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There are numerous examples of distributors blatantly disregarding the law because they know that it is unenforceable. For example, in Bournemouth, trading standards officers cannot prevent a newsagent from selling R18 and unrated hardcore sex videos or two unlicensed sex shops from selling unrated DVDs. There are examples throughout the country: Brent, Cheltenham, Conwy, Dorset, the highlands, Havering, Islington, Luton, Manchester, Milton Keynes, Powys and Southampton have all reported examples of retailers distributing unclassified works because they know that the 1984 Act is not enforceable. As the Under-Secretary said, some
local authorities are even being pursued through the courts for carrying out in good faith what they believed to be their statutory obligations.
We have made it clear from the outset that we support the Government's intention to pass the Bill as quickly as possible. Let me mention only two concerns on which, in a perfect world, we wish the Government had acted.
First, as the hon. Member for Bath said, the Digital Economy Bill will amend the 1984 Act and bring video games into a system of statutory classification using the European rating system known as PEGI-pan European game information. Broadly speaking, hon. Members of all parties support that. Everybody recognises that video games should be classified under a statutory system. The vigorous debate that took place between the British Board of Film Classification and PEGI about the appropriate rating system was played out and a conclusion, which Conservative Members support, was reached.
However, we assert that the Under-Secretary could have inserted relevant provisions in a draft Bill, which could then have been submitted to the European Commission in September and returned to the House to be enacted. To pick up on the point that the hon. Member for Somerton and Frome made, although we support fast-tracking the Bill, we would have supported including provisions in a draft that was submitted to the European Commission and extending the debate on the measure. It need not have taken long-we could have had Second Reading today, Committee tomorrow and Third Reading next week.
I make that point because there is serious concern about the time available for the Digital Economy Bill. It is debatable whether we will even get a chance to discuss those provisions in this House. If the Under-Secretary responds by claiming that including those draft provisions in the Bill that we are discussing would have made a debate impossible, I say wait and see whether we even have a debate on those provisions, if and when they come before us through the Digital Economy Bill. I am not sending a hidden message. Conservative Members intend to co-operate on the Digital Economy Bill-although we take issue with some of it, it contains many important provisions that help the digital economy. However, in the circumstances, with the Prime Minister on the verge of toppling because of a rebellion by his-
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. I repeat my earlier remarks to the hon. Gentleman and remind him that we are dealing with one Bill at a time. At the moment, we are considering the Video Recordings Bill.
Mr. Vaizey: That is absolutely correct.
There is some concern that music and sports videos remain exempt from classification. Again, that exemption could have been removed in a draft submitted to the European Commission. There is overwhelming support for removing the exemptions. There is not a shred of logic or intellectual credibility to keeping music and sports videos exempt. Why should something be exempt just because it is of a particular genre? As I said to the right hon. Member for Leicester, East, we are worried about inappropriate content being distributed to minors and adults. Whether it is in a video game, DVD, film, a music video or something related to sport is irrelevant. The exemption is bizarre. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman agrees-he is nodding.
Keith Vaz: I do not agree that we are talking about the same thing. A film with inappropriate content is not interactive. The point about video games, which is backed up by research from America, is that the player is part of the process. Players shoot and stab people in a video game, and that is different. I accept that inappropriate content is wrong, wherever it is found, but video games are different.
Mr. Vaizey: I continue to assume that the right hon. Gentleman is against hard-core pornography and offensive content. For example, a video by the band Slipknot, which includes self-mutilation by teenagers, remains unclassified. Before we get into a debate on censorship, I am not saying that that content cannot be viewed by responsible adults, or that the video by Mötley Crüe, which depicts a George Bush lookalike with a prostitute, could not be viewed by responsible 18-year-olds. However, I think that all hon. Members agree that it should not be viewed by a 10-year-old, and should therefore be classified so that parents know, if their 10 or 11-year-old comes home saying, "I've got the latest Mötley Crüe video," exactly what it could contain. It is extraordinary that music and sports videos are exempt. We will continue to press for the removal of that exemption. However, we are where we are; the Bill has been introduced in its current form and we do not intend to stand in its way.
