Media Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Report stage & 3rd reading
Thursday 23rd May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly to my Amendment 7. The listed events regime is something that we all agree should happen—for sporting events and events of national importance. This amendment, initially moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, is an attempt to make sure that in the current viewing world, they are still relevant in the way that they should be. Not everybody watches these listed events on an ordinary television and, if you do, you may be watching on internet television. One of the joys of this is that you have highlights and replays and can watch out of sync. I would hope in this modern world that those are guaranteed, because if you do not guarantee that these sporting cultural assets, which the nation has said should be available to everyone and there is cross-party consensus on, are made available for free then you are going to take them away.

Also, if there is any danger of these highlights being taken away—when it comes to the Olympics, for example, determined as I am, even I cannot watch 15 events at once, especially not at various times—we must make sure that they are readily available. This is the second go at this. I hope that the Minister can give us a definitive reassurance that we will have this available to us now, in this Bill, because if not, the Government have thrown away, in effect, half the listed events.

[Lord Watson of Wyre Forest (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise to support Amendment 1 and to echo some of the concerns raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, in her Amendment 8. It is a very great honour to speak to her amendment. I congratulate her on her very important recognition with her BAFTA award last week. She has been a tireless campaigner for children’s television, which is why these two amendments are perhaps the most important that we are discussing today.

To put at the heart of the Bill the notion of public service broadcasting and to modernise it for the digital age should surely be what we are trying to achieve today. I am a member of probably the first generation of comprehensive school children who were taught using terrestrial colour television—creative programmes such as “Words and Pictures” and—dare I say it?—“Play School”. I still remember “magic e” when I write speeches for the Lords. What is sitting here is a failure to realise that we are the generation that lived in information scarcity and our children are swimming in an ocean of information abundance. That notion at the heart of public service broadcasting—good, thorough content creation that is age-appropriate and relevant to the educational journey that we ask our children and their families to go on—is what we should be addressing.

I hope that all Front-Benchers will be able to take the comments made by the movers of those amendments very seriously when they respond to the debate.

Media Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

Committee stage
Monday 20th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, this is a series of issues around the importance of sporting events being listed as cultural assets. If you do not do it in a way that holds the full panoply of technology as it stands today, you are going to miss out on the principle. As somebody who lost quite a lot of sleep trying to follow the Tokyo Games, et cetera, I am slightly annoyed that I did not add my name to all the amendments from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, on the importance of overnight digital and highlight coverage. Live is usually preferable but you will not be able to see everything. For events that have multiple sports, you should not be able to see everything; it is a chance to see sports you do not otherwise see. It is a chance to see the panoply of sporting events going on.

We really need an undertaking from the Government that they are going to take this seriously. Is it a step back to try to get your video recorder set for the right time? I do not know, but that is the alternative. You either make sure that this is available or you accept that people will miss out. Once you have legislated to say that they do not, you will make sure they do. Can we have an undertaking here? I prefer my amendment to the one from the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, on this, but his amendment certainly would be better than nothing. However, I much prefer the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson.

As to the one on cricket, I wondered whether the enthusiasm of the noble Lord, Lord Bassam, would be containable, and it was not. I think that probably tells you why cricket should be there. Cricket is a major sporting event in this country. When the cricket team does well, the whole country has a lift. It is something unique; it is that bit of cultural capital that we keep. Anybody who doubts that, just go and watch what happens when we do well or badly. It is there; it fits into that structure. Other sports may do it, but I think cricket has a special place in the summer for this. Can the Government undertake to say how we are going to start to address this?

These are genuine issues, raised to make something that the Government have agreed to work. If we can get some firm commitment that they are going to take all these concerns and put them into something solid, I for one will have to withdraw on this; if not, we will be going back to it. We have no real choice. You are talking about sport’s place in our society as a cultural activity and something that touches the whole nation. If we are not going to do this properly, why are we doing it at all?

[Lord Lansley (Con)]

My Lords, I intervene briefly to express my support for Amendment 30 in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson. I think she has captured, very importantly, how the character of watching major sporting events has changed over recent years, certainly a great deal since the Communications Act 2003, when I had the pleasure of working with Lord Puttnam and others in another place on that Act—the Standing Committee and the Puttnam commission—back then. Of course, when we are looking at listed events, people were understandably focused on the live coverage in those days because that was predominantly how people watched sporting events. That has changed and we must adapt the structure of the legislation to match that.

