Digital Economy Bill

Debate between Kelvin Hopkins and Matt Hancock

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Programme motion No. 3: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Monday 28th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I have already covered that point, but surely asking the other BBC licence fee payers, staff and programmers inside the BBC to pay for what is a welfare benefit is nonsense.

[Matt Hancock]

The point is that it is not a welfare benefit; it is about funding policy, and the BBC asked for this policy to be determined by the BBC. Indeed, the shadow Secretary of State said that

“the charter provides the BBC with the funding and security it needs”—[Official Report, 18 October 2016; Vol. 615, c. 699.]

As part of that “security it needs”, we kept, in this Parliament, the free TV licence. The BBC itself has asked for this and only this morning the BBC said that

“the overall funding settlement reached with the government provides the financial stability for a strong creative BBC. The BBC is concerned that”—

this amendment—

could reopen the whole deal and make the BBC worse off.”

So we have here an 11-year charter renewal, a strong and stable financial settlement praised by the Labour party and a clause that has been requested by the BBC, whereas the new clause could, in the BBC’s words, make the BBC worse off. Supporting new clause 8 would undermine the BBC and undermine its finances. This measure is expressly against the wishes of the BBC, and I urge anyone still considering supporting it to ask themselves how they will explain this attempt to undermine the BBC—Government Members will not do that.

New clause 17 deals with the issue of public sector broadcaster prominence, an important matter on which we consulted in the spring. In Committee, the point we reached was that a detailed, over-prescriptive regulation of the detail of the PSB prominence rules would be a mistake, and having not seen compelling evidence of harm to PSBs to date, we have decided not to extend the electronic programme guide—EPG—prominence regime for PSBs to on-demand. When PSBs make excellent content, audiences generally follow.

Finally on broadcasting, new clause 18, on listed events, was also discussed in Committee, and I have seen no evidence to change our view that the current listed events regime is not under threat—we will not let it be under threat. The range of our most loved and important sporting events will remain on free-to-air channels. Even if there were a problem, it would be undesirable to fix it in the way the new clause suggests, as it would lock in the incumbents’ positions, as the requirement to be watched by 90% of the population would narrow considerably the number of channels that could qualify. So I suggest that the problem does not arise; that were it to arise, we would legislate; and that if we were to legislate, this would not be the way we would do it.

In this Bill, we have shown that we are open to being persuaded by good argument, and we have tabled amendments 20, 21 and 22 to ensure that Ofcom is able effectively to enforce requests for information from third parties in relation to its new functions as regulator of the BBC. I hope that these provisions have broad support.

I now turn to the much discussed issue of ticketing. New clause 31 seeks to deal with bots that harvest tickets for resale in the secondary market. We have heard very powerful explanations of the scale of the problem and its breadth, and I can confirm that I had great difficulty in buying Paul Simon tickets. Initially, I failed to buy them despite having my finger hovering on my mouse the moment they went on sale, and so I had to buy them at a much greater price in the secondary market. They were worth every penny, but that in a way makes the point that my hon. Friend the Member for Weston-super-Mare (John Penrose) makes: the gap exploited is between the level at which the artists wants to sell their tickets and the amount that they represent in true value to the customer. I was still happy to pay hundreds of pounds for my Paul Simon tickets, but the point is that they were meant to be on sale for £75 so that everybody could get them. I am persuaded by the arguments and we shall be holding a roundtables meeting on Wednesday to discuss the best way to tackle the problem.

The Government will give full consideration to what is said at these roundtables, in Parliament and in the Waterson report on the issue of ticketing bots and the harvesting market. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Selby and Ainsty (Nigel Adams), who has made a huge amount of the running on this issue. He has made the argument powerfully and, as has been said, the Olympics showed that this can be done.

Funding for the Arts

Debate between Kelvin Hopkins and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 13th September 2016 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Digital and Culture (Matt Hancock)]

The former Minister—my predecessor and friend—my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (Mr Vaizey) described his contribution as a swansong and as his resignation speech. He was the longest-serving culture Minister in the history of this great country, and he has made two such speeches today because earlier he spoke eloquently in the debate on the Digital Economy Bill, to which we will be returning.

I take this opportunity to thank my right hon. Friend on the record. Having served in five different Government Departments in four years, I am becoming something of an expert in ministerial predecessors—I have an awful lot of them—and he is my finest ministerial predecessor. He has been brilliant to me by being supportive both in public and in private. He has been quiet where appropriate, and he has been helpful, while still speaking his mind. If I may say so, he is also looking extremely healthy.

My right hon. Friend talked about the outpouring of joy at the arts funding settlement in the spending review, and it is true that the arts were well supported. I remember well the previous Chancellor saying that “deep cuts” to the arts are a “false economy”, and I know that the new Chancellor shares his predecessor’s enthusiasm for the sector.

