The
Committee consisted of the following
Members:
Chairman:
Dr. William
McCrea
Cairns,
David
(Inverclyde)
(Lab)
Fabricant,
Michael
(Lichfield)
(Con)
Fallon,
Mr. Michael
(Sevenoaks)
(Con)
Foster,
Mr. Don
(Bath)
(LD)
Jenkins,
Mr. Brian
(Tamworth)
(Lab)
Miller,
Andrew
(Ellesmere Port and Neston)
(Lab)
Prentice,
Mr. Gordon
(Pendle)
(Lab)
Russell,
Christine
(City of Chester)
(Lab)
Simon,
Mr. Siôn
(Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State
for Culture, Media and
Sport)Stanley,
Sir John
(Tonbridge and Malling)
(Con)
Stoate,
Dr. Howard
(Dartford)
(Lab)
Truswell,
Mr. Paul
(Pudsey)
(Lab)
Vaizey,
Mr. Edward
(Wantage)
(Con)
Viggers,
Sir Peter
(Gosport)
(Con)
Wright,
David
(Telford)
(Lab)
Younger-Ross,
Richard
(Teignbridge)
(LD)
Mark Oxborough, Committee
Clerk
attended the
Committee
Fifth
Delegated Legislation
Committee
Wednesday
27 January
2010
[Dr.
William McCrea in the
Chair]
Draft
Communications Act 2003 (Disclosure of Information) Order
2010
2.30
pm
The
Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport
(Mr. Siôn Simon): I beg to
move,
That
the Committee has considered the draft Communications Act 2003
(Disclosure of Information) Order
2010.
It
is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr. McCrea, for
what I think is my first timeI intend to enjoy
it.
The
order is a small but important part of the arrangements that we are
putting in place to ensure the effective implementation of the European
Unions audiovisual media services directive in the United
Kingdom. Regulations made last autumn to implement the directive in the
UK gave Ofcom responsibility for ensuring that on-demand programme
services meet the minimum standards and requirements for such services.
They also allow Ofcom to designate other bodies to act as co-regulatory
authorities for the services and to carry out some of the regulatory
functions. Ofcom has already consulted on proposals to designate
co-regulatory bodies, and we hope that it will be in a position to make
an announcement about designation
shortly.
Co-regulatory
bodies are defined in those regulations as appropriate
regulatory authorities. The draft order will bring them within
the disclosure of information provisions in the Communications Act
2003. Section 393 of the Act places restrictions on how
information about particular businesses may be shared. There are some
exceptions to the restrictions, and the order makes use of one of them
by designating any co-regulatory body as a relevant
person for the purposes of information sharing. That will allow
Ofcom to share relevant information with the co-regulatory bodies, and
allow those bodies to share information with each other without them
having to go back to the businesses concerned. That process will ensure
that the bodies may carry out their functions effectively and
efficiently, and it will also mean that businesses and service
providers will not have to provide the information on multiple
occasions. Moreover, it will help to reduce the scope for delays in
investigating and resolving complaints about on-demand programme
services.
Michael
Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con): I am following the
Ministers argument so farit all seems logical and
straightforward. However, will he explain one thing? He talks about the
sharing of information, which is understandable, but will the
co-regulation mean that on-demand services will get instructions from
bodies other than Ofcom that could be in conflict with Ofcoms
regulations, or that could place an additional burden on a broadcaster
that is also providing on-demand services?
Mr.
Simon: No, in short. Perhaps it would be helpful to think
of the co-regulators as devolved regulators. For instance, one of them
is likely to be the Advertising Standards Authority, whose competencies
and duties are distinct from those of Ofcom. The order means that the
information that Ofcom requests from a business could be transmitted
directly to the ASA without the authority having to re-request the
information from a business, which would therefore not have to resubmit
to the
co-regulator.
As
I said, the order is a small but important part of our arrangements to
ensure the effective implementation of the audiovisual media services
directive, and I commend it to the
Committee.
2.33
pm
Mr.
Edward Vaizey (Wantage) (Con): I echo the
Ministers warm comments in welcoming you to the Chair, Dr.
McCrea. We are both delighted to be serving under your benign
chairmanship for the first time. It has been an education to shadow the
Minister and watch him grow and flourish in his position. The previous
time we debated a statutory instrument in Committee, he forgot to
welcome the Chairman, so I am glad that doing so is now a matter of
course for
him.
We
welcome the statutory instrument as a necessary technical measure,
given that the audiovisual media services directive, which is being
implemented into UK law, will regulate video-on-demand services. We
agree with the Government that a technical measure is therefore welcome
to allow Ofcom, the main statutory regulator, to share information with
self-regulatory bodies covering both the broadcast and advertising
aspects of the regulation of video on
demand.
I
find it extraordinary, however, that the Minister can come to the
Committee without being able to say what those co-regulatory bodies
will be. He said that one was likely to be the Advertising Standards
Authority, but the Committee is no more informed than that, so I hope
that other hon. Members will press the Minister on the specifics. It is
astonishing to learn, given the length of the consultation on this
important measure, that the Minister does not yet know which body is
likely to co-regulate the broadcasting environment with Ofcom. I am
unaware of any relevant self-regulatory body that would be appropriate
in those circumstances, so I would welcome the Ministers
guidance on which bodies his Department is looking at on the
broadcasting issue. I would also like specific guidance on when, and
under what mechanism, an announcement will be made to the House so that
hon. Members may have the chance to debate whether the chosen
co-regulatory body is the appropriate body to carry out co-regulation
with Ofcom.
May I take
this opportunity to press the Minister on the definition of
video-on-demand
services?
Mr.
Don Foster (Bath) (LD): Good
question!
Mr.