I will come on, if I may, to the difference between Amendments 29 and 30. The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, referred kindly to Amendment 30 and I think there are advantages. I note that Amendment 29 somewhat suggests that the noble Lord and the Opposition Front Bench have started to write amendments a bit as a Government in waiting in a way in which we tend to see the Government thinking it a very good idea for Ministers to have the powers to do things however they wish. I think now the Opposition Front Bench wants to have similar sorts of powers—

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The House was stunned into silence by the revelation from the right reverend Prelate.

I thank noble Lords for the contributions they have made and the points raised on the other amendments in this group. We, of course, had a bit of a pre-match friendly during our debate on sport led by the noble Lord, Lord Wood of Anfield, on Thursday. Let me start with Amendments 25 and 26 from the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson.

The Government recognise the intent behind the noble Baroness’s amendments, and I know that she has had concerns about in particular the necessity of the new multisport provisions, whether “adequate live coverage” will meet the mark, and whether public service broadcasters will have the freedom to choose what they cover in the interests of their audiences. Perhaps I may take the opportunity to seek to offer her and other noble Lords reassurance on these questions.

First, on whether these provisions are necessary, the Bill introduces the concept of adequate live coverage for multisport events to ensure that partnerships between broadcasters which deliver for UK audiences can still go ahead in an age where dozens of sporting events can be taking place concurrently. We do not want inadvertently to create a regime which would prevent deals like the one currently in place between Warner Bros. Discovery and the BBC. Expansion of the scope of services covered by the regime to resolve the streaming loophole poses risks to these mutually beneficial partnerships between public service broadcasters and commercial broadcasters for multisport events. That is because the existing requirement for both parties to have the same coverage does not reflect the way that coverage is actually shared between them across different types of services.

There is no intention to weaken the public service broadcasters’ hand in negotiations, simply to ensure that partnerships between them and commercial broadcasters can function effectively to deliver the best outcomes for audiences and rights holders.

On whether “adequate live coverage” will hit the mark for audiences, it will be for Ofcom to make new regulations setting out what will be considered adequate. Following scrutiny and debate in another place, the Government amended to the Bill to set out the matters that Ofcom must take into account when defining adequate live coverage in its regulations. This is an example of Parliament giving direction to the regulator through legislation. This includes the forms of live coverage that would satisfy the interests of the public, and the desirability of facilitating arrangements which result in live coverage of listed events being shown on both public service and non-public service broadcasters.

To protect audiences’ interests, and in keeping with deals we have seen before, any partnership of this nature will require at least two live broadcasts on public service broadcasters. Ofcom is given the power to require more than two streams if it deems it necessary or appropriate, and it could also set requirements regarding the percentage of coverage or other considerations.

Finally, I think the noble Baroness, like me and others who have spoken, believes that it is vital that public service broadcasters continue to have the flexibility and editorial freedom to show the most incredible moments of these multisport events to public audiences. I reassure her and other noble Lords that the Bill enables Ofcom to require that “adequate live coverage” must allow the broadcaster involved to select what parts of the proceedings it wishes to show. It is vital that public service broadcasters maintain complete editorial control of live broadcasts when they enter partnerships so that they have the freedom to make decisions about what events to screen for the British public, and the Bill makes provisions for this.

For those reasons, I do not think that we need the amendments the noble Baroness has brought before us. However, I hope my words have provided reassurance about the checks and balances in place to deliver for audiences in the way she seeks.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

Is the Minister, in effect, saying that he is convinced that, under the current regime, catch up and clips will continue to be available, certainly when multiple sports are happening at different times? Will we get slightly better guidance on that? Will it be available for us to look it up and check on it—certainly before the next stage of this Bill?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Yes, the Bill caters for the concerns that have been set out, but I will happily discuss that further with the noble Lord if on reflection he disagrees with the reasons I have set out.

I turn now to the noble Lord’s Amendment 31. The Government are keen to ensure that sporting events are made available to the public as widely as possible. That is why we have the listed events regime. We acknowledge the interest that fans have in watching the sports teams of our home nations compete. As noble Lords will appreciate, however, sports rights holders use income from the sale of broadcast rights for the benefit of the sporting sector more generally, so it is important that the regime continues to strike the right balance between accessibility and the ability of sporting organisations to generate revenues which they can invest in their sports at all levels.