There was also an outpouring of thanks and warmth to my right hon. Friend the Member for Wantage on his resignation, and it was an extraordinary, generous and genuine outpouring of support from arts and cultural organisations and from supporters of the arts right across the piece in recognition of his dedication and support over many years, which culminated in the publication of the first culture White Paper on the 50th anniversary of Jennie Lee’s White Paper.

The economic and social impact of the arts and culture is well recognised by me and by the Government. DCMS sectors make a vital contribution. In 2015 the creative industries contributed £221 billion to the UK economy, which is more than 13% of gross value added. That is the economics but, more than that, the arts are central to how we are seen and how we see ourselves as a nation, which will only become more important as we negotiate our exit from the European Union and ensure that Britain is an open, optimistic, progressive and positively engaged country.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

In a recent private meeting—I was impressed by this—the Minister said that so much value could not be measured in financial terms and that the arts, in particular, were an area in which it was difficult to measure value in financial terms, even though they made a financial return.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kelvin Hopkins and Matt Hancock

Thursday 8th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Matt Hancock]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue, and I know that there have been extensive discussions with the BBC at all levels about the draft charter and the framework agreement. I am afraid that he will just have to wait a short while longer for more detail about that.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

May I take the opportunity to congratulate the Secretary of State on her appointment and welcome her team to the Front Bench? May I also add my congratulations to our brilliant Olympians on their stunning success in Rio and wish our Paralympians similar success?

Local television services face the threat of serious cuts if the Government press ahead with their plan to make the BBC pay the cost of free licence fees for the over-75s. As a social benefit, that has hitherto been paid for by the Exchequer, and rightly so. Transferring the cost to the BBC could mean a loss to the corporation, and effectively to other licence fee payers, of up to £608 million a year, threatening programme cuts across the board. Will the Government think again about this utterly misguided decision?

[Matt Hancock]

I simply do not recognise the hon. Gentleman’s characterisation. There was a very good licence fee settlement, which the BBC welcomed. If he is coming out against providing free TV licences to the over-75s, he ought to say that that is the Labour party position.

Channel 4

Debate between Kelvin Hopkins and Matt Hancock

Tuesday 19th July 2016 Westminster Hall

[Matt Hancock]

It is also day two for my Secretary of State. The issue needs to be considered realistically in the face of the facts. Channel 4 acknowledged the risks facing its business model in its 2015 submission to Ofcom’s PSB review when it said:

“Channel 4 believes the potential downside risks associated with…factors, such as a faster shift to on-demand viewing, the emergence of new disruptive entrants, faster fragmentation of audiences, production cost inflation outpacing funding, and structural changes to the licence fee of TV, outweigh the potential opportunities. Moreover, Channel 4 is arguably the PSB most likely to face the future first, given its focus on risk-taking and trying new things, and also its targeting of young audiences, who are the most avid users of new technologies and platforms.”

That must be true. Some 94% of its total revenue comes from TV advertising, and with so much of its revenue coming from advertising, an open question remains about how Channel 4 is affected by shocks to the economy, such as Brexit. It is our duty to make Channel 4 sustainable.

[Kelvin Hopkins]

I congratulate the Minister on his new appointment. Will he, at the very least, take back to his colleague in the Government and to the Secretary of State the strength of feeling that has been conveyed from both sides of Westminster Hall this morning?

[Matt Hancock]

Of course. I think we are about to hear a bit more.

EU Referendum: Civil Service Guidance

Debate between Kelvin Hopkins and Matt Hancock

Monday 29th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

My right hon. Friend has made an important point. On European Union issues that do not relate to the single question of in or out, there will be full access to all papers, as normal. That is what is said in the letter from the Cabinet Secretary, and that is how the Government are operating.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

During the referendum on Scottish independence, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Paul Flynn), there was significant controversy over senior civil servants making public and clearly political, and politicised, statements. It is vital for the civil service to retain its private advisory role, and for civil servants not to make blatantly political public comments during the campaign before the EU referendum. Will the Minister confirm that that will be the case?

[Matthew Hancock]

That is the normal course of events. It is for Ministers to make the argument, and for civil servants to support the Government’s position.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Kelvin Hopkins and Matt Hancock

Wednesday 21st October 2015 Commons Chamber

[Matthew Hancock]

I very much look forward to meeting the working group on procurement for steel later this week. It is absolutely critical that we make use of the new EU rules, which are only in place because this Government brought them in, to ensure that we consider not only the financial cost, but the wider economic benefit of buying British steel for British projects, and that is exactly what we are going to do.

[Kelvin Hopkins (Luton North) (Lab)]

T10. Will the Minister explain how the Government intend to safeguard the right of elected Governments to run the national health service democratically as a public service in the light of the threat of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership?

[Matthew Hancock]

As the hon. Gentleman knows—he has long asked questions about this—there is no threat to the national health service from making sure that Britain has trade deals with the whole world which make us more prosperous, more secure and more economically forward-looking, and that is what we are going to make sure happens.