Ofcom: Appointment of Chair

Lord McNally Excerpts

Tuesday 26th October 2021 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Speaker (Lord McFall of Alcluith)]

Lord McNulty?

[Lord McNally (LD)]

It is McNally—the noble Lord and I have known each other for only 30 years. It has already been pointed out that Ofcom will shortly be given unprecedented responsibilities for regulation, once the Bill on internet harms has passed this House. Noble Lords have already expressed widespread concern about how this appointment is being made. The Minister mentioned that an appointments panel is about to be appointed. Would it not restore public confidence if that panel were genuinely cross-party and independent in its judgments?

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, the appointments panel will of course be governed by the public appointments rules. The job description and the names of those on the assessment panel will be available on the public appointments website when the campaign relaunches. The noble Lord is right also to point to the importance of the ongoing preparatory work for Ofcom’s role in online safety.

UK Journalism (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Lord McNally Excerpts

Wednesday 13th October 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, when I was a lad growing up in the north-west, there was a programme on Granada Television called “All Our Yesterdays”. Looking round the Room, I am reminded of that programme.

[A noble Lord]

Speak for yourself.

[Lord McNally (LD)]

Since I am not a member of the committee chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, I have the opportunity, without any self-interest, to pay tribute to him and to the other members of his committee for a job well done.

I can tell the noble Lord that, when I was leader of the Lib Dems in the first decade of this century, there were regular sorties, partly from down the Corridor, to try to wind up this committee, or make it a temporary committee. I say to the members of the committee and to noble Lords, “Cling on to this committee, because it has never been more needed than it is today and will be in the future”.

There have always been tensions between journalists and politicians. The late Simon Hoggart put it best when he likened the relationship to that between a dog and a lamppost. But we have to remember that, 30 years ago, David Mellor warned journalists that they were drinking in the “last-chance saloon”. Today, we have a former Daily Telegraph journalist in Downing Street, and the press, I suspect, feels more secure than ever from real regulation and accountability.

Only recently I was contacted by a lady whose daughter had been killed in a hit-and-run accident and who had been forced to suffer the tragedy of her loss but also the cruel insensitivity of the behaviour of the Daily Mail. She found that IPSO did not answer her complaint. I know the noble Lord, Lord Faulks, will be speaking later, but the truth is that IPSO does not fit the criteria that were set out in the Leveson report for a truly independent regulator.

There are those who would argue that Leveson is now in the past and that the new technologies make the old print media merely a sideshow. I am not sure that Leveson is now yesterday’s news. It was the first time in decades that anything remotely approaching a workable framework had been passed by Parliament. We now have a statutory body, the Press Complaints Commission, which is a model of arm’s-length independence, permitting no political interference. We have a recognised press regulator, Impress, which complies with all the Leveson criteria for independent and effective regulation and now has over 100 publishers signed up to the editorial code that it imposes. That structure protects the public from press abuse, protects journalists from being pressured into unethical and criminal behaviour and protects the whole concept of a free press from being pressured into a race to the bottom.

If the opportunity to build that groundwork around our media is refused by the big media owners, they cannot expect to be excluded from the provisions of the upcoming online safety Bill. My view is that we should split Ofcom into a technical and content oversight organisation, and allow no carve-out for print media from regulation by a revamped Ofcom. This makes sense as the line between print and online news becomes more and more blurred.

One other aspect of the report to which I draw attention is media literacy—the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, referred to it in detail in the report. The famous quote after the extension of the franchise in 1867 that now

“We must educate our masters”

is more true than ever. The noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, also referred to the need for the BBC to mend its ways.

Perhaps, in that process, I might make another suggestion. Perhaps the print media could take a leaf out of their own financial pages. Often, when there is a story carried in the financial pages, you will see at the bottom, “The publishers of this newspaper have a financial interest in the takeover”, or whatever it is. So perhaps when the Times, the Mail or the Telegraph run their almost-daily anti-BBC stories, we could have a little note to say, “Our billionaire, non-UK resident owners will become even richer if they can succeed in reducing the funding and reach of the BBC.” It is just an idea.

In short—my five minutes is up—I think that this is a job well done by a very important committee and a useful primer for the online safety Bill to come.

Channel 4: Funding and Governance

Lord McNally Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

There is no doubt that Channel 4 has performed very well recently but, as I mentioned in an earlier answer, all linear broadcasters are facing significant challenges from developments and disruption in the sector, including from international players. The consultation will give us the time and the information to consider how Channel 4’s future is best served.