I end with a wider point about what the Bill omits, and ask whether we are closing the stable door after the horse has bolted and whether, by considering a Bill that applies to a venerable Act-25 years old-we are missing the point. I ask that because of the advent of the internet and convergence. Although the Under-Secretary said in his opening remarks that experts who retail such products believe that it will be "some considerable time" before the download of film overtakes the purchase and rental of DVDs, I counsel that that "considerable time" could be considerably shortened when one considers, for example, YouTube, which grew from nothing to being a global company in 18 months.
To pick up on the comments of the right hon. Member for Leicester, East about the Byron report, which focuses on keeping children safe in a digital world, I am genuinely interested in the Under-Secretary's thoughts about how and whether content should be regulated online. As he knows, an increasing number of video distributors submit their films for classification to the BBC for an online rating, but obviously more unscrupulous dealers do not do that. The legislation does nothing to ensure that there are any sanctions against people who distribute videos online.
The opportunity to respond to a Second Reading debate for the first time from the Front Bench has been thoroughly enjoyable. It has been a rollercoaster ride. There were a couple of clashes with Mr. Speaker, who took the punchlines of my best jokes, but I hope that I have covered the ground comprehensively and shown the reasons for the Opposition's support for the Government's fast-tracking the Bill today.
1.49 pm
Keith Vaz (Leicester, East) (Lab):
It is a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey). I congratulate him on his maiden Second Reading speech from the Front Bench. It was fascinating and I am sorry, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that you were not present for the whole contribution. I feel-and I am sure the
House feels-that we know so much more about the hon. Gentleman, especially his encyclopaedic knowledge of all the films and videos that have been produced in the past 25 years.
It must be a Minister's worst nightmare to arrive at his desk in Whitehall to be told by civil servants that an important Act is effectively illegal. An Act is an Act, as the Minister has said, but the news in respect of this Act was that it had not passed through the necessary European legislation hoops and that therefore the prosecutions under it for the past 26 years were, in effect, invalid. I do not know whether the Minister who is present was the Minister who was told that news, but if so, I would love to have been in his office as he received the advice. I must commend him, however, as I think he has dealt with this situation in an extremely calm and cool manner throughout, from how he responded to the first announcements just before Christmas to the way in which he has presented the Bill to the House. It is right for the Government to use this special method to try to get the legislation through the House, because the worst possible thing to do on discovering that an Act of Parliament is not, in fact, enforceable would be to allow that Act to remain on the statute book and individuals and companies to be prosecuted, and then to try to work out at a later stage exactly what to do about that very unfortunate circumstance.
The Minister has given us an assurance that the Government have brought the matter before the House as best they could in the circumstances. We will therefore deal with all the Bill's stages this afternoon, and, judging by the number of Members attending this debate, we should deal with them speedily. By doing so, we might provide more time for discussion of the Digital Economy Bill, as the hon. Member for Wantage said.
In common with every other Member who has spoken thus far, I of course agree that we need to correct the error made 26 years ago, and I commend the Minister on not seeking to make party political points about why it occurred, as this could have happened to any Minister. We do not expect Ministers to have encyclopaedic knowledge of how the European Union works. Ministers operate in accordance with the advice given to them, and clearly over the past 26 years advice was given to Ministers suggesting that the legislation was fully in keeping with European law and was therefore enforceable.
