Online Advertising Update

Chris Philp Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2022 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

I am today, along with my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for Security and Borders (Damian Hinds), announcing a package of work regarding the regulation of online advertising.



Recognising the devastating impact of scam adverts on people in the UK and the need for immediate action, the Government will be making a change to the Online Safety Bill to require the largest online platforms and search services to implement proportionate systems to prevent the publication of fraudulent adverts on their service.



This change responds directly to calls from the Online Safety Bill Joint Committee, the Treasury Select Committee and the Work and Pensions Select Committee, as well as others, who recommended that the Online Safety Bill be used to combat online fraudulent advertising.



The new duty will apply to the services that are designated as category 1 and 2A services: the largest user-to-user and search services. This will ensure that people using the largest platforms and where there is greatest risk of harm are protected from scams, and ensure these services do not profit from illegal activity. Ofcom will create and publish specific codes of practice that will set out how services can comply with the new duty.



In addition, the Government will publish a consultation on the Online Advertising Programme, to seek views on a range of options for regulatory reform to improve transparency and accountability across the online advertising supply chain. Led by my colleague, Julia Lopez MP, the Minister for Media, Data and Digital Infrastructure, the aim of the programme is to create a more holistic approach to regulating online advertising that builds trust and tackles the underlying drivers of harm in online advertising.



In relation to fraud specifically, the Online Advertising Programme will address whether other actors in the supply chain, such as intermediaries, have the power and capability to do more. It will focus on the role of intermediaries in onboarding criminal advertisers and facilitating the dissemination of fraudulent content through using the targeting tools available in the open display market. This will ensure that we close down any vulnerabilities and add defences across the supply chain, leaving no space for criminals to profit.



The Online Advertising Programme’s wider objective is to determine whether the current regulatory regime is sufficiently equipped to tackle the challenges posed by the rapid technological developments in online advertising. The consultation identifies a broad range of both illegal and legal harms to consumers, including misleading and offensive content, as well as fraudulent adverts. It also looks at the impact of targeting and placement of adverts and how these practices can exacerbate harmful content for consumers. The roles and responsibilities of all actors involved in the supply chain of online advertising will be considered as part of the consultation.



Any subsequent changes to regulation of online advertising as a result of the consultation will build on the fraud-specific duties in the Online Safety Bill. This will ensure a coherent, comprehensive regulatory framework for all actors across the online advertising supply chain, where individuals are protected from harmful online advertising content, wherever they encounter this.



Together, the Online Safety Bill and Online Advertising Programme will complement the Government’s wider reforms on competition, data protection and user-generated content, ensuring that the online advertising market—which is at the heart of our digital economy—protects consumers and users while continuing to thrive.

[HCWS667]

Online Abuse

Chris Philp Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again, Sir Roger. Colleagues will be pleased to hear that I do not anticipate taking up the entire two hours that remain.

First, I associate myself with the remarks made by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), and by the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) about the terrible events unfolding in Ukraine, which are being debated in the Chamber at the moment. I know that we are all deeply concerned and want to send our thoughts, prayers and more to the people of Ukraine, who are suffering so terribly.

I congratulate and thank the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North for introducing the debate with such eloquence and passion. I extend those thanks and congratulations to the hundreds of thousands of people across the whole United Kingdom who signed the petitions, whose voices are being heard today, and especially to those who took the time and the trouble to organise the petitions, including Bobby Norris, who has done a huge amount of work in this vital area. I am sure that we all want to pay tribute to him.

Although the online world presents enormous opportunities for communication, research and better understanding one another, there is no question but that, as the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North put it at the very beginning, in many areas of enormous concern people are suffering terrible abuse that affects their day-to-day lives in the most awful and unimaginable ways. More than that, on occasion, people are subjected to abuse that is straightforwardly illegal and deserves criminal prosecution.

The Government fully recognise the problems in the online space, and the devastating impact that they can have on victims. We also recognise the fact that women, girls, people in the LGBT+ community, members of ethnic minorities, and others, very often—as the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North said at the beginning—suffer disproportionately severe forms of abuse online, simply because of who they are. That is a point that the shadow Minister also made very powerfully. It is simply unacceptable, and it is essential that we take action.

The draft Online Safety Bill is the principal vehicle through which action will be taken. It is a huge piece of legislation, as Members have mentioned, and I want to touch on some of the points raised about it during the debate. The shadow Minister asked about timing. It is true that it has been some time in preparation—from the White Paper, to the draft Bill presented last May, to the Joint Committee’s prelegislative work through the autumn and up until just before Christmas. I would like to take the opportunity to pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), who chaired that Committee, which did fantastic work. Its report has almost 200 pages and we have been devouring every single one of them. To answer the question about timing, the introduction of the updated Bill is very imminent. I will not give a precise date, because it is still subject to collective Government agreement, but it is a matter of a small number of weeks, if I can put it that way. I hope that that gives an indication that it is extremely imminent and that all that work is about to come to fruition.

I want to make it clear that the Government have been in very careful listening mode for the past nine or 10 months since publication. We have, of course, listened to the Joint Committee and its report. The Select Committee on Digital, Culture, Media and Sport also produced a report, and Members who have been raising points about the Bill in Parliament and elsewhere. As Members will have gathered, significant changes will be made to the Bill on introduction. It will be very different, in a number of significant ways, when it is introduced very shortly, compared with the draft version published last May. That is due to the work that parliamentarians and other stakeholders—some children’s charities were mentioned earlier—have done. We want to take every opportunity to make sure that the Bill is as good as it can be. It is not really a party political issue, is it? I am sure there will be areas to improve, but when the Bill is introduced I hope that the House of Commons will get behind it and speak as one for the whole country, because we all have the same objectives. I think that the scrutiny that has already taken place has been an example of Parliament at its best, and I hope that when the Bill goes through the House it will be another example of Parliament working at its best.

I want to pick up on a few points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe. Obviously, I cannot pre-announce all of the updates that will be in the Bill. Some have been announced already. He made important points about ensuring clarity on how the different provisions will operate. We have already made it clear that we will specify the priority illegal offences, and social media firms will have to be proactive in preventing such illegal things from appearing online. That will be a first step towards providing some of the clarity referred to by my hon. Friend. There is then the question of how we bring similar clarity in the area of legal but harmful; there will be more to say on that in the very near future.

Whether or not the illegal act or illegal thing is a priority item, there will be a duty to take action where any illegal activity occurs online. Critically, that particular duty applies to all platforms, regardless of size, so even the smaller ones that are not category 1 will have to take action—proactive action for priority illegal harms, and retrospective action for everything else that is illegal. Similarly, on things that are legal but harmful to children, which is obviously a major area of concern, that duty will apply to all platforms where children are likely to be significantly present, regardless of the size of the platform. The only qualification on size applies to the area of legal but harmful to adults, where the obligations sit with the larger, category 1 companies. I want to make clear, however, that the Bill as previously drafted in May also applied to all platforms, regardless of size, the obligations relating to content that is illegal and legal but harmful to children. That point came up a couple of times.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who unfortunately has had to go to another meeting, raised points in his speech about the exposure of children to pornography. He was quite right to raise those points: 51% of 11 to 13-year-olds are exposed to online pornography. The overwhelming majority of parents want that to stop and, as the shadow Minister said, just a couple of weeks ago the Government made an announcement making it clear that the provisions on pornography would be expanded to cover all online pornography, including commercial pornography, which was previously outside the scope of the Bill. That vital change has been announced already and will be in the Bill on introduction, as will the obligations on the face of the Bill to adopt age-assurance measures to prevent children under 18 from accessing pornography. Again, that is an important change to make the Bill a lot stronger than it was in its first draft. I hope that that gives a foretaste, a flavour, of the way changes are being made to the Bill to ensure that we really do prevent the terrible abuse that we have heard about this afternoon.