The Government believe that the current list of events works to deliver the best outcome and strikes an appropriate balance. We therefore have no plans to review the list at this time. I know that will disappoint the noble Lord, Lord Addington, but it is why I cannot accept his Amendment 31.

The noble Lord, Lord Bassam, asked me to say a bit more about Amendment 19. We have taken the opportunity, as recommended during the pre-legislative scrutiny process for the Bill, to take steps to ensure that the streamer loophole is closed. This was a major flaw in the current regime which allowed for unregulated online services to acquire listed sports rights, while leaving Ofcom powerless to do anything. The current drafting therefore ensures that all TV-like services providing live content to UK audiences are in scope of the regime. Amendment 19, and Amendments 20 to 22, are technical amendments to future-proof the regime by closing off an opportunity for non-public service broadcaster services to qualify through the back door. The amendments tie qualification for the listed events regime to the way in which qualification for prominence is decided.

Community Sports: Impact on Young People

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the first and very pleasant task for anybody who is winding up today is to welcome the “new boys”. It is good to see them on the Benches and taking part. I slightly challenge the emphasis on football. It is not my favourite sport, but it is the biggest one. I welcome them and look forward to hearing from them on this and other subjects. I hope that we will become allies in the great cross-sectional activity of this House. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, who is a friend of mine, leads the drive on sporting matters. We are missing the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, who has a wonderful expression: “a friend in sport”. There should be more of us driving this agenda.

When we talk about the importance of sport and the economy—I thank the noble Lord, Lord Wood, for bringing it forward—football has a key place as the big money-spinner. It is also the sport that has managed to annoy its own fan base by changing structures. There is a limit to what people will accept in changes to their leisure activities. I have always felt that people will fight much harder to defend a hobby than a job, bizarrely. That seems to be what is going on here. Let us face it, the Government did not want to bring forward legislation. They gave football every chance to avoid legislation, but it has it.

I do not know what is going to happen but, when the Bill comes forward, I would like to see us doing a little more about social responsibility. When people told me about how great various charitable activities were, I said, “Yes, but what would you say you are going to give back to us if we make it so that, for instance, the Premier League is going to guarantee a better chance of survival for those below it and, let’s face it, an exit strategy if things go wrong? That is something we are building in”. They did not seem to quite grasp that. I hope that, when we get the Bill, we will have a little caveat that anybody who is instructed in any of those football clubs has some duty to support local voluntary groups.

My starter for 10 on that would be training people to be secretaries, treasurers and chairmen of voluntary groups and charities. That would be good because you would have a way of building into the local voluntary structure—not only sports clubs, all of which need it—something that says, “You have a commitment to those communities”.

At the heart of this process is, what are we doing to encourage grass-roots sport? First, we need to encourage people to play it. Schools sports partnerships were probably the first attempt to make a formalised link, brought about because of the break of the link between school sport and local community groups. It had to come in, we tried it, but it got cut. It was one of the things that I was very annoyed about in the coalition. I should have rebelled on it, but I waited.

We have to try to get something else that encourages the link from school to club, and to keep that going. If you only take your sporting activity in educational circumstances, in the majority of cases you stop when you leave those educational institutions. The link between ages 16, 18, and 21—when people drop out of sport—is incredibly well-established. We have to make sure that people carry on. If we get a reply here saying that school sport is wonderful and we are doing far more of it, it makes absolutely no difference if you stop when you leave school; you might as well have not bothered.

There is also the fact that we know it ups grades. It is weird that we do not actually think about this and push it forward; possibly because the Department for Education and at least one former Secretary of State for Education really did not get the idea at all. We have to establish this and make sure that it goes across and carries on.

The noble Lords, Lord Hayward and Lord Hampton, gave very focused examples of the fact that, once you get into a small club, you build a community—hopefully a community for life. Noble Lords would never guess that I am an old rugby player, still turning out for the parliamentary team. The description is “a life in rugby when you are close to death”—but, let us face it, physiotherapists have to eat as well. I go back to the small club I started with, which was then the Lakenham Hewett Old Boys, from the Hewett School in Norwich. It was a community club that has had to merge again, which tells another story, and is now Lakenham Union. There, I have a group of friends who will be with me for life. The same is true of other clubs I have played for, but that is the one I started with and where I had my last game in a league structure. If you can create that, you have something which you can go back to, and somewhere where you can use those skills and encourage people coming up to believe that they have a future.

