Digital Technology (Democracy and Digital Technologies Committee Report)

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Friday 11th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this debate, as it was to be a member of your Lordships’ committee alongside colleagues who are speaking this afternoon. I declare my interest as a non-executive director of Channel 4 television. I am indebted to the staff of the committee, not least Olivia Crabtree, who clerked it so magnificently. I am indebted also to the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, not only for the way that he introduced this debate but for doing me a tremendous service by informing me that Lord Puttnam is on the steps of the Throne today. I was going to say that I was sure he would be watching avidly on screen from Skibbereen. I am very grateful.

What we discovered when we published our report was pertinent at the time; it is even more pertinent with a capital P today. We live not just in an era of great difficulties and uncertainties but, in this specific space, of extraordinary contradictions. We have never been more connected and yet, even pre-pandemic, isolation has never been at such a level. We have never been more connected and yet mental well-being has never been at such crisis levels. We need to understand what digital technologies are. In simple terms, they are just the latest tools—yes, extraordinarily powerful, but the latest tools in our human hands. It is up to us.

The fact that so many platforms are more extractive today than open-cast mining is not a factor of those tools per se. It is how they have been programmed—how they have been deployed and led by the humans who have determined that the way to maximise profit and dwell time, and thus add revenue, is to have those algorithms work in that manner. However, there is nothing whatever inevitable about that. They are tools in our human hands. We have just as much potential to drive public good and public benefit, with collaboration through that connection, as to have the isolation and mental well-being crisis that we currently suffer.

These tools give us the opportunity to reach much further than at any other time in human society and drive that public debate. What kind of society or economy—what kind of cities, communities, country and globe—do we want to be living, working and playing in? All these tools could play such a role and it is pertinent not only to have this debate today but to have it connected to the Elections Bill that is going through your Lordships’ House. For example, if we had the electoral roll based on a digital ledger technologies platform, that would drive away in an instant so many of the difficulties that we have with the current system.

For people like myself—the blind and visually impaired—and other disabled people going to cast their vote, digital technologies, accessibly and inclusively deployed, could make such a difference. They could enable that vote to be made independently and, crucially, in secret. As we are celebrating 150 years of the Ballot Act, that would seem to be a pretty good thing to strike at if we want to call ourselves a liberal democracy.

The potential is there but it is far from realised right now. We had a phenomenal committee chair in Lord Puttnam. His guiding hand and wise head, with us then and today, proved that he is far more than a local hero. This is not just an opportunity. If we all strive to drive collective action, not only can we use digital technologies for better outcomes and an improved, more engaging democracy, but we can fundamentally rewrite the social contract between citizen and state for the benefit and betterment of both. That is the mission; let us all stick to it.

Gambling Advertising

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Foster of Bath, on securing this debate. In doing so, I declare my interests, such as they are, as a non-executive director of the Channel Four Television Corporation.

This evening, I will concentrate on the number nine. Nine Premier League shirt sponsors are gambling companies; that is almost half the Premier League. Young people watching a game on TV are highly likely to see a gambling company on the shirts of one of those Premier League teams. If you have one of those fabulous soccer mags we all loved when we were kids, you are highly likely to see a gambling sponsor on the front of their shirts. Successive Governments have banned baccy and booze—does my noble friend the Minister think that problem gambling is less bad?

Following the theme of the number nine, I will concentrate on the 9 pm threshold. What does this mean in modern, 21st-century Britain? Is it that all those who may be attracted and horrifically addicted to problem gambling have all gone to bed before 9 pm? If it were to mean anything, it would have to be much later. Much more significantly, as other noble Lords have mentioned, it means nothing in an era of online platforms. Noble Lords have mentioned the algorithms and technology. The truth about this technology is that it is neutral; it has nothing positive or negative to say about gambling, but what it can do can be horrific and pernicious in the hands of people who purpose that technology and target it. We have to focus on the people driving that technology.

Finally, as your man has it, “When the fun stops, stop”. I ask my noble friend the Minister, for hundreds of thousands of problem gamblers, when did the fun even start?

Independent Fan-led Review of Football Governance

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, Tracey Crouch’s review demonstrates that there are fundamental issues with our national sport and that there is a case for significant reform. We do not want to see any more of our historic clubs vanishing from the football leagues and football not doing enough to help itself. The scenarios the noble Lord outlines are the ones we will have in mind as we look at the recommendations she made and as we formulate our responses to them.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, would my noble friend agree that, though football is the national game, it cannot in any sense be separate from the national culture and values? To this end, it has a way to go to be truly inclusive for all. Would he agree that the Crouch review makes many excellent recommendations to this effect and is well worth the Government considering extremely seriously?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

Yes, we are indeed considering it very seriously. My noble friend is right that the pride we invest in our national sport and demonstrate when it is watched and enjoyed by people all over the world is a demonstration of our values as a nation. That is why the international reach of football and the great interest it attracts—whether that is from fans or investors overseas—should be a source of pride as well, and our response to the fan-led review will aim to strengthen all of that.