A number of hon. Members asked about enforcement, because clearly it is all very well writing in obligations to stop illegal activity and to control abuse, but if the enforcement measures are not there, then, as the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North and others said, the legislation is toothless. I will not comment on the police, the prosecution, side of this—because that is for my colleagues in the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice—other than to observe that 20,000 extra police officers are being recruited and I hope that some of them can direct their attention to such issues.

The shadow Minister has said that it is important that the Bill is enforced domestically, here in the United Kingdom, and that we do not rely on people in California. That is of course why Ofcom is being appointed as the regulator. There was a question about resourcing. Between the Government and Ofcom, we will put an extra £110 million over two years into resourcing up in order to prepare for the Bill’s coming into force, and thereafter Ofcom will raise the money that it needs to operate by charging fees to the social media companies themselves. The £110 million has been agreed already; that was in the spending review a few months ago, so the resourcing for Ofcom is hardwired in. As for its ability to then take enforcement action, it clearly has the power to levy fines of up to 10% of global income for these social media firms. Although it depends on the geographic distribution of sales, 10% of global income is almost certain to be more than 100% of UK income, because the UK tends to be responsible for between 5% and 8% of those firms’ global revenue, so the fines amount to over a year’s worth of UK revenue. That obviously is for any company a significant amount of money.

The Bill already contains criminal liability provisions that make named individuals liable if they do not, for example, provide information to Ofcom as regulator. They commence a couple of years down the line. I do not want to pre-empt what we may do in that area, but we have been listening very carefully to parliamentarians and we are studying extremely carefully proposals that have been made. We may well have some more to say on that topic in the near future.

The shadow Minister asked about the Metaverse, which has been around for only a few weeks, and what the Bill will mean for that. The Bill has been crafted as it has to make it technology-agnostic and future-proof, because we realise that what is around today will be different tomorrow. The fact that the Metaverse has popped up in the last few weeks is evidence of that. The horrifying abuse of children in the Metaverse that the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North described will be covered by the Bill as drafted, because what she described is clearly harmful to children. When the Bill passes, as I hope it will, there will therefore be a duty on Meta to prevent that from happening. In fact, that would be the case even if it was not Meta and was a smaller company, because the bits of the Bill on content that is harmful to children apply to all companies where children are likely to be significantly present. Therefore, what the shadow Minister described on Meta would be in the scope of the Bill as we will present it.

I want to touch on the contribution from my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Siobhan Baillie) and on anonymity. I pay enormous tribute to the campaign that she has run. She has been a persuasive, powerful and persistent—in a nice way—advocate for changes, and her ten-minute rule Bill had enormous support from both sides of the House. On Friday, in response to the campaign that my hon. Friend and other MPs from both sides of the House ran, we therefore announced with great pleasure that we would make changes to the Bill and have a requirement for category 1 firms to give all users the choice to have their identity verified, and then give users the choice about whether or not to interact with people. That level of user choice and user empowerment will be powerful. I thank my hon. Friend again and congratulate her on her campaign. I agree, as the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North said in her speech and as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud acknowledged, that although that measure will go a long way towards helping, it is not in itself a silver bullet. It is a very good measure, but we need to do more to prevent online abuse. The Bill will do more to tackle abuse, whether it is perpetrated by those who are anonymous or those who are not, because, as my hon. Friend said, much of the abuse is not anonymous. Shamefully, much of it is done in people’s own name, so that needs to be tackled as well.

I have tried to touch on the comments that colleagues have made, but I hope that everybody here and those listening will clearly understand that the Government and the whole House of Commons strongly sympathise and agree with the points made by the petitioners, and I suspect by millions of our fellow citizens up and down the country. When the updated Bill is introduced in the very near future, we aim to make it better and stronger to ensure that our fellow citizens—especially children, but including everybody who suffers abuse—are far better protected than they are today. I hope the Bill will serve as an example around the world and keep people in this country safe online for many years to come.

Online Safety

Chris Philp Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

The Government recognise the impact that online abuse, including anonymous abuse, has on people and their online experience. Too many people experience online abuse and protecting users is a priority for this Government.

The Online Safety Bill introduces vital new protections from online abuse. The legislation will require all companies in scope to manage the risk of criminal abuse effectively, including anonymous abuse, on user-to-user services. Companies will need to assess the functionality of anonymous and pseudonymous profiles and the role they play in allowing illegal abuse and mitigate the risk associated with such functionality.

All services likely to be accessed by children will also have to put in place appropriate measures to protect children from cyber-bullying and other forms of abuse, whether anonymous or not.

Category 1 companies—those which are high risk and high reach—will also have to set out clearly what abusive content they accept on their platform for adults and have effective systems in place to enforce their terms and conditions.

The Government recognise concerns that have been raised by the Joint Committee during pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill, alongside the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee, the Petitions Committee and others regarding the impact of online abuse and ensuring users have more control over whom they interact with online, while protecting the right of individuals to be anonymous if they choose. We thank the committees and campaigners for their scrutiny of the Online Safety Bill.

As a result, I am pleased to announce that we will strengthen the duties in the Online Safety Bill by adding two new additional duties on category 1 companies to provide adults with optional user verification and user empowerment tools.

The user verification duty will require category 1 companies to provide their adult users with an option to verify their identity. Ofcom will set out in guidance how companies can fulfil this new duty and the verification options companies could use. In developing this guidance, Ofcom must ensure that the possible verification measures are accessible to vulnerable users and consult the Information Commissioner, as well as vulnerable adult users and technical experts.

The user empowerment tools duty will require category 1 companies to provide tools to give adults more control over whom they interact with and the legal content they see. Under the proposed new duty, for harmful content that category 1 companies do allow, they would have to provide users with the tools to control what types of harmful content they see. This could include, for example, content on the discussion of self-harm recovery which may be tolerated on a category 1 service but which a particular user may not want to see.

In addition to the existing provisions in the Bill, the new duties will help provide robust protections for adults, including vulnerable adults, while protecting freedom of expression online.

[HCWS640]

Platinum Jubilee Pageant Ltd

Chris Philp Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

I am repeating the following written ministerial statement made today in the other place by my noble Friend the Minister for Arts, Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay:

I am tabling this statement for the benefit of all members of this House to draw their attention to the departmental minute laid today which provides notice of a contingent liability created by the Department. This is in respect of a request for the Government to provide an underwrite to The Platinum Jubilee Pageant Ltd (“The Pageant Company”) to cover any projected losses should the platinum jubilee pageant be cancelled due to specific, extenuating circumstances. The underwrite will only be agreed in the event of certain conditions being met.