Vaizey: I thank the hon. Gentleman. As some hon. Members
might know, he is my mentor in the House, so when he says that
something is a good question, I take that in good part.
Clearly,
there was a debate about the scope of video on demand as the
audiovisual media services directive passed through Brussels or
Strasbourgor perhaps
both. There are those who still hold the viewI am not one of
themthat the internet is the wild west and should be subject to
no regulation whatsoever. However, there are those, particularly the
100 or so bodies providing video-on-demand services that are likely to
be regulated under this order, who take the view that they are being
regulated in a manner that some of their competitors who are not
regarded as traditional broadcasters have avoided. In the explanatory
memorandum, there is some indication of the not insubstantial cost to
these bodies£20,000 a piecewhich is likely to
rise.
The
best known example would obviously be YouTube, which I am sure that
many hon. Members regularly visit. Indeed, many members of the
Committee might have their own channel on YouTube, and if they do, I am
sure that they would want to enlighten the Committee. It seems to me
that YouTube is beyond the scope of video-on-demand regulations, so I
would be interested to know how the Department reached the conclusion
that such a website, which is to all intents and purposes a broadcast
channel, should escape such regulation.
As you will
be aware, Dr. McCrea, we also face an interesting conundrum in our
fast-changing world of technology due to convergence between the
internet and television. Newspapers that we all read and enjoy such as
The Guardian and The Daily Telegraphthe latter is
a particular favourite newspaper of mine, and it has given so much fair
and balanced coverage to the activities of hon. Membersnow
effectively have channels through which they broadcast programmes,
which are mainly of a political nature involving interviews and so on.
Are they to be regulated under the video-on-demand proposals? Will it
be possible to extend the scope as convergence becomes a
reality?
Michael
Fabricant: I am listening to my hon. Friend with
considerable interest as someone who uses YouTube quite a bit, although
as a viewer rather than a broadcaster, or perhaps a
sub-broadcasternarrowcaster might be more
appropriate. Does he agree that although Ofcom can regulate programmes
that originate in the UK, we will in due course be able to watch
programmes transmitted from anywhere in the world, as long as they are
streamed on the internet? While my hon. Friend does not agree that the
internet cannot be regulated, regulating it only in the United Kingdom
will not be particularly effective if people in the UK are able to
watch services such as Red Hot Dutch, which was debated in this very
Committee Room many years ago before it was taken off the
air[
Hon. Members: What are you
talking about?] Red Hot Dutch, which was a cable porno channel,
was banned by the Independent Broadcasting Authority, and I remember it
being debated in this very room in
1996.
Mr.
Vaizey: I am enormously grateful, as usual, to my hon.
Friend for that information. Let the word go forth if Members want to
participate in racy debates on racy subjects, Committee Room 12 is the
place to bewe should probably put up a plaque. I am also
grateful for his substantial point about how video-on-demand services
can be regulated in a converged and global communications
world.
The
key point about the audiovisual media services directive is that a
broadcaster regulated in the UK is free to broadcast throughout the EU.
Although individual
member states can request the UK Government to ask that broadcaster to
comply with their broadcasting rules, which might differ from ours,
they cannot compeland nor can the UK Governmentthe
broadcaster to do so, which is an interesting loophole. However, that
loophole obviously becomes a yawning gap when one is talking about
broadcasters outwith the EU that broadcast through the internet. Of
course, I suspect that my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield was
hinting that we will be very interested to hear the Ministers
views on that
point.
In
fact, the mention of Red Hot Dutch brings me to my most substantial
point as we hold the Minister to account on this measure, which is the
issue of the watershed. In a pre-internet
world
Mr.
Foster: Two good
questions!
Mr.
Vaizey: I thank the hon. Gentleman once again. He is
giving a running commentary on the quality of my speech, but I would
not be surprised at all if he was also tweeting to his thousands of his
followers about the quality of my
remarks.
I
had an interesting meeting last week with Mediawatch-UK, which was
formerly known as the National Viewers and Listeners
AssociationI think that Mary Whitehouse started it but I might
be wrong. It has circulated a memorandum in which it points out that
the main video-on-demand services with which most of us will be
familiarthe iPlayer which, I think, recently reached 80 million
downloads in a month and is obviously an enormously popular channel;
Channel 4s video-on-demand service; and the ITV video-on-demand
servicehave virtually no controls to ensure that young people
do not watch inappropriate
content.
I
want to press the Minister on how he sees the regulation of
video-on-demand services working in this extremely important area. For
example, the BBC iPlayer runs a guidance system that gives only the
option for parents to set a password. Mediawatch accessed the iPlayer
and identified content that it thought was inappropriate for young
people, including Wallander, which surprised me, as I
happen to think that it is an excellent drama, although it can be quite
graphic.
Mr.
Foster: The hon. Gentleman is doing extraordinarily well,
but I want to help him to take his excellent contribution a stage
further. In respect of the issue that he raises, has he examined the
audiovisual directive in detail? It saysand it is very clear
from the impact assessment that we have no intention of going beyond
anything in it under the draft
order
Content
which might seriously impair childrens development may be made
available only in ways that ensure children will not normally have
accesse.g. with access codes or other
means.
Does
he accept that that presents a problem, because our definition of what
should not be available before the watershed and the definition in the
directiveseriously impair childrens
developmentare, in fact, wide
apart?
The
Chairman: Order. May I draw to the Committees
attention that the subject for debate is not the directive, but the
statutory instrument?
Mr.
Foster: On a point of order, Dr. McCrea. I seek
clarification in advance of my speech. If the impact assessment
includes a clear statement that the regulatory bodies set up by this
order will stick absolutely to the directive and not go beyond it, is
it not the case that the directive has a clear role in our determining
whether these are the right bodies to which, as the order requires, we
are to allow information to be
passed?