Football Clubs: Ownership Test

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I know that the noble Lord is a committed fan and campaigner. My honourable friend Tracey Crouch will certainly not let the matter rest. She has led a very good review. She was in another place when it was debated last week, and I know that she will not let up on this important issue. It is also thanks to the contributions of many thousands of football fans, which have informed the review very well.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, is my noble friend aware of the work that we did at UK Sport on good governance as part of the Mission 2012 and Road to Rio programmes, delivering benefits not just in the boardrooms of sport but in the pool, on the pitch and across the park? Would he agree that good governance is not a “nice to have” or a matter of compliance; it is essential for ethical and safe support and absolutely essential for sustainable and successful sport?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I agree with my noble friend: Mission 2012 helped to identify athlete performance issues and challenges, enabling them to be dealt with quickly and efficiently in the run-up to the London Games in 2012. I am pleased to say that the process has been used in subsequent Olympic and Paralympic cycles. Since 2017, the Code for Sports Governance has set out the standards that all sporting organisations must meet in return for public funding, either from UK Sport or Sport England.

Charities and Civil Society: Ministerial Responsibility

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, it is not being ignored. Ministers in every department, big and small, work with a range of charitable and civil society organisations and greatly value the work that they do. This is not something just for DCMS, but my honourable friend, with his responsibilities, is the Minister with specific focus on championing them and ensuring that across government we are giving the sector the support it needs, such as I have mentioned.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. Does my noble friend agree that there is some sense in combining these responsibilities, as, for example, in the case of the British Paralympic Association, an excellent sport organisation and an excellent charity? Does he also agree that in our honourable friend Nigel Huddleston we have a Minister with the talent and tenacity to make a stunning success of his new portfolio?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I certainly agree with my noble friend and thank him for that. He is right to point out that the briefs of civil society and sport have been combined before to great effect, and right to point to the fantastic organisations that work at increasing people’s participation in sport and physical activity through charitable and civil society groups.

Ofcom: Appointment of Chair

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, of course the process will meet those tests. We want to identify the best candidate for this important role. As I say, the recruitment process will be launched imminently. Preparations are under way to ensure that it is successful in providing Ministers with a choice of high-quality candidates drawn from a broad and diverse field and we encourage lots of people to apply on that basis.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I declare my interests as set out in the register. Are the Government considering the adequacy of Ofcom’s current budget in light of the increasing number of critical functions that it is being asked to regulate, not least, as has been mentioned, the absolutely critical online safety arena?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

This is an important point that we have also discussed in the context of the Telecommunications (Security) Bill, which has its Third Reading in your Lordships’ House later today. The Government have been working closely with Ofcom to prepare for the new regulatory regime. This includes work to ensure that it has the resources to carry out its functions as regulator effectively and, vis-à-vis telecoms security, that includes another £4.6 million this year.

Covid-19: Broadband

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I hope that the noble Lord acknowledges the huge progress that has been made in the rollout. We are working closely with local authorities and pan-regional stakeholders, such as the Midlands Engine. The West Midlands is an absolute beacon in the area of 5G test beds and trials.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, would my noble friend agree that the Government need to investigate and promote all connectivity technologies—fibre as well as 5G, 6G, open RAN and low-earth orbit satellites? Would she confirm that it cannot be the case that those not currently able to access superfast fibre also find themselves unable to access 5G—because these connectivity technologies will enable the economy that we need, the society that we want and the digital inclusion that everyone has a right to rely on?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right, and we are investigating all the areas that he alluded to, particularly for the last 100,000 people who will not currently be reached through either the commercial rollout or our Project Gigabit plans.

Telecommunications (Security) Bill

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

2nd reading
Tuesday 29th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow my noble friend Lord Balfe and I declare my technology interests as set out in the register.

I have four quick points for this stage of the debate. First, on diversification, it is clear that if there is a monopoly, duopoly or triopoly, it does not matter what the market is, the results are highly likely to be suboptimal, and that is what we see in our modern telecoms situation. Can my noble friend the Minister update the House on what is happening on the national telecoms lab and what is at the core of its mission? To build on the words of the noble Earl, Lord Erroll, I completely agree on the need for a telecoms sandbox and to build on the firms that would go through it. A scale box to follow on from that would seem an excellent idea for the United Kingdom. As he said, it has worked tremendously successfully in fintech, led by the Financial Conduct Authority, and could have a significantly positive impact on our telecoms business.

As many noble Lords have commented, cyber is the future, and that future is now—whether it comes from fraud by individuals or from state actors, it will become an increasingly invasive part of everything that we do. Does the Minister believe that we are doing everything that we can to leverage the cyber capabilities we have in this country, not just those excellent public resources at GCHQ and the NCSC but across the private sector? On that note, can she update the House on when the review of the Computer Misuse Act may be coming through and what positive impact it will have for all the people who work to try and keep us safe in cyber- space?