Buckingham Palace has invited the directors of The Pageant Company to deliver the platinum jubilee pageant. The Pageant Company is a company limited by guarantee.

The Pageant Company is independently fundraising to deliver the pageant at no cost to the taxpayer. The Government wish to place on record its thanks to the board of The Platinum Jubilee Pageant Company, and to all their partners and donors, for their efforts to mark this historic moment in our nation's history. Given the Government underwrite will only provide The Pageant Company with financial support in the event that the pageant is cancelled due to specific, extenuating circumstances, the likelihood that the underwrite will be required is low.

The Government underwrite will be capped at £2.45 million, will expire at midnight on Monday 6 June 2022, and will not be used to repay donors.

A copy of the departmental minute will be placed in the Libraries of both Houses.

[HCWS631]

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Philp Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

1. What discussions she has had with representatives of the racing industry on (a) developing a single customer view and (b) the forthcoming gambling White Paper.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

I have had extensive conversations with the horse-racing industry and with hon. Members who represent constituencies with racing interests on the Gambling Act 2005 review in general and on the plans that the industry are voluntarily developing to share information on customers who are at severe risk of addictive gambling disorders.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Can the Minister confirm that when the draft proposals of the review are announced, there will be an impact assessment on the horse-racing industry? Will he meet me to discuss my alternative to the proposed single customer view, the single customer wallet, which would not only be cheaper and more efficient for the industry to bring in, but offer consumers better protections?

[Chris Philp]

I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to discuss his ideas. I assure him that proper impact assessments will be done. We know that horse-racing is a vital sport for the people who work in the industry. It supports many jobs, it provides leisure activities for many people, and it is a significant source of national pride and prestige. Nothing in the Gambling Act review, I hope, will do anything to undermine the financial condition of that great sport or its place at the heart of our national life.

[John Spellar (Warley) (Lab)]

I refer to my entry in the register. I caution the Minister that the civil service always underestimates the extent of potential for fraud and the black market. Whether with tobacco smuggling, excise fraud, VAT fraud, self-employment scams or covid scams, it is continually surprised by what happens. Before he brings out the gambling White Paper, will he talk to the racing and gaming industry to ensure that his proposals do not fuel the black market and organised crime?

[Chris Philp]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for attending the recent meeting that we had on the topic. We are, of course, concerned about the possibility of black market gambling. I hope there will be proposals in our review to give the Gambling Commission additional powers to tackle and combat black market betting. We will be mindful of the risks that he has highlighted; I have discussed them already with the Betting and Gaming Council and the industry. We need to balance protecting people who are at severe risk of gambling addiction and serious harm—some people even commit suicide—with ensuring that there is not a flourishing black market, which I am sure all hon. Members on both sides of the House would want to prevent.

[Mr Laurence Robertson (Tewkesbury) (Con)]

I support the words of my hon. Friend the Member for North West Leicestershire (Andrew Bridgen) and the right hon. Member for Warley (John Spellar). I welcome the fact that the Minister will carry out an impact assessment on the possible effect on horse-racing of any changes that he proposes. He will be aware that racing depends heavily on bookmakers for about 45% of its income. I congratulate him on that policy and thank him for the way in which he is carrying out the review.

[Chris Philp]

I thank my hon. Friend for the meeting that we recently attended. As I said, we will consider the impact of the whole set of proposals covered in the gambling White Paper, which will obviously have a number of effects on different bits of the economy. As I said at the meeting with the all-party parliamentary group on betting and gaming a few days ago, we want to ensure that nothing in the review undermines the status of horse-racing.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

Delays to gambling reform cost about £647 million each year and the Government have failed to act. It is not good enough. Up to 1.4 million people are considered to be problem gamblers, so I am struggling to see why the Government continue to drag their feet when the need for reform is crystal clear. What is the Minister doing in advance of the long-awaited White Paper, because we need to address the issue now?

[Chris Philp]

All kinds of measures have been taken to address some of those very serious problems, which I completely recognise and accept. For example, a year or two ago, the use of credit cards to gamble online was banned. As we speak, the industry is in the process of developing a voluntary single customer view. A number of things have been done.

We are working, and have been working, on the Gambling Act review at pace and it will be published in the very near future. It is important to get it right, however, which is why we have taken the time to consult extensively and listen to stakeholders. I have met many hon. Members on both sides of the House to listen to their views too. It is very imminent because, as the hon. Lady says, large numbers of people are suffering serious harm, up to and including committing suicide. That is why it is important for the House to act on, I hope, a cross-party basis, broadly speaking, to sort it out.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Penrose (Weston-super-Mare) (Con)]

T5. Broadcast news has a long-standing duty of balance, which moderates public debate, tests opposing views and helps forge consensus across our country, but today’s digital world means that more and more of us get our news through social media platforms, where individual filter bubbles can feed us more of one side without ever showing an alternative view, driving extremism, radicalisation and division instead. Is it now time to extend that duty of balance to include social media platforms?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

My hon. Friend raises an important question, but we need to distinguish between broadcasters, or indeed newspapers, that are exercising editorial judgment, and social media platforms that are carrying content generated by other users. However, we will introduce shortly—in the coming weeks—an online safety Bill that will impose new duties on social media firms in connection with illegal content, content that is harmful to children and content, including disinformation, that is harmful to adults. I hope that will go a long way towards addressing the points that he rightly raises.

[Jeff Smith (Manchester, Withington) (Lab)]

I am afraid that the Minister’s answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Newport West (Ruth Jones) was far too vague. Musicians and orchestras are facing a touring crisis. We need an EU-wide cultural touring agreement that includes allowances for cabotage, carnets and customs rules. That needs to happen now, so what are Ministers doing to sort the problem as a matter of urgency?

--- Later in debate ---

[Ronnie Cowan (Inverclyde) (SNP)]

T3. This Sunday I shall be taking part in a walk with members of The Big Step to highlight the issue of gambling advertising in football. The campaign recognises the harm that gambling does every single day, and the part that football advertising plays in grooming children and normalising gambling among adults. With a gambling Bill seemingly getting further and further away, are there any measures that will be in the final Act that could be implemented now, rather than waiting to dot every i and cross every t? Will the Secretary of State meet me and other members of the all-party parliamentary group for gambling related harm to discuss the matter further?

[Chris Philp]

I thank the hon. Member for his question and for the meetings that we have had with the hon. Member for Swansea East (Carolyn Harris) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith). He is right to raise this serious issue, as people are suffering harm from gambling addiction. The review is getting very close now—he will not have to wait much longer—and the issues that he is raising will be squarely addressed. I am happy to meet him and the other members of the APPG at any time; if they just get in touch, we would be happy to organise a meeting.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

Good broadband connectivity is vital not only for leisure, but for working from home. But one street in my constituency is a street of two halves—one with 8 megabits per second and the other with 1,000 megabits per second. How can we address these issues? Will the Minister meet me to discuss how we deal with urban notspots?