All sports have a similar structure to this. Rugby is one of the property-owning sports, where buying your own clubhouse, or at least running, it is encouraged. Cricket follows on. If you encourage this and work hard at it, you have an asset which can go out to the rest of the community. Will the Minister please give us an idea of what the Government are doing to encourage this? Local government has a lot of this responsibility, but it is skint at the moment. How are we encouraging people to take on this great social asset and push it forward? It is something through which you can interact with your community. We have to encourage this link and encourage clubs’ survival by pushing new players through. Veterans’ teams are all very good, but they are not the future.

How are we going to encourage this? How are we going to make sure that we have that asset—that point at which we can interact? There are many examples of what sports clubs can do and of good sporting practice, but one which builds on what the noble Lord, Lord Hampton, did is the wonderful rugby union project, Tackle London. It gets youngsters to interact with that sport. The odd thing about rugby is that it seems to be growing in popularity in the female community at a phenomenal rate. More than half the participants in this project are female.

In the coaching department, it is very good at providing a stable base for people who have problems. The acronym is ACEs: adverse childhood experiences. Other sports have their strengths and weaknesses, but rugby’s strength is that it is very structured, with a central figure who is reliable and who is there—often a volunteer who is turning up because they like it. They will be very reliable. They are building into their club and its structure. When you get that kind of person, the response is that people keep coming back: they are a stable centre. You can start to build the kind of community that we have all been talking about, and you can get something that builds up with it.

If we are to encourage these voluntary groups—yes, these are voluntary groups—to come in and make sure that they are supporting groups outside, such as schools or other educational establishments, we need to have the support and structure from government to allow it to happen. It should be local government, but if it cannot afford to take on things such as making sure that your new clubhouse is built on a bus route, central government will have to do so.

Think about it: we have built and developed a wonderful new clubhouse, but we have put it three miles down the road. Can you think of a better way to get rid of your junior teams? Mum and dad have to drive them—but what if mum and dad do not have a second car, or even one car? You have to make sure there is access. So central government will have to push, local government will have to listen and somebody will have to make sure that the money is there for either the continuing bus route or the new bus route that gets you back from training as well as to it—and remember, this is voluntary activity, so it has to be after work.

Can the Government tell us exactly what their attitude will be to encourage amateur sports clubs—the social bedrock of many communities—to function properly and deliver these benefits to society? If we do not do that, we will miss something that, when all is said and done, is rather more important than who you cheer for on the odd Saturday or Wednesday afternoon.

Gambling Advertising

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 25th April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I start with a small confession: I live in the village of Lambourn, which is the centre of the racing industry. If there ever was an industry linked to gambling, it is racing. That made me think about my reaction to gambling, given that I do not sit on horses or gamble much. It is the fact that it is a day out, when you have drinks in a nice environment, watching racing. Virtually everything we are talking about today does not apply to that scenario. We are talking about casually watching something on a screen, be it the one in our pockets—I have just remembered to make sure mine is switched off—a TV screen or another screen at home. That device in our pockets means that we can gamble at virtually any time. We need only be conscious to gamble on it. That is a totally different situation to the one I originally related to the gambling experience. It is a private activity. We know that the constant hits lead to addiction, so how do we control this situation and limit the inevitable damage, in a few cases, to those few cases? That is effectively what we are talking about here.

As many have mentioned, witty advertising lives with the young, even if they do not buy. How many witty smoking adverts did people come up with? They were quite creative and fun, with running jokes. I note the Silk Cut advert. Even non-smokers waited for the next joke. People bought in—it is very easy to. Some people take the biscuit, and some do not. The amount of money spent on advertising clearly means that the providers of this service see the link. As they are not going bankrupt at a rate of knots, one assumes they know what they are talking about.

What will the Government do to make sure that it is difficult for people to access gambling services? We have had suggestions, from the noble Lord, Lord Smith, for example, about having more difficult identification processes. There was a very good idea about a warning saying, “The person who’s guaranteed to make money on your bet is the bookie”. That is a very creative idea, and I hope we will run with it.

What are the Government doing in a systematic manner to make sure that children have more problems getting access to this? If the parents actively help them, we may have more problems still, but what are the Government actively doing? What are we doing to make sure that the young in particular—going up to about 24 might be a good idea here—will not see this advertising by accident? That is probably the principal objective here. Will you see these witty, well-placed little adverts by accident? Are they something you take on board? If you watch anything that crosses the watershed on late-night TV, you find yourself subjected to gambling advertising—“subjected” is probably wrong because you can always switch off, but it is there and always around. What will we do to make sure that that does not happen?