I hope that when the Minister sums up he will tell us in greater detail precisely what will happen to those who have been prosecuted; he alluded to that during the discussion of the allocation of time motion. The question of compensation has been mentioned, and when this was announced I received a telephone call from the home affairs editor of The Times telling me what had happened. There is genuine concern among those who have been prosecuted over the past 26 years as to whether their convictions were valid, whether the sums paid in fines will have to be repaid to them and whether they might be re-prosecuted as a result of the new legislation. I am sure that it will not be retrospective legislation. We cannot say that everybody who has been prosecuted under the 1984 Act will have to be re-prosecuted-we do not know. It is extremely important that there is clarity on such issues if the House is to give the Government the benefit of the doubt and allow them to pass the Bill in the space of one day-or a few hours, in fact.
Let us be clear about what we wish to know. Will those who have been prosecuted be entitled to compensation, and if so, how much will they get? Will they be re-prosecuted? Do their convictions still stand, or are they expunged? What is the precise legal nature of this situation? I am sure that the Minister will have sought the advice of the Attorney-General and that she will have been very clear about where the Government stand in respect of an Act of Parliament that is found to be unenforceable. When the Minister sums up, I hope that he will tell us the answers to those questions.
My second point is about the general debate concerning video games. I am keen not to stray beyond the measures of the Video Recordings Act 1984, but there were some very interesting comments from the Front Benches about their commitment to ensuring that the thriving and innovative video games industry in the United Kingdom, and particularly in London, survives. I am not against what is being proposed, and I have never been in favour of censorship; I have always been very clear that those who are aged 18-plus should be able to buy and watch whatever video games they want. Those who are not sufficiently old should not be able to do so, however, and those retailers who are prosecuted under this Act must be dealt with very severely indeed.
I say that because I disagree with the hon. Member for Wantage, in that I do not believe that watching a film is the same as participating in a video game. I know that you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, have very young grandchildren, and I have children aged 14 and 12. A huge amount of research has been done on the issue, and it has been found that half of all eight to 11-year-olds use the internet without adult supervision. I do not know how many Members present have children or grandchildren aged between eight and 11, but it is a real worry that a half of those in that age group are not supervised by adults when using the internet.
Some parents take the home computer out of their children's rooms and put it in a room where everyone has access to it so that they can watch over what their children are doing online. Parents have different ways of dealing with that issue, but the fact is that watching a violent film is different from participating in a video game. If a young person gets hold of "Modern Warfare 2", for example, they will be asked to participate in a terrorist attack; they will be asked to shoot at civilians in Moscow airport as part of the game. That is why the Russian Government have banned "Modern Warfare 2"; they felt that in an age when we are trying to educate our children about the need to understand the dangers of extreme violence, we should not place in their hands, under the guise of entertainment, games that allow them to act in a violent way.
I am grateful to the Minister for what he said about the Digital Economy Bill coming before this House soon, and it is always the hope of Ministers that such Bills will come to the House from the other place quickly, but I have counted that we have just 35 working days from now until 31 March. Nobody knows when the next general election will be held, of course, but there are only 35 complete working days in which legislation can be addressed in this House.
Mr. Whittingdale: The right hon. Gentleman refers to "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2". It is already rated 18 and therefore it is already illegal to sell it to somebody who is under age, without the Digital Economy Bill needing to be passed. I do not disagree with the right hon. Gentleman on the necessity of passing that Bill, but there are already provisions in place that prevent children from playing that game.
Keith Vaz: Absolutely, and I would be the last person on earth to question the expertise of the Chairman of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport. The hon. Gentleman is right, but there are certain bits of that Bill that it would be helpful if we could implement. That is a recommendation of Tanya Byron. There is absolutely no point in the Government setting up an inquiry and receiving an excellent report from Tanya Byron if they do not then implement the report as a matter of urgency.
I agree with the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) on this matter. I know that some people believe that the Liberal Democrats exist to provide consensus, but he is true to type, and he has made it clear that if there are bits of the Digital Economy Bill that we can all agree on, we should go ahead and get on with implementing them. If we can implement the Bill currently under discussion as quickly as we are doing, why should we not do so in respect of other measures? That would be far better than leaving decisions on which Bills will get through to an end-of-Session barney behind the Speaker's Chair between the Chief Whips of both sides. That is not the right way to make legislation. I hope that we can move forward on the issue.