Child Online Safety

Chris Philp Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

Protecting children online is a Government priority and the strongest protections in the draft Online Safety Bill are for children.

The Online Safety Bill will establish new statutory duties requiring companies to take robust steps to improve safety online. The duties will cover user-to-user services—those that allow users to upload and share content that may be encountered by others—and search engines. All companies in scope will need to protect their users from illegal content and activity, and companies with services that are likely to be accessed by children will be required to protect children from legal but harmful content. While the Bill is technology neutral, we expect companies to use age verification technologies to prevent children from accessing services that pose the highest risk of harm to them, such as online pornography.

The online safety regime covers many of the most visited pornography sites, social media, video sharing platforms, forums and search engines—thereby capturing many of the sites through which children access pornography. These companies will have to prevent children from accessing pornography or face enforcement action by Ofcom.

The Government recognise the concern, raised by the Joint Committee during pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill and by other child online safety stakeholders, that the Bill needs to go further to protect children from online pornography on services that do not currently fall within its scope.

To strengthen protections for children further, we will make changes to the Bill to incorporate a stand-alone provision requiring providers who publish or place pornographic content on their services to prevent children from accessing that content. This addresses the concerns that have been raised about a gap in scope for non-user-generated pornography, and ensures that all services that would have been captured by part 3 of the Digital Economy Act, and all the user-to-user and search services covered by the Online Safety Bill, will be required to protect children from pornography. This new duty will be enforced by Ofcom with providers being subject to the same enforcement measures as other in-scope services.

The Government are committed to bringing forward the most comprehensive approach possible to protecting children online. We will introduce the Online Safety Bill as soon as parliamentary time allows and will continue to engage with Members of Parliament in both Houses on the protections for children within the Bill.

[HCWS599]

Online Safety Bill: Priority Offences

Chris Philp Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2022 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

I wish to inform the House that the Government will be making a change to the Online Safety Bill, to set out priority offences in primary legislation on the face of the Bill.



This change responds to the calls for greater clarity about the criminal offences in scope of the new regulatory framework, and will increase the pace of implementation of the regulatory regime.



Specifically, this change responds to calls from the Online Safety Bill Joint Committee and the Digital, Culture Media and Sport Committee’s Sub-Committee on Online Harms and Disinformation, which recommended that the most relevant criminal offences should be included in primary legislation. The Petitions Committee further specified a number of offences that it believes should be listed, including hate crime.



We plan to include offences within the following categories on the face of the Bill:



Encouraging or assisting suicide.

Offences relating to sexual images, including revenge and extreme pornography.

Incitement to and threats of violence.

Hate crime.

Public order offences, harassment and stalking.

Drug-related offences.

Weapons and firearms offences.

Fraud and financial crime.

Money laundering.

Exploiting prostitutes for gain.

Organised immigration offences.



Offences relating to terrorism and child sexual abuse and exploitation are already listed in the Bill. The Secretary of State will have the ability to designate additional offences as priority by statutory instrument, which will be subject to parliamentary scrutiny.



Priority offences represent the most serious and prevalent illegal content and activity online. Companies will need to take proactive steps to tackle such content. Companies will need to design and operate their services to be safe by design and prevent users encountering priority illegal content. This could include, for example, having effective systems in place to prevent banned users opening new accounts.



Beyond the priority offences, all services will need to ensure that they have effective systems and processes in place to take down quickly other illegal content once it has been reported or they become aware of its presence.

Listing the priority offences on the face of the Bill, instead of in secondary legislation, is an important step in strengthening this pioneering legislation designed to make the UK the safest place in the world to be online. This will mean that platforms do not need to wait for secondary legislation to start tackling the most serious illegal content.



We will respond fully to all three Committees’ reports in due course alongside introduction of the Bill, and thank them for their recommendations.

[HCWS593]

Modernising Communications Offences: Law Commission Review

Chris Philp Excerpts

Friday 4th February 2022 Written Statements

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

I wish to inform the House that the Government will be accepting the recommended harm-based communications offence, false communications offence and threatening communications offence, as laid out in the Law Commission’s “Modernising Communications Offences” report, published in July 2021.

The offences will be brought into law through the online safety Bill, which we are committed to introducing to Parliament as soon as possible.

These new offences will help ensure that the criminal law is focused on the most harmful behaviour while protecting freedom of expression. The current offences are sufficiently broad in scope that they could constitute a disproportionate interference in the right to freedom of expression. The new offences will protect freedom of expression and, in the case of the harm-based offence by increasing the threshold of harm to serious distress, will ensure that communications that individuals find offensive, such as the expression of a view they do not like or agree with, will not be caught. In addition, the court cannot find someone guilty of the harm-based offence or false communications offence if they have a reasonable excuse. A reasonable excuse would include if the communication was or was intended as a contribution to the public interest.

We have also accepted the Law Commission’s recommendation to include a press exemption within the general harm-based communications offence and the knowingly false communications offence. While we do not expect the new offences will capture communication made by the media, including this press exemption demonstrates the Government’s commitment to upholding media freedom.

The Government will repeal the existing communication offences, including section 1 of the Malicious Communications Act 1988 and sections 127(1) and (2) of the Communications Act 2003, as recommended by the Law Commission.

Alongside the online safety regulatory framework, the offences will help deliver the Government’s objective of making the UK the safest place to be online.

In addition, as the Prime Minister has indicated, we welcome the recommended offence on cyber-flashing and are carefully considering it.

The report recommends a further three offences. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and the Ministry of Justice are carefully considering the remaining offences and accompanying recommendations, including the hoax calls offence, an offence for encouraging or assisting self-harm and an offence for epilepsy trolling. We will continue to assess these offences and issue a full response to the Law Commission later this year.

I would like to express my sincere thanks for all the work that the Commission has carried out as part of this review over the past four years.

[HCWS590]

Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee

Chris Philp Excerpts

Thursday 27th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Julian Knight]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely correct to highlight that point. There is an issue about content that is deliberately manipulated in order to avoid moderation. Effectively, it is content that just manages to evade the algorithms, but is there as a signpost to abuse, or is a means of taking people off one platform and on to another that is not a tier-1 platform and that may be less regulated. It is crucial that that is clamped down on as soon as possible, so that we can protect children in the way that he and I—and, I am sure, all Members of the House—wish to do.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

Let me start by putting on record my thanks and the Government’s thanks for the work that the Select Committee has done. We are grateful for the time and attention that its members have given to this important issue.

There is no question but that large social media firms have not been prioritising safety and preventing harm, even in relation to children. They have been prioritising profit instead of people, and the time has come for Parliament to act. The legislation we have tabled is groundbreaking; we will be one of the first countries, if not the first country, in the world to take such a step. The measures in the Bill, even as drafted, are very strong, with fines of up to 10% of global revenue capable of being levied, and personal liability for some senior executives in certain circumstances.