Finally, when it comes to sports and the big stadiums, if the Premier League is starting to take the adverts off teams’ shirts, why are the Government not encouraging everyone to remove them over a period of time? There is always a run-in, but we are proving to sport generally, and the biggest sport of all, that government will intervene eventually. Encouragement to make sure that we are removing, or at least controlling, this advertising within the stadium and on players’ bodies seems a reasonable step. We can give them some warning, but we can reduce it. If it is going to be in the director’s box, maybe that is fine, but it does not have to be at the side of the pitch. Can we make sure that there is some vision for and thought on restricting this? At the moment, there does seem to be anything coherent. I look forward to seeing how that will change.

Regional Arts Facilities

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 27th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Many elements of culture are devolved, as the noble Baroness knows, but other elements, such as the benefits through the National Lottery, apply UK-wide. I would be delighted to make the case for those benefits of our United Kingdom for cultural organisations right across the UK.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned the fact that there is a cost—to things such as education and other bits of government—if you do not have these functioning properly. Can the Government give us some indication of the input needed from, for example, the Department for Education, to deliver an acceptable level of operation properly to the nation, and also the on-costs for things such as the night-time economy?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Many of these things are the responsibility of local authorities. That is right—they are accountable to local people for the way that they deliver them, but they have statutory obligations, including in children’s services and education. The Department for Education works closely with local authorities as they discharge that duty and the Government provide help—my department allocated £33 million only this week for library services and museums around the country, helping people with their education outside school settings.

Human Rights: Sportswashing

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 21st March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, there are certain debates where you prepare something—at least mentally, in my case—then you have a look at the speaking list and think, “It probably will have all been said”. I looked at this list and said, “Yep, it will have been”. I was right. I started thinking about what I was going to say about the history of sportswashing. Berlin 1936 is the big one. Then I thought, what about the Cold War? Then I saw Lord Moynihan’s name on the list. He is a man who confronted a token gesture and went along with Lord Coe to that environment and said, “I’m going to compete”.

Before I say anything else, I say this: asking an athlete not to go to the Olympics when they have the chance is like asking a politician to turn down a safe seat. It is that important. It fundamentally matters. It justifies your life until that point. If somebody does not realise that and pontificates in the background that this is an easy choice, ignore that person on this subject because they have no concept of what they are talking about. I ask noble Lords to remember that, please.

The other thing is that organisers probably have much more opportunity to intervene in this process. Before the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, got up, I had nice things to say about the idea of sponsors and the ongoing relationship with F1. He said it better than I would have but the fact of the matter is that there is nothing like F1 for being a huge conglomeration of money and razzmatazz. Let us face it: there might even be a few competitors who quite like that and might want to keep it.

The organisers not being prepared to stand up and ask for changes to be made, or to say that there is a price to pay for having this huge benefit, is an act of rampant cowardice. They should really be doing something about it. Much of it is British based, so surely we should be saying, “If you’re going to oppress your population, please do not do it on our watch”. I would have thought that that is the very least we could do, and indeed sensible. But what have they done? They have annoyed my noble friend, and we have had a debate, on the record, and a response is coming.

Pretending that something is not there does not work. I hope that we, and others like us in the rest of the world, will point this out. Saying that it is not there and that nothing is happening is absurd—how much more “feeding the machine” can you get? We should take back the message—and I hope the Government will say it—that we do not expect reality and logic to be defied. You have asked the world to your country and we can see what is going on. We are all looking at you and we all know what is happening. Please can we remember the power that we have, and the power of our press in putting out reports. If you ask us into your house, we will comment on the colour of the furniture. We must do that and we must seize that opportunity. The Government must make sure that those who do that are encouraged to do it.

When it comes to the other facets of sport, my noble friend in sport—to nick an expression coined, I think, by the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan—the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, said that certain Games will occasionally push things over the edge to other places, such as disability rights. The 2012 village was reckoned to be the best designed for disability. That was because part of the process of preparing for the Games—I had a small part in this—was to make sure that the village was the best prepared ever. We got in early; we got the structure in; we talked about it; we engaged in it properly. The process of talking about such things early on comes back to the point that the noble Lord, Lord Hayward, was making: if you get in there, you actually have a chance of influencing. You cannot ever just say thank you, and think that it is done and move on; you have to engage constantly.

