BBC News Impartiality: Government's Role

William Cash Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Westminster Hall

[Sir Michael Ellis]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As my example indicated, it does that for Daesh, which is another terrorist organisation. It will not do it for Hamas, and that is because of a link with Israel. Not all examples are as flagrant; the bias of BBC News and its journalists can be seen in other ways, which shows the depth of the problem. The BBC follows Hamas’s cynical policy of not distinguishing between civilian and combatant casualties. BBC News reports routinely add what amounts to disclaimers on information released by Israel or the Israeli army as being unverified. Time and again, that same rule is not applied to information released by Hamas. It was only after another pressure campaign that the BBC even started informing viewers that casualty figures in Gaza were provided by a terrorist-controlled Hamas health ministry, yet that seldom comes with a disclaimer about how they are unverified by the BBC.

For example, take a story on the BBC News website from just 2 February this year, in which it reports:

“More than 26,750 Palestinians have been killed and at least 65,000 injured, according to health officials in the Gaza strip.”

It then states:

“Israeli officials say that 9,000 of those killed were Hamas militants but have not provided evidence for the figure.”

By the way, Hamas have subsequently said that they had lost 6,000 fighters, still half of what Israel has claimed, but the BBC has chosen to ignore that Hamas statement, unlike many other news outlets. That happens daily. Each time the message that it conveys to readers, viewers or listeners is that Israel is not to be trusted over the word of a proscribed terror group that are known to wage information war.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

On the broader question of the charter itself, a royal charter confers a privilege, which is effectively a kind of monopoly. Does my right hon. and learned Friend agree that the licence fee payers, who come from all over the country, are themselves paying for disinformation on the basis of what he is saying? That, if it were a product liability issue, would lead to all kinds of legal consequences.

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[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I would first like to refer to some figures from the past five years on the complaints made by licence fee payers—that is, taxpayers, 90-odd per cent of whom pay for the BBC. According to the figures, there were 1,935,179—nearly 2 million—audience complaints to the BBC from 2017 to 2023, of which only 3,692 progressed to the BBC executive complaints unit. Only 147 complaints were upheld or partially upheld by that unit, and only four of the 1,067 escalated to Ofcom were decided to be BBC breaches of the broadcasting code. It goes from 2 million complaints to four breaches upheld by Ofcom.

That tells us a great deal. Anyone with half a brain would realise that the rest of the 2 million complaints must have contained, and do contain—as people know from their common sense and personal experience—gross breaches of impartiality. I have been talking to Ministers about that for several years. To my great regret, the mid-term review was revealed to the public by a mere written ministerial statement, when it should have been done by an oral statement on the Floor of the House. I hope I have got that right, but that is my understanding.

Secondly, we need a proper, full debate. I pay tribute to my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis) for raising this issue, with particular emphasis on the Hamas-Israel situation. However, the problem goes very much deeper. It is an endemic, almost perpetual problem, to which there appears to be no answer. Great importance should therefore be attached to the need to propose or implement an effective and workable regulatory structure between the BBC and Ofcom, and to reform Ofcom’s role in the complaints framework.

An inadequate reform of the complaints framework has been going on, and particularly the intended roles of the BBC board and the editorial guidance and standards committee. Despite the Government’s recognition of the inadequacies of the BBC, there has been a failure to initiate an independent framework for handling complaints. Although we need a vital reform to facilitate the closer scrutiny of impartiality, with no reason specified that has unnecessarily been postponed until the next charter review in 2027.

A major omission of the review is a failure to define “impartiality”. The review actually claims that the task was too complex. I find that astonishing, particularly when one considers that the Oxford dictionary definition of “impartiality”, which is pretty standard stuff, insists quite clearly that

“official judgements and reports should be based on objective and relevant criteria, without bias or prejudice”.

All the evidence points in the other direction. The figures that I have given are absolutely astonishing, and it is a great failure for us not to have managed to get this right.

I pay tribute to this Minister, and to other Ministers who have participated in this process, but I have to say that it has not met the degree of performance for which we would have hoped. We were hoping for a mid-term review that would deal with the issue of impartiality, and I regret to say that this will need a bigger debate on the Floor of the House, with the Minister giving a full account and every Member having the opportunity, cross-party, to get this thing right once and for all.

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[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. He brings to the debate a unique perspective on what is actually happening to the Jewish population in this country; it is more than I could hope to describe at this time.