I thank the Select Committee Chairman for his comments about freedom of expression, which are of course important. There are duties in the Bill as drafted requiring social media firms to have regard to freedom of expression and, particularly, to protect journalistic and democratic content. We are interested in exploring with the Select Committee how we can go further in those areas, and I look forward to appearing before it in a week or two.

Let me finish by saying that we are very much in listening mode; we have been digesting the reports of the Select Committee and the Joint Committee very carefully. It is our intention to bring forward an updated Bill in this Session so that it can have its Second Reading. In preparing that updated Bill, we will continue to work closely with the Committees and to listen carefully to the views of Members of this House, including those expressed in the session today and in the debate we had a week or two ago. There is a great deal of wisdom on both sides of the House that we can learn from, and it is our intention to do that as we bring forward this groundbreaking piece of legislation designed to protect our fellow citizens but particularly children.

[Julian Knight]

I thank the Minister for his comments. He is very engaged in the process and shows due respect to the Joint Committee and the Select Committee both in terms of our work and through his engagement. That is very welcome and is a reminder of times past.

I welcome the Government’s listening mode. The message from both sides of the House must be that we can all contribute as much as possible and that this should not be about party lines. This legislation is too important to get bogged down in issues such as that, because it is about the protection of our society, our democracy, our children and our mental health.

English Football League Governance: Derby County FC

Chris Philp Excerpts

Tuesday 18th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport if she will make a statement on matters of English Football League governance surrounding the administration of Derby County football club.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Chris Philp)]

I am appearing at the Dispatch Box in place of the sports Minister—the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire (Nigel Huddleston)—who is taking a Bill through Committee. Like many Members across the House, I know how important football clubs are to local communities, and I appreciate how worrying it is to see them under jeopardy. I feel that particularly as a fan of Crystal Palace, a proud south London club that went through a similar experience about 11 years ago. It went through administration and was bought out by Steve Parish, avoided relegation, and is now in the premier league, so there is always hope, even in the darkest hours. Because the Government understand how important football clubs are to our local communities, we launched a fan-led review of football governance, and are working at pace to respond to the excellent report from my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch).

I turn to Derby County. The situation is worrying for fans, the local community and football alike. No one wants to see a founding member of the Football League in administration and facing threats to its survival. Of course, Derby County has won silverware in the past, and I pay tribute to Wayne Rooney for his sterling work as manager this season—I never thought I would hear myself saying those words in the House of Commons.

We should be clear that the governance surrounding the administration of Derby County football club is a matter for the English Football League, the administrator and the club. However, the Government take a close interest and are receiving regular updates. The sports Minister spoke to the English Football League last night to understand exactly what is going on, and to urge all parties involved to take a pragmatic approach to securing the future of the Rams. I call on the English Football League, the club and the administrators to play an active and urgent role, within their remits, in seeking to facilitate an urgent solution to the situation.

The EFL has asked the administrators for details of a funding plan that will enable the club to complete this season. The administrators have tabled some options that are available to them, and the EFL has extended the deadline for proof of funding, in line with its regulations and policy. I understand that some bidders are interested in purchasing the club, and I very much hope that those conversations reach a fruitful conclusion as quickly as possible. Yesterday, the EFL issued an extensive and transparent update on its handling of the matter, which I commend to the House.

Of course, this matter raises questions about the wider financial sustainability of football. The fan-led review made a number of proposals directly addressing how to prevent clubs ending up in such situations, and the Government are considering them carefully. We have however endorsed in principle the review’s primary recommendation, which is that football requires a strong, independent regulator to secure the future of the national game. In the meantime, the Government, and my hon. Friend the sports Minister in particular, will continue to engage closely with the EFL and Members—particularly those who represent the fine county of Derbyshire—and call for urgent pragmatism from all parties involved, so that they find a solution quickly and save this fantastic club.

[Mrs Latham]

I thank the Minister for his words. I spoke to the sports Minister last night, and I place on record that many Derbyshire colleagues completely support what we are doing to try to save the club. Derby County football club cannot be allowed to be removed from the English Football League on 1 February. If this can happen to Derby, which was one of the founder clubs of the Football League in 1888, it can happen to any of the other 71 clubs.

These clubs are so much more than businesses. They represent the heart and soul of communities, nowhere more so than in Derby, and they are huge drivers of economic growth and part of the cultural fabric of our country. Can the Minister assure me that in his discussions with the EFL he has been reassured that it is acting in the best interests of Derby County’s fans?

I understand that there are ongoing legal proceedings between Derby and other clubs, but the reason the potential takeover cannot happen is that the EFL is refusing to rule on whether those claims could constitute football debts—a matter for EFL rules, not for the courts. Will the Minister confirm why the EFL is refusing to rule on the matter? If the EFL cannot or will not rule on it, Derby County believes that it could rely on new insolvency rules, approved by this Parliament, to exit administration. Will the Minister please confirm that he will investigate why the EFL’s insolvency guidelines are not up to date, which is causing such difficulties for Derby County?

Furthermore, although the EFL’s delay is effectively holding up the takeover, it appears to have set an arbitrary deadline of 1 February, at which point it can remove Derby from the league. Is the Minister convinced that the EFL is acting fast enough to resolve the football debts issue before the deadline, or will it extend the deadline accordingly?

Finally, I would like to mention the administrators of the club. Fans have no accountability mechanisms over those individuals, who themselves have no connection to the club. Will the Minister please assure me that he is in constant contact with the administrators to ensure that they are acting in the fans’ best interests and as quickly as possible?

[Chris Philp]

As always, my hon. Friend is an outstanding advocate for Derbyshire and for matters that concern her constituents and football fans across the county and the broader region. I agree entirely with her point. Football clubs are an integral part of the fabric of their local communities; I certainly feel that in south London with Crystal Palace, and I know that colleagues across the House and their constituents certainly feel the same about their football clubs.

The sports Minister has been in close contact with the English Football League. We want to see it working urgently, pragmatically and rapidly to resolve the outstanding issues standing in the way of a takeover by a new owner, who we hope can invest the money needed to turn the club around. The sports Minister is pressing the English Football League very hard on these points; I am sure that he will do so again and that the English Football League will be listening to our proceedings this afternoon, hear the message from this House and act accordingly.

On my hon. Friend’s final point, I am afraid that I do not know whether the sports Minister has spoken to the administrators yet, but since she has raised the point so forcefully and eloquently, I will certainly ask him to do so as soon as I leave the Chamber.

[Alex Davies-Jones (Pontypridd) (Lab)]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) for bringing this urgent matter to the House today. Once again, one of our great historic football clubs—a founder member of the Football League—is in danger. That is not the fault of the players and staff, who have performed remarkably in the circumstances; it is not the fault of fans; once again, it is the fault of mismanagement by owners. It is an example of the problem that the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) identified in the fan-led review of football governance: owners gambling everything on aiming for Premier League status without proper safeguards in place, leaving the club in danger. It is further evidence that football governance is broken and that we urgently need the changes recommended in the fan-led review.