One of the other things—the elephant in the room, which is now trumpeting—is the Gulf states, the sovereign wealth fund and football. Guess what? We now have a Bill where this relationship is going to be discussed. I know the Government are doing their level best not to have this discussed, but it will be, because I am going to move amendments on it. We are going to have to look at how that relationship works. What is a fit and proper person? What is that relationship? If there are going to be barriers in place, where are they going to come in? How does that affect things?

Many football fans probably go into their own little darkened room and say, “My team must survive”. But they have also said that their team is going to be in a competitive league structure, which means that, in some alternative universe, Manchester United could be outside the league structure in six years, because you have relegation as well as promotion. If we have that, we surely should be looking at how the structure is maintained and at the people coming in.

If you are coming in from outside, maybe you should not be allowed to walk away. Maybe you should leave some of your wealth behind—there is a revelation. When football cannot organise its own house and calls government in, we will have a look at the whole structure again. If it is not the furniture this time, it is definitely the colour of the curtains. We are in there and we are taking part in this. I would hope that this House and the whole of Parliament will have a look at what is coming here.

Sport is too big a subject to be pushed off to the side; it affects too many lives. For the amateur sportsman who lives for his hour and a half on a Saturday or Sunday, it is an important part of their life and social structure. They are connected by some sort of invisible magic to the elite—I am not quite sure how it works, but it is certainly there. That is something we will have to talk about better in the next few years than we have before.

I hope that this Government will have a look at their own soft power strategy when it comes to sport. I hope that this Government will be supportive of the Commonwealth Games. We had a wonderful Commonwealth Games in Birmingham—done on the cheap, but it was done. It would appear that the Gulf states, America and China are not terribly interested in hosting the Commonwealth Games, but it is still a very old, multigame structure. Can we please have a look at that? When we had our last discussion on that, I remember finding myself in little confrontations with people from Birmingham, mainly on the Labour Benches, who asked: “How can we possibly milk it to save Birmingham?” I pointed out that you could not save Birmingham’s finances by milking the Commonwealth Games and that the Bill would not allow you to do it, but we still had a jolly good row.

Can we take these things seriously and look at them for the benefit they bring—the things they will give all of us? If we do not, we will end up with these horrible bitty examples. People say that it is sport and not politics, but clearly the two cannot be separated that easily. People say, “It’s nothing to do with me”, because it is only sport or politics or money, but they are all connected.

We have a series of opportunities coming up where we can start to square these circles. The first will be the football regulation Bill, where we will look at sovereign wealth funds and their relationship to football, and fit and proper persons. I hope we can start to have a slightly more nuanced, and indeed adult, discussion of these problems, because sports, sportswashing and the presentation of sport matters to society at a quite fundamental level. If we pretend that it does not, or are individually not interested, we are ignoring our reality. Sport is an integral part of our society, and we should treat it as such. I hope that that is one message we can take from this debate.

TV Licence Non-payment: Women

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 5th March 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My noble friend is right. The uptake of TV licences has fallen by around 1.7 million from its peak of nearly 56 million in 2017. As people consume media in different ways, the model looks increasingly obsolescent. That is why, as part of the future funding model, we want to ensure that we are giving the BBC and our public service broadcasters the funding they need to continue to produce programmes that are much admired for an audience which consumes television in different ways.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that the BBC is taking steps to try to lessen the effect of this through its newly proposed scheme of spreading out payments? Will the Government assist the BBC in collecting its revenue, so that it can carry on producing the programmes that most of us are still watching?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Yes. I commend the work that the BBC has done: it commissioned a gender disparity review, with which I believe the noble Baroness, Lady Young of Hornsey, from your Lordships’ House, helped assist. We welcome the 10-point plan that the BBC has set out, flowing from that review, but we will look more broadly at the issue of criminal sanctions as part of future funding.

Charities: National Minimum Wage

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 29th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I will pass on my noble friend’s representations; he is right. The impact assessment for the increase in the national living wage shows that the cost to charities and voluntary organisations is around £200 million over the next six years. That is the evidence we have, which we will share with relevant partners to make sure that they can carry on their work. As I have pointed to, DCMS provides substantial support for charities and all the wonderful work they do in so many ways across our country, including through our energy-efficiency scheme of more than £25 million to help them with the rising costs there.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that we are very lucky that a lot of charities take on a lot of the heavy lifting that you could reasonably expect the state to do? They provide care for vulnerable groups. If the Government will not support charities directly, do they have a plan for if they fail?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

The noble Lord is right to point to the important contribution of civil society and charitable organisations—the Government recognise that. We saw that very clearly during the coronavirus pandemic, when we pledged £750 million to ensure that voluntary and civil society organisations could continue their vital work supporting the community during the pandemic. As I have pointed to, we see that in the face of the rising cost of living now.