There are several ways in which how terrible the Israelis are just creeps in, especially when listening to the radio, when we do not necessarily have the pictures. For example, “Israel have bombed a refugee camp”—most people believe that a refugee camp is an area full of tents and people who have been displaced and are suffering. These are historical refugee camps, with concrete buildings and towns that have been built around them. The laziness about going further and actually describing the situation adds to these issues.

The BBC is a very important institution in this country. There is always a role for public service broadcasting, but I hear so many of my constituents say that they hate the BBC. I would argue that what they hate is BBC News, not the BBC itself, but the reality is that the BBC’s bias is coming through in so many ways. Gary Lineker can say what he wants, but those who said that he could not say it and then did nothing about it are doing untold damage to the credibility of the BBC.

[Sir William Cash]

Would my right hon. Friend like to lay a bet that these particular proceedings will not appear on “Today in Parliament” tomorrow morning?

[Sir Alec Shelbrooke]

That is quite amusing. I was sat here wondering if we would actually make “Today in Parliament”; I think it may get a mention, but it will probably be quite well edited. The reality is that we live in a world where people are willing to be more militant. If the BBC does not grasp this problem and deal with it, people will stop paying their licence fee and damn the consequences. They can overwhelm it with social media, a bit like when the poll tax happened and it basically got dropped because no one was paying it. That is one of the issues for the BBC.

If we ask people, they say they listen to BBC Radio and football coverage a lot. A public service broadcaster has an important role in any country. When we have these debates, we must be careful not to give the impression that we want to abolish the BBC. What we all want is quality, independent, impartial news coverage that allows the public to get a view of what is actually happening in the world. There are plenty of television and news stations, especially in the advent of digital television, that will pander to people’s opinions if they want that. A public service broadcaster must always be above that.

I cast my mind back to when, on the “Today” programme, Amol Rajan was interviewing the Home Secretary, who told him

“if you’re just going to make a statement, I can go and get a cup of tea”.

I had never heard that on the “Today” programme. It is vital that some of the most hard-hitting questions should be put to politicians, and we should be able to answer them. I do not care how bad they are, as long as everybody gets the same toughness of interview and questions. But it is not up to journalists to sit there and make statements towards the politician they are interviewing; it is up to them to probe the policies they are running and where they are at. If that ends up embarrassing the politician, so be it, but it has to be equal across the board.

I have a great concern that what is happening at the BBC is undermining the entire institution. What potential conversations can the Minister have to ensure that those who are setting the rules to protect the impartiality of the BBC, but are doing absolutely nothing to enforce them, can be held to account? I believe that this institution is vital across the world and to this country, as long as it is doing what it is supposed to be doing, and, at the moment, it is not.

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[Stephanie Peacock (Barnsley East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Bardell. I would like to begin by congratulating the right hon. and learned Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis) on securing this important debate. Impartiality has always been, and must remain, a crucial underpinning of the BBC. It is right that the BBC is operationally and editorially independent from Government, and that impartiality is embedded in its governance at every level. As a result, not only do eight out of 10 UK adults consume BBC news on average per week—double the next nearest provider—BBC news is unique in its ability to gain the trust of audiences in the UK regardless of their political persuasion.

As has been discussed in this debate—we have heard opinions from across the House, and indeed across the country, from East Londonderry, St Austell, Brigg and Goole, Gravesham, Stone, and Elmet and Rothwell—many are deeply concerned about the impartiality of coverage regarding the terrible events in Israel and Palestine, where over the past few months we have seen an intolerable loss of life and an unacceptable growing humanitarian disaster in Gaza. There has been some debate over the way the BBC chooses to use the word “terrorist”. To be absolutely clear, Hamas are terrorists, and proscribed as such in UK law. Hamas has committed brutal atrocities and I call it a terrorist organisation, as is only right. The BBC is responsible for its own editorial guidelines, and it is not for politicians to tell it what should and should not be included in them. However, I will use the word “terrorists”, and it will report that I did.

On the BBC’s coverage of the topic more broadly, concerns over impartiality have been raised by people of many different persuasions and backgrounds. A poll conducted by More in Common found that roughly equal numbers of people find the BBC’s coverage to be as pro-Israel as pro-Palestine. However, an even larger percentage of the 2,000 people polled said they felt that the public service broadcaster’s output on the conflict between Israel and Hamas had been mostly neutral. That is not to say that the BBC makes no mistakes, and when it does, it must work swiftly to rectify them. That is particularly important at a point where community tensions are high. The Community Security Trust, a charity that works to eradicate antisemitism, has reported a staggering 500% rise in antisemitism, and Tell MAMA, a project working to address anti-Muslim hatred, has reported over 2,000 Islamophobic incidents between 7 October and 7 February—more than triple the 600 reported during the same period the year before.