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, is it not quite clear that the Secretary of State and Mr Whittingdale support public service broadcasting like the rope supports the hanging man? Is it not time that the one-nation Tories stood up for one of the great creations of Willie Whitelaw, an organisation that has fulfilled its remit in spades?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware that I have often quoted both my right honourable friend the Secretary of State and the Minister for Media and Data, who have both been absolutely clear about wanting to see a thriving PSB sector, which is particularly important in a time of misinformation and disinformation.

Birmingham Commonwealth Games (Compensation for Enforcement Action) Regulations 2021

Lord McNally Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, I feel slightly intimidated in trying to match the noble Lords, Lord Hunt and Lord Bilimoria, in both their knowledge of Birmingham and their enthusiasm for the Commonwealth Games next year. As I explained before we began this debate, I am a late replacement for the noble Lord, Lord Addington, who is doing good elsewhere in the Palace of Westminster at this moment. I asked the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, to consider me as a kind of Jack Grealish—a late replacement, or what I think they call in the sport an “impact player”.

Outside Birmingham, I have found almost entirely enthusiasm for the Birmingham Games. The only small thing I should report is that one colleague said, rather crustily, “Well, I hope they give a special medal for finding your way out of New Street station”. It may be a cruel joke but there is an important lesson there, as one of the factors in the Commonwealth Games, and indeed the Manchester Games, is the great signage and the ever-present, helpful guides who help people; it makes a heck of a lot of difference to the success of an event if you have that kind of back-up.

The first real impact of athletics on me was the 1954 Vancouver Games, which featured the great competition between Roger Bannister and John Landy in the “miracle mile”. It certainly gave me an interest and an enthusiasm for athletics—which carried on until politics took over, I am afraid.

The fact is that the Commonwealth Games have always been a kind of family affair. They have a softer edge than the Olympics and are the better for it. Certainly, the host regions have benefited. I was an MP for the Greater Manchester area and still have strong links in the north-west, and so can say that the Manchester Games were a success; the new stadium, which is being put to quite good use by Manchester City, and the velodrome are just two examples of legacy benefits.

I have looked at the website and seen how much the organisers are making an effort to make this a real community effort. So I have every support for the SI. The right to protect, as it does, the organisers from fake products and ticket touting is very important because, as the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, said, a good proportion of the budget will come from sponsorship. Are there any limits to sponsors? For example, are gambling or alcohol organisations allowed to be sponsors?

On one final point, I have long believed that sport can offer young people a diversion from gangs and crime—I was chairman of the Youth Justice Board. I know the statistics show that participation has not increased since the 2012 Olympics, but I still believe that sport can play a big part. As a kind of quid pro quo from sponsors for the protection that these SIs give, can they be encouraged to help with bringing hard-to-reach individuals and communities into the excitement of these Games, in preparation and while they are on? My successor as chair of the Youth Justice Board is Keith Fraser, who has strong roots in the West Midlands. I am sure he would be willing to give advice—as would, I am sure, James Mapstone from Alliance of Sport, which relates to the criminal justice system—on just the things that the YJB and the alliance are doing to attract youngsters into sporting participation and away from the kind of things that gangs provide them with.

I end with sending my best wishes to Birmingham. We will all be in whatever is the new normal of 2022, but in that new normal I hope that Birmingham has a Games that will be remembered as vividly by this generation of 11 year-olds as I remember the Landy-Bannister mile of 1954.

BBC: Freedom of Information Legislation

Lord McNally Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The consultation we recently announced on the ownership structure of Channel 4 and the potential regulation of video on demand services is forward-looking and aims to ensure the long-term success of Channel 4 into the future. As for transparency, we will of course publish the government response to the consultation.

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, I welcome the Minister’s emphasis on, and welcome for, the initiatives taken by the new chairman and director-general to increase transparency and freedom of information within the BBC. I wish her well in resisting knee-jerk reactions from her own Benches, and from strange places on this side, in reviewing the future of the BBC.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I think the majority of my colleagues on these Benches have echoed the sentiments of the Secretary of State and my right honourable friend the Minister for Media and Data when they have said, again and again, that the need for a strong PSB system and trusted journalism has never been stronger.

Public Representatives: Online Abuse

Lord McNally Excerpts

Wednesday 16th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government are clear that abuse is unacceptable, whether anonymous or not. Our intention is to try to address that.

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, all our thoughts are with the Cox family today. Does the Minister agree that what we now know makes it more and more clear that the report of the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, for this House, Digital Technology and the Resurrection of Trust, should be included in the work of both the pre-legislative scrutiny committee and the final Bill committee?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As the noble Lord knows, we look forward to pre-legislative scrutiny starting. It will be up to that panel to decide what they will cover within it.