Media Bill

Lord Addington Excerpts

2nd reading
Wednesday 28th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, every now and then in this House, you can look down the speakers’ list and think, “I wonder what that person will say”. I looked at the name of the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and thought how he and I would want to talk about listed events, and access in terms of both disability and technology—I was absolutely right. The noble Lord has done it, and probably better than I will, so noble Lords have saved themselves a couple of minutes of listening time—let us look on the bright side.

I start with the listed events structure. We have them; we have kept them. There will always be some disagreement about what should be included. I do not think that this is the right time to go into that but, certainly in the modern world, as has already been said, you do not just watch an event; you do not even watch a replay. You often watch segments—it does not matter what you call them; you might call them highlights, blocks, teasers, the continuous parts of an event—and these are a part of the normal viewing experience for those people who are not usually watching on television but on another screen, such as a computer or smart device. Unless they are brought into this structure properly, we will in fact be saying that we are getting rid of part of the listed events’ ability to reach everybody. The fact of the matter is that there is general agreement that these are big cultural moments, such as sporting events, which are a big cultural part of our society and should be there.

I hope that the Government will be receptive to strengthening this aspect, so that it goes a little further. The aim is there, but I hope that they will make sure that the whole thing is there in the Bill and that it properly covers the way that we consume this information now. This is what we need to make it mean something.

There are also problems about, for example, the big one—the Olympics. The Paralympics have already been mentioned. With multi-event sports, the structure is difficult and it needs another little look. If we have got it wrong in our concerns, the Minister will be able to tell us and we shall all go away happy. That may happen—we will see. This is something that I think we must guarantee is done properly and that the full effect is taken on board.

When it comes to disability and sport—I remind the House of my declared interest with Microlink PC; it usually operates in the business environment, but we also deal with the technology—just about everything can, fairly cheaply and fairly quickly, have better disability access added to it. It is not difficult any more; you can do it quickly and easily. I hope that the Government will take this opportunity to say, “This is comparatively easy to do; go do it”. There has not been much else raised in this House on that; this is not the big issue that it was last time we discussed it. I think that people will think that some of this is now done. I would expect that all of it could be done without too much cost or too much intervention. That is my suspicion; I may be wrong, but it can be done comparatively easily.

I hope that the Minister will give us assurances that this will become a norm for people. It should be a norm: if you are broadcasting, you make it accessible; you make it as accessible as you can. There is the defence of reasonableness: if something is terribly difficult, maybe we do not do that—yet, but it is coming. I hope that the Minister will be able to engage on that.

I could wax lyrical—shall we say, second-rate lyrical —on some of the broadcasting requirements and genres, but those two issues that I have raised should be enough for the Government to improve the Bill considerably: making sure that everyone can get to it, and that the big sporting and cultural events are universally accessible. I would leave comparatively happy; my noble friends on the Front Bench may not be quite so happy on such a minimal diet, but that is for them to decide. I hope that the Bill goes through and I hope it is improved.

Loot Boxes in Video Games

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 13th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

We think the industry-led guidance on loot boxes has the potential, if fully implemented, to improve protections and to meet the Government’s objectives. We expect the games industry to implement the guidance in full and we will monitor that carefully. If the industry is unable to meet our objectives, there are a range of options that the Government may consider, but we would like to see how they bed in first.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister give us a little opinion? If he had to buy something else via a lucky dip, such as shirts or socks—it may happen at Christmas, we may think—would he be happy? The fact of the matter is that we are actually saying, “You are not buying what you think you are buying; you may have to go back again and again to get that product”. Even without the gambling element here, or the gambling similarity, that cannot be right.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Under the terms of the Gambling Act, gambling is defined as

“playing a game of chance for a prize”

of money or something of money’s worth. The prizes that can be won via most loot boxes do not have a monetary value; they cannot be cashed out and they are of value only within the context of the games. They do not meet the definition, and I do not think they quite meet the analogy that the noble Lord made.