We must denounce hate crime in the strongest terms, and I expect to see a robust response to all incidents of hate associated with the conflict. I recently met the Community Security Trust, Stand Up! and Maccabi GB to discuss the worrying rise in antisemitism and Islamophobia and the work going on in communities to promote tolerance and integration. There is no place in Britain for antisemitism or Islamophobia, and all of our media outlets have a duty to report responsibly and accurately on both the conflict itself and the rise of hatred in this country. With that in mind, it is concerning that Jewish employees at the BBC have raised complaints about its coverage. The BBC says it has well-established and robust processes in place to handle any issues, concerns or complaints, so I would hope and expect that to be dealt with fairly and accordingly.

[Sir William Cash]

Does the hon. Lady agree that although the word “racist” is often used in this context, much of it is actually to do with divisions of opinion on matters of religion, and that is very much at the heart of a lot of these problems? If she does not know that, does she recall that Gandhi himself, when asked what the most important question about politics or religion is, said that those who do not understand that politics is secondary to religion do not know what they are talking about?

[Stephanie Peacock]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that point; he has certainly put it on the record. I would like to move on.

On the BBC’s record on impartiality and its complaints processes more broadly, it is timely that the Government’s mid-term review has finally been published, as it looked directly at those issues. Indeed, the review noted that the BBC has completed the implementation of its 10-point plan, following the Serota review, with measures including impartiality training for staff, internal content reviews and regular staff surveys on impartiality. Further to that, following the independent review by John Hardie in 2023, the mid-term review also notes the new social media guidance for BBC presenters who do not cover news, current affairs or factual journalism.

The Government also found in the review that BBC First delivers fair complaints decisions that withstand scrutiny from the regulator. In terms of improving that further, the review makes a number of recommendations, including external scrutiny of complaints, improving the visibility and clarity of the process, ensuring the quality and timeliness of responses, and giving greater transparency on decision making. It is important that action is taken to work on those, and that Ofcom looks at progress in those areas when it reviews BBC First before the charter renewal.

Like any institution, the BBC does not get everything right. It is, however, a cornerstone of our creative economy and an important part of our day-to-day lives. The BBC is an important national institution, and we believe we must secure its future as a universal, publicly owned, public service broadcaster, not least in a world where misinformation is rife and public interest journalism is becoming harder to access.

[The Minister for Media, Tourism and Creative Industries (Julia Lopez)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Bardell. I thank my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis) for securing an incredibly important debate on the impartiality of the BBC, and the Government’s role in upholding it. I am also grateful to every hon. Member who has contributed this afternoon, as well as the Opposition spokespeople, including the hon. Member for Barnsley East (Stephanie Peacock), whose contributions have been constructive.

I appreciate the important words that were said in relation to Hamas as a terrorist organisation, and a clear understanding that the Government have taken action, but will keep a lot of these matters under review. I think there is unanimity here that the BBC is an incredibly important organisation, the integrity of which we all fundamentally seek to uphold. That is why we are here today talking about this issue. There is a collective desire in this House to focus the BBC on its core purpose when it comes to news, to report on the world with a relentless dedication to facts and truth. That is the foundation on which trust is built.

Trust, in my opinion, is the BBC’s currency in a very complex, ever-changing world where regional events can ricochet with great consequence into the communities and neighbourhoods of the UK. Hon. Friends have spoken of that and given examples, and it causes me a great deal of concern, both for my constituents and for my Jewish and Muslim friends, who have received pretty horrifying attacks from the same source—Islamist fundamentalism.

That worries me deeply, and nobody in the UK wants to see that play out in our streets. We have a duty to try to lower the heat, and also to have difficult, complex arguments on this issue. That is why we all feel strongly about the BBC’s role in that. We have an implicit social contract that grants the BBC a unique place in national life, with an equally unique funding structure in the licence fee, because it is bound by duties that commit it to that truth-telling and the reflection of communities in every corner of the UK.

Having a public service broadcaster structured in such a way says something very important about our values as a society, where a commitment to freedom of expression and openness provides an increasingly stark contrast to jurisdictions where the truth is manipulated or suppressed, or focused only on stories of the powerful. We can see that in how conflicts are reported around the world in other countries.

Indeed, the first public purpose listed in its royal charter requires the BBC to provide duly accurate and impartial news and information. The impartiality of the BBC goes to the heart of the contract between the corporation and all the licence-fee payers it serves. The public rightly expect the BBC to be an exemplar of impartiality and accuracy, while allowing a range of opinions to be offered and debated.