The Byron recommendations must be implemented in full, as doing so will help to strengthen what the Government are trying to do enormously. As far as video recordings are concerned, I pay tribute to what the Government have done over the past few years. There has been a huge leap forward since I first took up this issue, along with others, after young Stefan Pakeerah, from Leicester, was stabbed to death in a park in Leicester in circumstances similar to those found in a video game watched by his killer, Warren Leblanc. I know that the judge in that case said that there was no connection, but the mother of the young boy stabbed to death felt very strongly that there was. Following subsequent meetings with two Prime Ministers and many Ministers, the Government have pushed forward on the matter.
I welcome what the Government have done, but it remains the case that any Member of the House can walk into any video store subject to the Video Recordings Act 1984, pick up a box set and see a tiny-it is still tiny-reference to the age limit for those playing the game. Through various campaigns involving people on all sides, we increased the 18 certificate sign from about the size of a 1p piece to probably the size of a 10p or, possibly, 50p piece. Actually, we have always said that, as with cigarette packets, splashed across the front of a violent video game should be the fact that it has adult content-and good luck to over-18s who wish to buy it! That would bring the fact to the attention of retailers who might, sometimes inadvertently, sell the game to someone under the age of 18.
I was interested to hear the statistics put forward by the hon. Member for Wantage on the number of stores that have been prosecuted. I have been after those statistics for some time. They are good news. The
last time some mystery shopping was done-Trevor McDonald on one of his ITV programmes sent in a load of under-18 mystery shoppers-they were sold video games for over-18s, but the stores were not prosecuted. I welcome the fact that the figures are quite high. We are going through the bother of trying to get the Bill through quickly, and we should send out a message that legislation passed by the House will be implemented and that those who break the law will be prosecuted.
Through no fault of the Minister, we find ourselves in the position of trying to repeal and re-enact a law originally passed 26 years ago. That is the fault of neither the Minister nor any other individual. The fact is that the Bill is before us today. I hope that we can make rapid progress and, in the near future, discuss the substance of video games and hear from the Minister on Second Reading of the Digital Economy Bill.
2.2 pm
Mr. Don Foster (Bath) (LD): It is a great honour and privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), who serves with such distinction as the Chairman of the Home Affairs Committee and has a clear personal interest in one of the key issues being debated today-video games. I was particularly delighted that he went out of his way to praise the video games industry. He is absolutely right in doing so: it is a vital part of this country's creative economy, which many people believe could be, with the relevant support, as important to the country's economy as the financial services industries have been. Many people have believed him to be interested only in condemning individual video games-he has gone on several crusades in that respect-so it was good to hear him praising the industry, as well as chastising it for some of the projects it has produced.
I was also pleased that the right hon. Gentleman picked up on a point that I made in an intervention on the Minister. Like the right hon. Gentleman, I have done the calculations on the Digital Economy Bill, which makes amendments to the Video Recordings Act 1984, and given the recent announcement that the time allocation in another place will be longer than originally anticipated, it seems highly unlikely that we will be able to get through all the stages of that Bill in this place before the likely date of the general election. Given that there is cross-party support for much of Tanya Byron's excellent report, I hope that the Minister can find ways to ensure that areas on which there is such agreement can be brought forward and put on to the statute book before the election.
I was also pleased to hear the right hon. Gentleman pick up on a point made by the hon. Member for Wantage (Mr. Vaizey), to whom I shall turn in a second, about the successful prosecutions of those who have been selling inappropriate videos to under-age people-to children. It is right and proper that we praise, for example, the many excellent trading standards officers in local authorities around the country who have brought those prosecutions so successfully-if only other cases of under-age sales, such as those of alcohol, were prosecuted with such vigour! However, I am delighted that that is happening in this case.
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