Other noble Lords have mentioned the levelling-up agenda, and mobile telephony is certainly not just a part but a critical part of that. If one does not have that connectivity or the skills to operate in that world, what hope is there of securing the employment, lives and social connections that everyone should be entitled to have a right to aspire to and achieve? I give one small specific example in terms of telecoms security. BT is due imminently to shut down the copper network, which is what we all consider to be landlines. Is my noble friend the Minister assured that everything is being done to protect all, not least vulnerable, citizens, particularly those currently at the sharp end of digital exclusion? What is being put in place to ensure that when that copper network is switched off—“retired” is the term being used—those citizens are not left at the extraordinary sharp end of exclusion? Imagine, for example, in the area of security, if they find themselves in need of a 999 service and need broadband to have a new connection, or they do not have the digital skills. What will occur if that is the case?

Finally, building on what my noble friend Lord Young talked about on the justiciability of decisions, does the Minister agree that if the Secretary of State had alongside him the NSC, that could only be positive in terms of the determinations that would be likely to come out of those deliberations?

Telecoms matter massively, as do all new technologies that we have in our hands. The crucial thing is that there are threats that we can know about, Rumsfeldians that we could go into and much that we cannot know about the future. But the most important thing that we can know is that the future is in our hands—all our hands.

Public Service Broadcasting (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to take part in this take-note debate. In doing so, I declare my interest as a board member at Channel 4 Television. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, for his excellent, coherent and extraordinarily timely report. I also thank him, and other colleagues, for doing so much of the heavy lifting with the statistics and the strategy —which, happily, leaves me with much of the content. Ultimately, that is what so much of this is about. Be it linear, VOD, SVOD or streaming on platforms, quality content should be at the heart of any offer.

Here is a personal story. I grew up in a grey, post-industrial West Midlands, and when I was an 11 year-old, a fabulous light was switched on, in the form of a multicoloured figure 4. Even before the broadcasts started on 2 November 1982, that was exciting enough for us to know that something new was coming to our town. Channel 4 changed my viewing habits, and through that, changed my view—with “Brookside”, “Cutting Edge”, “Dispatches”, “The Tube”, the monstrous Max Headroom, and so much more. Through the intervening 38 years, Channel 4 has been right there alongside me.

Perhaps the greatest test of any public service broadcaster—indeed, of any institution—is how it coped through the Covid crisis. Channel 4 not only informed, entertained and educated us but cheered us up. We all got our artistic streak going with “Grayson’s Art Club”, and 9.2 million of us crowded into the cake tent for the final of “The Great British Bake Off” for some sugary comfort against the Covid pandemic.

To bring us right up to speed, and already rightly mentioned by other noble Lords, we have “It’s a Sin” —three words that define what public service broadcasting is all about. Covering the HIV/AIDS crisis of the 1980s, and played out in the midst of the Covid crisis of our time, it told us so much of what it is to be human—and indeed to be humane. I said at the time that the head-hurting, gut-wrenching moment on the seafront in the finale was the most powerful moment on UK television in 2021. We can come back to that point on New Year’s Eve, and it will still be so.

Then there is the cricket—the first time test cricket has been on terrestrial telly in 16 years. Some unkind tweeter said that it looked as if the same studio was used from 16 years earlier, when it was previously shown, but that aside, think of the Chennai sunshine cutting through our Covid-laden wintery skies. That is how, as other noble Lords have said, sport can cut through.

I was lucky enough to be involved in the Paralympics in 2012, and indeed to do the deal with Channel 4 for the Paralympic broadcasting rights. I knew that the channel could do something different—not just sensational sports production but something beyond that: an attitude-altering opportunity for broadcasting to create. Yes, there were fabulous sporting heats and events, but, more than that, there were programmes such as “The Last Leg”, with its “Is it ok to?” section, challenging, pushing and changing—as with “It’s a Sin”. Does PSB change stuff? Well, our recently retired Lord Speaker was moved by that programme to go back to his HIV/AIDS campaigning. That is change; that is dynamic; that is fluidity. That is what we are here for.

As for levelling up, Channel 4 levelled me up. I believe all PSBs have a role in levelling up and the build-back agenda. Does my noble friend the Minister agree that PSB is an economic, social and psychological good, and a happily heady cocktail of soft power and hard coin? With a national headquarters in Leeds, and offices in Glasgow, Manchester, Bristol and London, Channel 4, located throughout the UK and commissioning across the UK, is a channel for all the UK.

Digital Identification Protocol

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Thursday 20th May 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Holmes of Richmond]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to introduce a distributed digital identification protocol for the United Kingdom.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and declare my technology interests as set out in the register.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, in 2020, the Government committed to creating a framework of standards, governance and legislation to enable a UK digital identity market. The DCMS published a draft trust framework in February this year setting out the Government’s vision for the rules governing the future use of digital identities. A next iteration is expected to be published this summer and we are expecting to consult on digital identity legislation during this year.

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, which specific sectors do the Government believe are best to run proofs of concepts in when it comes to digital ID? Further, does my noble friend agree with the analysis from McKinsey that suggests an additional 13% in UK GDP if we get digital identity effectively deployed? That is a prize certainly worth prioritising.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely agree with my noble friend that this is a prize worth prioritising—although I cannot comment on the specific McKinsey data. On his question about areas for pilots, we are working with a number of sectors and are eager to look into pilots in healthcare, tourism, housing, conveyancing and insurance—but all of this is of course subject to spending review outcomes.