it is a pleasure but somewhat daunting to follow the noble Lord, Lord Birt. I agree with every word he said. I strongly welcome the Bill. It is timely and necessary. The regulatory framework that governs public service media, not just broadcasting, is in urgent need of updating, given the accelerating changes in technology, media consumption and the wider media ecosystem in the 20 years since the Communications Act 2003. I commend the excellent Library briefing for this debate. It was very helpful.
A number of things that are on my mind have already been mentioned, so I will move swiftly on. As the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, and, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, have already noted, I understand that the intention to drop Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act will almost certainly proceed. It was a manifesto commitment by the Government. However, I will not be the only person to want to put on record that arguments by press agencies about freedom of speech can ring somewhat hollow. Leveson worked on this for good reasons. Freedom of speech and press freedom must not be confused with press protectionism. Victims of press misrepresentation and abuse must be forgiven for suspecting that government can easily be captured by business.
Leveson did not address public concerns for the good of his health. The promises of Leveson still stand. How are they to be fulfilled if Section 40 is dropped? The problem it sought to address has not gone away. Using this Bill to drop the Leveson commitment will not solve the problem that Leveson addressed, and it will not go away. I endorse the question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, about press ownership, but I urge a wider and deeper public debate about media ownership per se.
In this speech I shall focus on four points that I urge the Government to pay attention to as we proceed: prominence, genres, metrics, and language. Many noble Lords will address the question of PSB prominence so I will not labour that point here, but if PSB is to be properly valued as part of our media and democratic landscape, it needs particular attention when ensuring that people can see, quickly and easily, where to access it. PSB cannot play an equal role in a commercial battle with companies whose endgame is simply to make money. I think the Government agree about this prominence priority, so it does not need to be pressed further here.
I endorse the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, about language. Please can the Minister tell us what “appropriate” means? Who judges what is appropriate in which circumstances and according to which criteria? In common conversation the word might be useful—it is unspecific and creates space and flexibility—but this is legislation. Noble Lords have asked many questions, in recent legislation passing through this House, about the use of this undefined word. I ask that it not be swapped with “significant”, a word that is commonly used but meaningless unless you say what it signifies. Something can be “significant of” something, but it being “significant” tells us nothing. Perhaps “substantial” or “substantive” would work. Maybe this is pedantic, but it is important for another reason involving metrics that I will come on to in a moment.
My main concern about the Bill has to do with genres, which the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, has already mentioned—or rather the lack of them. The current Bill has dropped specific reference to genres that might be described as “minority interest”, such as children, the arts, science, and religion. I will be specific: guaranteeing space for religion is not about propaganda for any particular faith or religion. The point is simply that you cannot understand the world if you do not understand religion. Religion is not about worldviews or beliefs alone but about prime motivators for individual and communal decisions and behaviours, about how and why people see the world as they do and how their priorities, rituals and communalities shape our societies. In broadcasting terms, that embraces drama, comedy, and current affairs; it is not all about “Songs of Praise”. This is not trivial. The fragilities of our world at present make attention to religion more important than ever, not less.
That brings me to the related issue of quotas, or metrics. I understand the point made by the DCMS Secretary of State at a recent Communications and Digital Committee meeting that the Bill aims to build flexibility in a rapidly changing media environment, but she was not able to answer questions about how the aspiration to ensure adequate PSB coverage might be measured. What are the metrics that Ofcom might use to measure whether or not PSB commitments are being fulfilled? I understand the point about flexibility, but I want to know how Ofcom can do its job in this respect. What are the metrics? There have to be some, surely. If they are not percentages or numbers of hours, what are they? If you cannot measure, you do not know whether commitments are being fulfilled. On Monday Ofcom wrote of the Bill:
“It makes changes to our existing responsibilities—including to our regulation of commercial radio and how we ensure that public service broadcasters deliver against their quotas”.
That makes my point beautifully. If there are no quotas, how can Ofcom ensure that?
In conclusion, I support and welcome the Bill. I am grateful to the Minister for meeting me a few days ago to discuss it. But I have specific concerns, which I will continue to address, along with others, when the Bill comes to Committee.
