Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill

Debate between Lord Vaizey of Didcot and Lord Bassam of Brighton

Committee stage
Wednesday 7th February 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)]

I will briefly speak to my noble friend’s amendments. I declare an interest as a broadcaster on Times Radio, which is owned by News UK. The point is clear: the Government’s intentions are perfectly honourable. They seek to protect consumers and give them a simpler way to enter into a subscription contract and to cancel one.

However, as I hope my noble friend has made clear in his excellent and detailed speech, things are never quite that simple. From the 2013 consumer contracts regulations, it is clear that, 10 years ago, the Government recognised the changing nature of the services, particularly digital ones, that consumers are now using. It is also clear that the savvy consumer, dare I put it that way, will potentially be intelligent enough to work out that they could take out a contract with a subscription service —it could be a video service through which they want to watch a particular series, or a content service such as the Times if they want to read a particular article—take advantage of the cooling-off period and not pay for that content.

For service contracts such as these, it is important that Parliament support both sides of the equation. We do not take the contribution that content services make to our economy nearly seriously enough, and we still live in a climate where too many people believe that content should be free. As content providers have struggled with how to cope with delivering digital content, moving from free ad-supported models to subscription models, it is important that the Government take into account the pressures they face and reach a reasonable compromise in order to do so.

I fully support the arguments put forward by my noble friend Lord Black. They have been well rehearsed by a coalition of people, ranging from the video games trade body to the technology trade body, the news trade body, the film trade body, the commercial broadcasters’ trade body and even the online dating app trade body, which has got in on the act as well. They are all perfectly reputable organisations whose case deserves to be heard by the Government. It is my understanding that the Government recognise the problem, and we hope that the Minister will come back on Report, as he was so co-operative in our last Committee, with a genuine solution to this conundrum.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, this is the starter before the main course on subscription contracts, but it is important none the less. I can reveal to the Committee that our Amendments 169 and 193 are mere probing amendments designed to test whether the Government have confidence in the Bill’s subscription provisions providing sufficient protection for digital platforms that host copyrighted content, mainly on-demand videos. A number of companies have raised this issue with us, arguing that they will be seriously out of pocket if they have fully to reimburse those who have accessed paid-for content during a cooling-off period. It is our feeling, and a view widely shared, that, although the Bill restates a lot of current consumer law on subscriptions, it does not restate many of the obvious and probably necessary exemptions that the noble Lord, Lord Black, clearly identified. We need to cover those.

At present, if I sign up to a streaming service, it is made apparent that, the moment I consume content, my statutory rights change. The Bill appears to restate some principles but not others, and it creates a lack of certainty for both sides. Some of the companies argue that they will have to pay out refunds in cases where they would not under current law. This runs the risk of creating unrealistic expectations for consumers.

The amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, ask similar questions of the Minister and seek to explore how the subscription contract is paid for if it is used during the cooling-off period and then cancelled. They also seek to understand what information a trader must publish in those circumstances. The noble Lord made a good point about charging.

Turning to the amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Black, he skilfully highlighted for the Committee the problems that will be caused by the way the legislation is phrased. Having heard the noble Lord, I am more on his side than I was at the outset. I am not a regular Daily Telegraph reader, nor a great fan, and this is the second time in a week I have had to plead on its behalf—this is becoming rather strange politically. I am a Guardian person, and I can see the problem replicated across the whole news world. I do not think the onerousness of the burden is justified in this case. It could be an endemic problem.

I want to hear what the Minister has to say because we need some light and dark, some nuanced thinking, about the way subscriptions work. This is not the way to bear down on the subscription trap, which I think we are all keen to deal with. This does not help us at all in that regard.

I was originally going to say of the last two amendments in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Black, which seek to create a two-year implementation period, that I was not particularly convinced, but having heard the argument, I have reversed my view. If we do not have a solution, I suspect those two amendments could be very helpful in trying to resolve some of the problems this is creating. There is merit in those amendments.

We need to approach this issue in more forensic detail. I want to hear what the Minister has to say, because I do not want us to further undermine the news market. We live in a time when there is less ability and facility to report than we are used to. Moving from broadsheets to online content is changing the way in which the news world operates. My son works in the news world, and he understands these things far better than I do. We need solutions, and the way the legislation is currently phrased does not provide us with one that protects the value and importance of news in an open democracy such as ours.