Of course, the BBC is not there as an instrument of Government. Ministers seeking to interfere with editorial decisions or the day-to-day running of the organisation would be in nobody’s interests, in seeking to build the trust that is so fundamental to its core purpose.

[Sir William Cash]

Will the Minister commit to putting forward the idea that there should be a proper definition, along the lines of the Oxford dictionary, as I mentioned, so that we have a definition of impartiality in the charter, as well as the statement she has just made about it?

[Julia Lopez]

I am always happy to engage with my hon. Friend on those sorts of issues, which we have engaged on in relation to the mid-term review. I shall look into the particular issue he raises on the definition of impartiality, although I suspect that it is written down in some of the documents. It may not be in the charter itself, but we do talk to the BBC about this on a very regular basis.

As hon. Members will be aware, I tread a fine line here. I appreciate that there may be a desire from colleagues for me to go very far in sticking the boot into the BBC on certain issues. I want to ensure that I am always on the right side of that line, because I would not seek to undermine the trust that the BBC must put at the centre of its compact with the public.

By the same token, if concerns are expressed by citizens of this country, and by hon. Members on their behalf, about how the BBC is carrying out its duties to fair and impartial news, and the structures that hold it to account, then I think that requires a response. No organisation, particularly one of the BBC’s nature, should be exempt from scrutiny. If large numbers of citizens are questioning the legitimacy of the BBC’s funding model as a result, in a way that I fear might risk undermining the future sustainability of the organisation, then it is fundamentally in the interest of the BBC for there to be a response.

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[Julia Lopez]

As I say, I am trying to get the line correct between giving the BBC editorial independence and expressing concern.

In the mid-term review, we have tried to ensure that there is much greater power for the BBC board to conduct thematic reviews of complaints and to have much more independence from the editorial teams, so that if there is a clear pattern coming through in the nature of the complaints about the BBC’s reporting and editorial decision making, the BBC can look into it. That is a new innovation from the mid-term review.

I note that Samir Shah, the incoming chairman of the BBC, has made reference to the idea that there may be an opportunity to review how the BBC is reporting on foreign conflicts, to ensure that the corporation is getting it right. This goes to the fundamental currency of the BBC: it is a trusted organisation, but with that level of trust comes a much deeper level of responsibility. Hon. Members have spoken about how licence fee payers are paying for this content and therefore rightly expect certain standards to be adhered to.

A response is needed, not so that we can kick the organisation and its dedicated reporters, but so that the BBC can discharge its fundamental duties to be a beacon of trusted information in an era of water muddying, truth bending and industrial disinformation. That is precisely how we worked in the mid-term review. Halfway through the royal charter, the review was an opportunity to pause, examine and evaluate the effectiveness of the BBC’s governance and regulation. The review focused on a range of issues, including editorial standards and impartiality, and our recommendations were unambiguous about the fact that there is scope for material improvement across a variety of areas.

The review highlighted that impartiality continues to be a major challenge for the BBC. Audience perception that the BBC is not sufficiently impartial is an ongoing issue. Within a culture of continuous improvement, we think that more can be done. Following direct and constructive dialogue with the Government, the BBC is implementing major reforms, although perhaps not major enough for my hon. Friend the Member for Stone.

[Sir William Cash]

That would be true. Surely an improvement would be to have a test within a few months—a review of what has already been done under the new system that has been created. If that fails, the whole system fails.

[Julia Lopez]

My hon. Friend and I discussed the mid-term review and its findings just before it was launched, and I said to him that there is an opportunity to see how it is playing out, which will inform some of our discussions about charter renewal and future funding debates. A review of the funding model for the BBC is forthcoming. We will invite all hon. Members to engage with that review, which may be an opportunity for my hon. Friend’s views to be aired loudly and persistently.

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[Julia Lopez]

I thank my hon. Friend for those searching questions. I have regular discussions with the director-general. Hon. Members regularly talk to me about their concerns relating to how the BBC is run, and I relay some of those concerns. We have open discussions when he comes to see me and vice versa. As my hon. Friend notes, an email has gone out to all staff within the BBC in relation to antisemitism. I will be happy to discuss his specific questions about training for the candidate for “The Apprentice” and the other issues in person with the director-general at our next meeting, if not before.

I have no doubt that somebody from the BBC will be listening to this debate and noting the concerns that have been expressed in this Chamber about how the organisation is run. It must be very difficult in BBC newsrooms when staff have concerns about other members of staff in relation to personal opinions on social media that have recently come to light. Again, it goes back to the fundamental interests of the organisation, which are to make sure that staff can work in the newsrooms with a drive towards the truth and without fear of intimidation from anybody else in that newsroom.