Extracts from the speeches that followed:
Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB): Like others who have spoken, particularly the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Foster, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds and the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, I am worried by the decision to narrow the public sector broadcasting remit across a range of genres. I acknowledge that to maintain standards and high-quality output across such a broad range of genres is challenging at the best of times, and now is certainly not the best of times, but it is the very breadth and accumulated knowledge and experience across these genres which make the BBC so much more than a news broadcaster with add-ons. They give it cultural heft and a rich history and are a key element in building the creative industries which are such a vital part of our economy. I put it to the Minister and those on the Benches behind him and in his party that if anything should be a poster child for levelling up, it is our public service broadcasting, which is effective right across the United Kingdom and outside.
Lord Foster of Bath (LD): I echo the words of the noble Lords, Lord Birt, Lord Hall and Lord Vaizey, and, it would appear, Joni Mitchell. Nowhere is this more important than ensuring the long-term security of our public service broadcasters, from which we all benefit, and which help to drive our enormously successful creative industries. Our understanding of what was expected of a PSB was very clear in the 2003 Act. Unlike the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, and, I think, the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey, who appear to be welcoming the streamlining—as they put it—of the PSB remit, many other noble Lords, including my namesake, the noble Baroness, Lady Foster, and the noble Lords, Lord Hall and Lord Russell, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, and all of those on these Benches, have a different view.
We believe that the Bill is much less clear about what is expected from a PSB because changes to Section 264 of the 2003 Act will remove the Reithian values of inform, educate and entertain. They remove many of the genres expected to be covered, from music and the arts to science and religion. All we now have is, as the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, said, the vague requirement of a range of appropriate genres. In response in the other place to similar concerns, the Government argued that it is in the royal charter for the BBC and in the licences for the other PSBs that such expectations will be covered. But can the Minister confirm that Parliament has absolutely no say on those documents? If Parliament is to have a say on what it wants of PSBs, surely we should look again at this issue.
The Government have also argued that Ofcom will cover this by looking at the delivery of genres across all platforms. Can the Minister confirm that the Bill provides no statutory duty for Ofcom to do this, as I believe it should? Does he also agree that, without specifying genres, it would be very difficult for Ofcom to do the necessary monitoring?
Baroness Thornton (Lab): Britain’s public service broadcasters must be fully equipped with the tools they need to thrive in this intensified era of internet and on-demand television. I am sure that the Minister understands how frustrating the delay has been to everyone involved—much of it down to the pointless war about Channel 4. I suggest that this Bill may go some way to restoring the trust of our PSBs and other players in the Government and their intentions.
I thank my noble friend Lord Bassam, who I think gave the House a good gallop round the main issues, as did the Minister at the beginning of this debate, for which we should all be grateful. I echo him in saying that the first issue that we will need to explore is of course those proposals ensuring that PSBs are always carried and given prominence on smart TVs, set-top boxes and streaming sticks. The Commons explored whether “appropriate” prominence, as it is described in the Bill, goes far enough and we will surely do so here. Many noble Lords, including the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds and others, raised this, and the point that everyone has been making is that we have to ensure clarity in the mandate to Ofcom: what it means and how it should work. My honourable friend Steph Peacock MP commented in the Commons that the definition of PSB is that it is easily discoverable and promoted to audiences. That is what we need to be looking for.
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con, DCMS): A number of noble Lords, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Kidron and Lady Foster, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds, the noble Lord, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, focused on the changes to remit and the question of genres. I reassure noble Lords that the Government recognise the importance of a diverse media sector in the UK, where audiences can select from a wide range of programmes, according to their own tastes and interests, and indeed to have those tastes and interests expanded. Our public service broadcasters have an important and distinctive role to play in helping to achieve that. To ensure that the regulatory framework supports these outcomes, the Bill replaces the 14 overlapping purposes and objectives to which public service broadcasters must contribute with a new, modernised remit. It is intended to provide a much clearer sense of our public service broadcasters’ distinctive role in the sector.
At the same time, it has always been our intention that the revised public service broadcasting framework, including the new remit, should retain the requirement on our public service broadcasters to produce a wide range of programmes. The Government have listened to the views expressed by the Culture, Media and Sport Committee in another place; in particular, the committee’s concerns that the remit is not clear enough on this point. As a result, as the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, noted, we have added an explicit requirement that our public service broadcasters should, together, continue to make a range of genres available.
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