Public Service Broadcasting (Communications and Digital Committee Report)

Lord McNally Excerpts

Thursday 27th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, I first welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Merron, to the Front Bench; I hope that she has a very long stay. I am just passing through, but it was a great pleasure to hear what she had to say. I take this opportunity to pay tribute to Jimmy Gordon, Lord Gordon of Strathblane, who sadly died during the Covid crisis.

However, my first duty is to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Gilbert, and the members of his Select Committee, including the noble Viscount, Lord Colville, my noble friend Lady Grender and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who spoke today. Although delayed in coming before the House, as the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, pointed out, the report has proved to be most timely.

Our debate takes place in the shadow of, and the fallout from, Lord Dyson’s report into the methods used by Martin Bashir to obtain his interview with Princess Diana in 1995 and the failure of the BBC to investigate promptly and properly concerns about those methods. To borrow from Shakespeare, what has been revealed were grievous faults, and grievously has the BBC’s reputation suffered as a consequence.

We now of course have a feeding frenzy, calling for radical reform of the BBC. It is often led by financial and political vested interests that have long wanted to see the BBC underfunded and marginalised. Perhaps the only genuine link between today’s debate and Lord Dyson’s report on the errors and misdeeds of 25 years ago is Prince William’s observation that:

“In an era of fake news, public service broadcasting and a free press have never been more important.”


As the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, pointed out, before rushing to yet another round of governance reform in response to events of 25 years ago, let us remember that the BBC’s new chairman, Richard Sharp, and new director-general, Tim Davie, were both appointed by this Government quite recently. They will work to a governance structure again created only recently by this Conservative Government. This recently introduced governance provides for the BBC a unitary board to run the institution, but with Ofcom as a wholly external regulator, ensuring that the BBC is held to its charter and agreement obligations.

As recently as 18 March, the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, in response to a question of mine, said:

“The Government have been very clear about the value of the BBC, particularly in the pandemic, during which it has served to educate, inspire, inform and act as a crucial and reliable source of news.”—[Official Report, 18/3/21; col. 437.]


Lord Reith could not have put it better.

The pandemic has conclusively demonstrated the importance of having well-funded sources of education, information and entertainment freely available to every household in the UK. Of course, there has been an explosion of choice from the subscription streaming services, which has been a welcome distraction for many of us. However, these are all US-based, cost money, do not offer news and analysis and do not reflect British culture or the nations and regions of the UK.

The PSBs are key to the framework that sustains British culture, exports it abroad and helps to ensure that the soft power the UK has exerted around the world for decades is still potent today. Despite the overwhelming financial muscle of the subscription video on demand services, thanks to the multibillion-dollar corporations and American hedge funds behind them, the UK still punches well above its weight in the audio-visual export market. The vast majority of that comes from PSB investment. It is the interactive nature of the ecology delivered by the PSBs that brings the cultural and economic benefits to the UK.

Just before Christmas, Ofcom published its consultation on the future of PSBs. The Ofcom headline was that the UK media sector is a success story, with public service broadcasting at its core. Lest it be thought that I am concerned only with the BBC, let me point out that ITV plays an important part in that success.

It was a stroke of genius by the Conservative Government to create ITV as a regional confederation in 1955. I was born in the north-west and I still think of myself as coming from “Granada land”. The late Lord Bernstein brought to Granada an ethos and a regional identity which is still reflected in ITV today, and ITN remains a worthy competitor to the BBC, Sky News and Channel 4 News. While talking of Channel 4, I entirely endorse the very powerful speech given by the noble Lord, Lord Holmes. To even consider the privatisation of Channel 4 would be an act of ideological vandalism.

The report we are debating reminds us of the value of PSBs, and we should embrace it in its entirety. However, there are two particular recommendations I commend to the House. First, the recommendation for an independent and transparent process for setting the licence fee is urgent. Even as we speak, the BBC is negotiating behind closed doors with the Government for a licence fee settlement from April next year. There is no transparency, and the Government have not been slow to show their teeth over the last few days. The committee recommended that the Government

“should establish an independent body … the BBC Funding Commission, to oversee the process for setting the licence fee”.

It also stated explicitly:

“In the current competitive and fast-moving environment the BBC needs to be properly funded.”


That funding commission would consult and make recommendations to the Secretary of State. The Government should demonstrate their commitment to transparency by setting up such a commission immediately.