We appreciate that the specifics of the current situation at Derby County are complex and that there are a number of parties involved—the EFL, potential buyers, administrators and other clubs making claims to legal challenges. Labour urges all those parties to work together to sort this out. But even bearing that in mind, may I urge the Minister and the sports Minister to do everything in their power to secure the club’s future for the sake of fans, players, staff, the city and the wider community?

The question that many fans will be asking is “How did we get here again?” The review by the hon. Member for Chatham and Aylesford has already put forward a strong set of recommendations that would overhaul football governance for the better. Introducing a new statutory independent regulator requires new legislation, but a shadow regulator fulfilling the same function could be introduced straightaway. Such a regulator could have flagged up the issues that put Derby County in jeopardy long before we got where we are today.

The Government have said that they will respond fully to the review’s recommendations in the spring, but does the Minister accept that this latest crisis demonstrates that that is just too long to wait? Is the crisis not more compelling evidence that the Government need to act quickly to implement the recommendations of the fan-led review and ensure that football has a governance regime that safeguards our great clubs and our national game?

[Chris Philp]

I thank the shadow Minister for her question. Clearly, the Under-Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Worcestershire, is doing everything he can to urge the various participants, especially the English Football League, but also the administrators and the other clubs involved, to find a resolution to this complicated situation.

I would add two points. First, I would not tar all football owners with the same brush. Those clubs I know about, particularly Palace, have been well managed, so it cannot be said that football owners as a whole conduct themselves badly. Secondly, the problems at Derby County are long-standing, and long predate the fan-led review. We are moving at pace to make sure that the fan-led review is implemented, and that work will happen as quickly as possible.

[Tracey Crouch (Chatham and Aylesford) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) on securing the urgent question and pay tribute to her Derbyshire colleagues, some of whom are unable to be here today but who I know are as concerned as she is.

My inbox is full of Rams fans who are understandably concerned by the perilous situation the club is in. The football review panel met Mel Morris near the end of the process and after the interim recommendations were published, and I asked him specifically whether he thought that the club would be in a different situation if an independent regulator and real-time financial monitoring had been in place. His answer was, “Yes, without a doubt.” Given that clubs think that the recommendations in the review would lead to greater sustainability in football, will the Minister—I appreciate he is standing in for the sports Minister—give a bit more detail about the pace at which implementation of the report’s recommendations is being considered and will be responded to? Many would argue that they are urgently needed so that no other club and its loyal, committed, lifelong fans will suffer the threat of ceasing to exist.

[Chris Philp]

Let me start by paying tribute to my hon. Friend for the tremendous work that she has done in convening the fan-led review and producing such a comprehensive and detailed report. I can assure her that the Sports Minister is working on this as a matter of urgency. We have accepted the key principles of the fan-led review. It is a detailed review with a large number of detailed recommendations, and we want to make sure that we get the response right while doing so as quickly as possible. I can assure my hon. Friend that that work is happening very quickly, and I would be happy to ask the sports Minister to meet her to discuss the implementation timetable. I spoke to him earlier this afternoon and he is fully seized of the need to move fast.

[Margaret Beckett (Derby South) (Lab)]

I can confirm everything that the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) said about the importance of this issue in the city of Derby and across the whole area, as can be seen from the Members here today. Long ago, when this all began, I was one of those who took part in a meeting with the Football League in which it assured us of its earnest desire to see this matter resolved and Derby County continue. The Minister said in his opening remarks that no one wants to see the club go under: well, some of us are beginning to wonder. I assure him, and through him the Football League, that if, inadvertently—because the Football League is unable to remove the obstacles that at the moment it appears to be putting so firmly in Derby County’s way—that were to happen, none of those participating in it would be forgiven.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

The right hon. Lady makes her point with power and eloquence, and I echo her sentiments. As I said in my opening comments, I hope the English Football League, the other clubs involved in this saga and the administrators are listening to our proceedings this afternoon and to the message she just gave, which probably commands support across the House. I hope they listen and act accordingly.

[Julian Knight (Solihull) (Con)]

A little over a year ago, the sports Minister and I were in almost daily communication about the EFL’s financial crisis. Through that communication and the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s actions and public hearings, we dragged the Premier League kicking and screaming into a £250 million deal to bail out the EFL. In the light of that action, does my hon. Friend agree that it is beholden on the EFL, which has benefited from financial help in the past, to show decency and understanding to Derby County football club—a former league champion club—in this, its hour of need? What is more, we need to speed up the football review and get legislation on the statute book. We all know there is limited time to bring forward legislation, but this is clearly an urgent priority, so will my hon. Friend commit today to give us a timetable for when legislation will come forward?

[Chris Philp]

My hon. Friend the Chair of the Select Committee echoes the sentiments so powerfully expressed by the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett) a few moments ago. There is a significant burden on the English Football League and on the other clubs involved to get this matter sorted out urgently, and I agree with my hon. Friend’s sentiments in that regard.

On the timing, a number of details clearly need to be worked through. The fan-led review’s recommendations were very detailed, and primary legislation will be required. As my hon. Friend will know, the Government need to work through a number of pressing legislative priorities. I cannot make a commitment on behalf of my colleague the sports Minister—it would be wrong to commit a fellow Minister in respect of his portfolio—but I will ask him to speak to my hon. Friend, as well as to my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch), to discuss the timing.

[Mr Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)]

I have to say that there will be real disappointment among Derby County fans that the sports Minister is not here to respond to this question. I understand that he is serving on a Bill Committee, but arrangements could have been made—[Hon. Members: “Here he is.”] Well, it would be good to hear from him, because with the greatest respect to the Minister responding, he has not been able to answer the fundamental question.

The Minister has spoken about the problems that Crystal Palace had previously, but one thing about this situation is different: the threat of legal action from Middlesbrough and Wycombe and the impact of commitments that may exist in the future on the possibility of a takeover happening now. Will the Minister tell us what the sports Minister is doing to ensure that Middlesbrough and Wycombe’s claims against Derby County’s previous owners do not prevent the club from being purchased? When clubs have debts in the future, they go out of existence altogether, as we saw with Glasgow Rangers and Bury; if clubs have debts in the past, it can be resolved. That is the key issue we need to hear about today.

[Chris Philp]

If I may say so respectfully, the hon. Member’s comments about the sports Minister at the beginning of his question were rather unfair: he was in a Bill Committee, taking primary legislation through Parliament, and has now arrived on the Front Bench, having completed that important task. That was an extremely unfair remark.

On the other football clubs, legal proceedings are currently pending, but I think a pragmatic solution should be found. I know the sports Minister has been in touch with the English Football League about finding a pragmatic solution. There were similar issues with Crystal Palace 11 years ago—I think it was to do with Lloyds Bank—and a pragmatic solution was found; I expect the same pragmatism to be displayed in this situation.

Finally, the fan-led review touched on some of the issues in respect of debts. When that review is implemented, it will address the issues that the hon. Member raised.

[Nigel Mills (Amber Valley) (Con)]

It is a pity we cannot have a substitution of the Minister now that the sports Minister has turned up—that might be allowed on the football pitch, but it is not here.

I know the Minister is a keen football fan; does he, like me, remember how close Middlesbrough came to going out of business until Steve Gibson saved the club a few decades ago? Would it not be ironic if Steve Gibson’s claim, which many of us think is probably a stretch, was what now pushed Derby County over the edge? Will the Minister urge Middlesbrough and Wycombe, in the spirit of football solidary that fans are showing, not to press their claims and to let new owners be found? Does he agree that the Government may need to act because we cannot have, in our elite professional leagues, one club suing another because it does not like the outcome of the season? That is no way to have a sports competition with integrity. If we are going to have legal cases to decide things after the fact, we will not know what the final title decider would have been until the years go by.

[Chris Philp]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question. There are obviously legal proceedings ongoing, but I think it would serve everybody’s interests—the interests of football more generally, as well as those of Derby County in particular—if those involved show pragmatism and help a proud and long-standing club to survive. As I said a few moments ago, when Crystal Palace was in a similar situation, the bank concerned did show pragmatism, and I call on all those involved, including other clubs, to show the same kind of pragmatism.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

Derby County is the latest club to find itself in difficulty, but without major and urgent reform it will not be the last. The system is broken when the club finishing at the bottom of the premier league receives 10 times more than the club at the top of the championship, despite their being separated by just one place in the football pyramid. Can I ask the Minister what work is being done to ensure that English Football League clubs are put on a financially sound footing, including agreement on an equitable distribution of the TV money?

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. One of the issues addressed by the fan-led review is precisely the question that he refers to, and I know that as the Sports Minister works through the response to the fan-led review, answers to that reasonable and important question will be forthcoming.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

Although I am a Leicestershire MP, many of my constituents who have written to me are loyal supporters of Derby County and are hugely concerned about the future of the club. Derby County is in administration, and it accrued or built up £30 million of tax liabilities under the previous owner. If the club goes into liquidation, those moneys due to the Treasury will be at risk. Given this really quite huge financial vested interest of the Government in the survival of Derby County, what are they doing to ensure that the obstacles to a successful takeover are removed, to secure the future of this iconic football club and also secure the moneys due to the Treasury?

[Chris Philp]

The Treasury, or Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs I should say, as an unsecured creditor, is like any other unsecured creditor, and the administrator will treat it fairly and even-handedly, as it would treat any creditor in this situation. I do not think the existence of that debt, among other debts, is the obstacle to completion of the transaction; other issues to do with outstanding legal proceedings and matters that the EFL is responsible for are more immediate obstacles. That is why I repeat my call for the EFL and those other clubs, such as Middlesbrough, pragmatically to get this situation resolved as quickly as possible.

[Mr Clive Betts (Sheffield South East) (Lab)]

I think we can all, as football fans, feel for the fans of Derby County. We can imagine what it would be like if our club were in such a position, with all that history and our fathers and grandfathers—and grandmothers—having supported a club that is about to disappear. We have to feel for them. It is unthinkable that Derby should go out of existence, but it was unthinkable that Bury should go out of existence, and look what happened.

This is really just another example of the complete mess that is football finance. Why are the rules about administration in place? It is because a few years ago Leicester City deliberately went into administration to get rid of its debts to enable it to be promoted to the premiership at the expense of Sheffield United. It is a complete mess. There are two issues that arise: get the Crouch fan-led review in place as quickly as possible to sort out football finances; and in the meantime get the EFL—I have some sympathy for it because of the difficulties it faces—to give a proportionate and proper response to Derby to make sure that club survives.

[Chris Philp]

We all agree, without question, that the steps to ensure Derby County’s survival must be taken as quickly as possible. On the wider points made about football finance and the situation the hon. Member mentioned a few years ago, I would just point again to the fan-led review, led by my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford. It is precisely to deal with the issues that he quite rightly raises that the review was initiated and why my hon. Friend the Sports Minister will be acting on it.

[Mark Fletcher (Bolsover) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) for securing this urgent question. Like a number of local MPs, I met the EFL yesterday—as a Derbyshire MP, many constituents have written to me—and I have to say that, following that meeting, I could not help but share some of the suspicions outlined by the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett), because it did not feel to me that the EFL was really putting fans at the heart of this situation and putting our communities front and foremost. I know the Minister is unable to respond directly, but does the Department have faith in the EFL as a fair arbiter which has fans in mind?

[Chris Philp]

It is important that the EFL and the other participants in this saga act quickly to ensure a successful resolution. As always, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, so let us hope, and indeed expect, that those results follow very soon.

[Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)]

As a lifelong Boro fan, can I say to the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) that no Middlesbrough football club fan wants to see Derby County—a great football club—go into administration and exit the league. There are great links between our clubs, not the least of which was personified by the great Brian Clough. I know that the Minister is doing his best, but the details are complicated. There is the potential claim, which is founded in the mismanagement of Derby by its previous owners, who offended against the rules and were punished as a result. That is why we are in this position today. I urge the Minister to familiarise himself with the statement from Middlesbrough football club, which has made it clear that it does not want to see Derby fall into liquidation and that it

“is happy to be realistic in its expectations in order for Derby County to exit administration.”

I encourage the Minister to encourage the EFL to encourage the administrator to engage with Middlesbrough, which is very realistic about how it can assist in this process, but at the moment is being met with silence.

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Gentleman raises a very important and reasonable point. My hon. Friend the Sports Minister has just confirmed to me that in his conversations last night with the English Football League he called on it to facilitate exactly the kind of conversations that the hon. Gentleman just mentioned. It is our hope that those conversations reach a resolution very quickly. The statement that the hon. Gentleman just read out from Middlesbrough football club is encouraging, but obviously actions will speak louder than words.

[Brendan Clarke-Smith (Bassetlaw) (Con)]

As a proud Nottinghamian, I did not think I would see the day when I would stand in this Chamber defending Derby County football club. Much has been made of the governance, which is clearly an issue, but I think most football fans up and down the country look at the financial fair play system, the sanctions and the points deductions and see it generally as a mess. Does the Minister agree that the rules from the EFL need to be clearer, that punishments need to be delivered in a consistent and timely manner and that the EFL must learn the lessons to avoid these things happening in the future?

[Chris Philp]

Once again, my hon. Friend makes some important points, and I am sure fans of Derby County will be grateful to him for his magnanimity in the way he framed his remarks. I believe that the issues he raises will be picked up by the fan-led review to make sure that these risks do not arise again.

[Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)]

As a Leeds United supporter, I know all about having a renegade owner racking up hundreds of millions of pounds in transfer fees to gamble on sporting success. One of the underlying issues with Derby County and other clubs that face difficulty is hugely inflated transfer fees. Has the Sports Minister considered looking at the role of agents, who are unlicensed and unregulated, and who have no cap on the level of the transfer fees that they can receive, to help calm this situation and stop the financial escalator we are seeing in transfer fees?

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Gentleman raises an important issue. A number of people have concerns about the role that agents play—not least football clubs, managers and indeed sometimes players themselves. It is a slightly, and I choose my words diplomatically, opaque—I was going to say murky—business. As the Sports Minister responds to the fan-led review, this will be an issue that he addresses.