Secondly, there have been increasingly urgent calls, including from Ofcom, to update the prominence regime so that PSB can be found easily across all platforms by consumers. As the report states,

“the current regime is centred on linear TV, which will increasingly devalue over time”

and the prominence regime must be

“updated for the digital age to reflect new ways of accessing content.”

This legislation cannot wait, and there is no reason why this could not be put into the online safety Bill to ensure its safe passage.

I hope that the Government will use this report and the recommendations it contains as a road map in plotting the way ahead on PSB. My noble friend Lord Wallace and others talked about the dangers of deregulation. In a debate in this House on 25 March 2003, speaking from these Benches on the Second Reading of the then Communications Bill, I quoted the distinguished American broadcaster, Ted Koppel, speaking about the Reagan Administration’s deregulation of American broadcasting in 1987. He said:

“We are ripping down those institutions, large and small, within which democratic culture was intended to be undertaken. Institutions that once destroyed, amidst the whimsical destructiveness of the market, will be extraordinarily difficult to reconstitute”.—[Official Report, 25/3/03; col. 669.]


That is a warning from the past, but it is a warning about the future. That is the crossroads at which we now stand. The members of this committee will be able to look back with pride on the work they have done. Let us hope that the Prime Minister and his Government will be able to look back with similar pride on the decisions they are about to make on the future of a media ecology which has been essential in determining how we speak to each other and how we speak to the world.

Music Festivals: Covid-19-related Cancellations

Lord McNally Excerpts

Tuesday 27th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am extremely happy to clarify those points. There are a number of interlocking issues—the noble Lord smiles, but it is true—into which we are carrying out reviews. I refer to the events research programme to understand the impact on public health as a result of those events; our review on social distancing; our review on certification and, which is connected, the global travel review.

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Berkeley, pointed out, the sector has already been impacted by the failure of the Brexit negotiations to protect the creative industries. In the Minister’s reply today, she did not say no—she said perhaps. Is it not time to stop squirming? We are now into April and this sector needs a decision.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We are not squirming and we are not hesitating. We are progressing as fast as we can, but the noble Lord would be the first to criticise the Government if we opened too early and the public health crisis re-emerged.

Football: European Super League

Lord McNally Excerpts

Tuesday 20th April 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I do not think that the owners of the clubs to which the noble Lord refers can be in any doubt about the strength of feeling both from the fans and from this Government.

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, will the Minister ask Tracey Crouch to hold public hearings around the regions while she conducts her inquiry?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am sure that she will consider all her options to make sure that this is a transparent and effective review.

Audiovisual Media Services (Amendment) Regulations 2021

Lord McNally Excerpts

Tuesday 13th April 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord McNally (LD)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, indicated, this debate is but one small piece of a larger jigsaw which Parliament will have to put together in the new Session in May. I pay tribute to the Secretary of State and his colleagues, including the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, for the painstaking way in which they have gone about consultation and involvement in preparing for the online harms legislation. I hope that they will go one step further by including pre-legislative scrutiny in the process by which the proposals will be brought forward.

Nineteen years ago I sat on the Puttnam committee, the Joint Committee of both Houses which gave pre-legislative scrutiny to what became the Communications Act 2003. That pre-legislative scrutiny made for a better Bill. The SI before us makes a number of tweaks to that Act, which was, of course, the legislation which created Ofcom. I remember that pundits at the time were predicting that the media vested interests would overwhelm Ofcom—or, as it was indelicately put then, “Murdoch’s lawyers will have them for breakfast”. This proved not to be the case, but there is no doubt that the same vested interests will be at work trying to draw the teeth of legislation designed to limit their powers to make money. As my noble friend Lord Foster and the noble Lord, Lord Kirkhope, indicated, who regulates what could turn out to be a lawyer-fest.

The Communications Act 2003, which we are amending today, contains the crucial Puttnam amendment, imposing on Ofcom the statutory duty to further the interests of citizens. That has been crucial in ensuring that regulatory decisions are not dictated by market criteria but governed by proper considerations of the broader public interest. It is essential that the Puttnam protections appear in the new Act. That statutory duty becomes even more important as Ofcom takes on the role of online regulator. As the noble Baroness, Lady Wheatcroft, outlined, it will be essential in reinforcing its ability to protect citizens, including children and the vulnerable, from a range of social harms as well as the threats to our democracy via fake news and disinformation.

Ofcom’s willingness to shoulder those responsibilities and the way it works with our other regulators—the ICO, the CMA and the Financial Conduct Authority—in the newly created digital regulation co-operation forum will depend on the effectiveness of the protection we now seek against internet harm. The protection of the citizen and of the wider public interest must remain part of the architecture of the regulatory system that we seek to put in place.