[Damian Collins (Folkestone and Hythe) (Con)]

It is the failure of football governance that has created the problem at Derby. In this crisis, once again, the fans see that no one is interested in their concerns, the long-term future of the club or the impact on the people of Derby. If the EFL had enforced its financial rules effectively, this would not have happened, yet it is the EFL’s rules that will trigger Derby’s expulsion from the league by insisting that all football debts and liabilities are met. The regulator that my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) proposes in her report will stop this happening, but not before 1 February. Is the Minister prepared to consider what other direct interventions DCMS might make to keep Derby County in business?

[Chris Philp]

If the current system had been functioning perfectly or properly, there would have been no need for the fan-led review. There are certainly shortcomings, as my hon. Friend points out, which the fan-led review is designed to address. On the way in which the EFL’s rules may have precipitated or triggered the current situation, I repeat my call and, I think, the call of all hon. Members on both sides of the House for pragmatism from those involved, including the EFL, to get this matter resolved as quickly as possible to save a great club.

[Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)]

We all accept the special role that football clubs have in their local communities, but they are treated like any other business, which is at the heart of the problem. With the EFL’s rules and with clubs as they are currently constituted under company law, it is very difficult to intervene in this process. If the football regulator had been in place, with the rules and regulations that have been asked for, this problem would not have arisen. I have heard the Minister say plenty of times that the Government are determined to bring in the regulator as quickly as possible, but we not only need DCMS to say that; we need primary legislation that involves other Departments. Can he give us an assurance that those other Departments are applying the same urgency as DCMS?

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Gentleman is right that it requires primary legislation; and the Sports Minister, who is sitting next to me on the Front Bench, is working through those plans. As I said a few moments ago, the proposals are quite complicated in some areas and we need to make sure we get this right. Obviously it would be terrible if we acted too quickly, did not get the details right and ended up not fixing the problem. The Government’s intention is to legislate as quickly as we can, but we want to make sure we get this right to avoid the situation reoccurring.

[Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)]

Although football finance expert Kieran Maguire warned the EFL in 2018, it was 19 months before the EFL issued financial fair play charges. This allowed the situation to escalate out of control for far too long. For the sake of Derby fans, we need the Minister to take urgent action to get the EFL, Mel Morris, potential owners, Middlesbrough and Wycombe together to thrash out a deal. He should put them in a room and throw away the key until something has been sorted. It is in no one’s interest to see the future of such a proud club under immediate threat of folding.

[Chris Philp]

I share my hon. Friend’s call for urgency. The Sports Minister, as I said, spoke to the EFL last night, and he will continue urgently and forcefully pressing the participants in this saga to get a resolution. I repeat my call for all those involved—the EFL, clubs such as Middlesbrough, the administrators—to demonstrate flexibility and pragmatism in getting this sorted out. My hon. Friend the Sports Minister will be driving that forward.

[Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)]

As a Newcastle United fan, I know something of sorrow and frustration. I have huge sympathy for Derby County. This Government have repeatedly failed to act on issues of financial sustainability and effective governance in our national game, and they are now dragging their feet on their response to the fan-led review of football. Does the Minister really think that the pace of the Government’s response equals the importance of football in the lives of my constituents? Will he commit to putting fans at the top of the football pyramid?

[Chris Philp]

I do not accept the allegation that the Government have been dragging their feet. It was the Government who commissioned the fan-led review in the first place, and we have accepted its recommendations in principle. Detailed work is now taking place to get it implemented. As I said in response to a previous question, we need to make sure the details are right. Although we are acting with urgency, we do not want to act so fast that we make a mistake in the legislation. On putting fans at the centre, the clue is in the name: it is a fan-led review.

[James Daly (Bury North) (Con)]

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) said in her excellent contribution that if this could happen to Derby, it could happen to anybody. Well, it did: it happened to Bury football club. When it happened to Bury football club, the fans paid the price. It was the fault of the owners, not the fault of the fans. When that process happened—Ministers on the Front Bench know I was intimately involved in it—the English Football League did not care. It did not care about any of the thousands of fans of Bury football club who were impacted by its decision to expel the club from the league. We are not talking about the local branch of Tesco. Football clubs are engines for social and economic good. They are the history and heartbeat of communities. I do not have the words to describe the impact on thousands of people in my constituency of Bury football club disappearing.

It is time for the English Football League to show that it cares, and not do what it did with Bury. It destroyed a club and nearly destroyed a town. I am not underscoring that; that is how much of an impact it had. I urge the Minister to do whatever is necessary to protect the fans of Derby. I have seen on a daily basis in my constituency what such a situation does to the fans of a football club who care about and love their club, and care about and love their town. That is bigger than all the rules in the world. The situation has got to be sorted out. Please do everything possible to protect Derby fans and please do not make the mistakes that happened with Bury.

[Chris Philp]

I think there is agreement across the House that what happened to Bury football club was a catastrophe for the local community. We must make sure the same does not happen to Derby County. All of us, on both sides of the House, will understand how devastating it is when a local football club disappears, as Bury did. Let us hope and take action to ensure that that never happens again. I am very sorry to hear my hon. Friend’s assessment of the EFL’s conduct in the Bury football club situation. I can only repeat my plea, or demand, to the EFL to acts rapidly and pragmatically. Once again, to make sure these things do not happen again, the independent fan-led review and the Government response to it is vital. Just to be clear and to clarify, the Government accept the principle of an independent regulator and are studying very carefully the other recommendations. We will respond as soon as we can.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I wholeheartedly endorse the remarks of the hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly). The Minister makes the point that there are good owners of football clubs and there are. Rochdale, my town’s club, certainly has those. There are bad owners as well and the EFL has failed consistently to operate its duty on the fit and proper person test. The message the sports Minister has to give to the EFL is that there is no confidence in its ability and its governance of football. That message has to go out, because in the meantime, while we wait for the fan-led review to be given legal force, we have to make sure there is real pressure on the EFL so we do not lose another great club.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Member makes a very powerful and eloquent point. As I said in response to the points made by the right hon. Member for Derby South (Margaret Beckett), I am sure the EFL is listening to our proceedings and I am certain it will act accordingly.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Although it is true that I am a proud Motherwell fan, my in-laws, Ron and Alison Wright, constituents of the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham), are proud Derby County fans. They are very proud of their club’s history and place in the town. As Derby County try to play out of their 21-point penalty, does the Minister agree there is a bit of a catch-22 situation for a team to try to play for its survival while it cannot keep players in the face of such financial and legal uncertainty?

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Lady is right. It is a difficult situation to suffer a 21-point penalty. Back in 2010, my team, Crystal Palace, had a 10-point penalty and avoided relegation on the final day of the season. I hope—demand, really—that Derby County continue and survive. I hope they continue fighting on. I know they will show the spirit required to get every single point they can as they fight not for survival as a club, but for survival in the Championship. I wish them every bit of good luck in doing that.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

I thank the Minister for coming off the subs bench to take the urgent question. I do not know who, when asked whether football was a matter of life and death, said it was more important than that—[Hon. Members: “Bill Shankly.”] Shankly, there we are. I think today’s urgent question proved that admirably.