I return to the mid-term review. We worked very hard with the BBC and Ofcom to try to tackle the fundamental concerns that have been raised about impartiality. A new, legally binding responsibility on the BBC board will require it actively to oversee the BBC’s complaints process to assure audiences that their concerns are being fairly considered. I appreciate that many hon. Members in this Chamber wanted to move on from the BBC First complaints process. Again, that is an issue that will be considered in charter renewal. We will also be closely monitoring whether there is a substantial change in how complaints are handled as a result of the mid-term review changes.

We have recommended that Ofcom’s regulatory responsibilities be extended to the online content that the BBC produces. I believe that one hon. Member referred to a complaint about how an incident involving antisemitism on a bus in Oxford Street was reported. That was part of the BBC’s online material, and it is the kind of complaint that will be brought into scope because of the mid-term review.

[Sir William Cash]

Will the Minister be good enough to take into account the views of Baroness Deech KC, a Cross Bencher in the House of Lords who was a governor of the BBC? She wrote an important letter to The Times or The Daily Telegraph—it does not matter which—about the judgment of the BBC. Will the Minister look at Baroness Deech’s extremely interesting letter and speak to her about it?

Online Safety Bill

William Cash Excerpts

Report stage
Tuesday 17th January 2023 Commons Chamber

First, new clause 2 is drafted too broadly. It would potentially criminalise any breach of a safety duty under clause 11, the clause relating to children. We all, of course, think that keeping children safer online is a core mission of the Bill. I hope Ministers will consider favourably various other amendments that might achieve that, including the amendments in the name of the noble Baroness Kidron, which the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones) mentioned earlier, in relation to coroners and all services likely to be accessed by children. Clause 11 covers a variety of different duties, including duties to incorporate certain provisions in terms of service and to ensure that terms of service are clear and accessible. Those are important duties no doubt, but I am not convinced that any and all failures to fulfil them should result in criminal prosecution.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I thought I might mention to my right hon. and learned Friend that the written ministerial statement, which is now available to the public, makes it clear that useful and constructive discussions have taken place. Much of what he is saying is not necessarily applicable to the state of affairs we are now faced with.

[Sir Jeremy Wright]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend and I will come on to the written statement. I accept what he says. I think we are heading in the right direction, but since new clause 2 is before us at the moment, it seemed to me that I ought to address it, I hope in a helpful way.

There is nothing in the language of new clause 2 as it stands that requires a breach of the duties to be serious or even more than minimal. We should be more discriminating than that.

The second difficulty with new clause 2, which I hope the Government will pick up when they look at it again, is with prosecuting successfully the sorts of offences we may create. The more substantive and fundamental child safety duties in clause 11, which are to

“mitigate and manage the risks of harm”

and to prevent children encountering harmful content, are expressed in terms of the use of “proportionate measures” or “proportionate systems and processes”. The word “proportionate” is important and describes the need for balanced judgments to be made, including by taking into account freedom of expression and privacy as required by clause 11 itself. Aside from the challenges of obtaining evidence of what individual managers did or did not know, did or said, those balanced judgments could be very difficult for a prosecutor to assess and to demonstrate to a criminal court, to the required standard of proof, were deliberately or negligently wrong.

The consequences of that difficulty could either be that it becomes apparent that the cases are very hard to prosecute, and therefore criminal liability is not the deterrent we hoped for, or that wide criminal liability causes the sort of risk aversion and excessive take-down of material that I know worries my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) and others who support new clause 2. We therefore need to calibrate criminal liability appropriately.

It is also worth saying that if we are to pursue an extension of criminal liability, I am not sure that I see the logic of limiting that further criminal liability only to breaches of the child safety duties; I can envisage some breaches of safety duties in relation to illegal content that may also be deserving of such liability.

That leads me on to consider, as has been said, exactly how we might extend criminal liability differently. I appreciate that the Government will now be doing just that. Perhaps they can consider doing so in relation to serious or persistent breaches of the safety duties, rather than in relation to all breaches of safety duties.

Alternatively, or additionally, they could look at individual criminal liability for a failure to comply with a confirmed notice of contravention from Ofcom. I welcome the direction of travel set out in the written ministerial statement, which suggests that that is where the Government may go. As the statement says, the recent Irish legislation that has been prayed in aid does something very similar, and it is an approach with several advantages: it is easier to prove, we will know whether Ofcom has issued a notice requiring action to remedy a deficient approach to the safety duties, and we will know whether Ofcom believes that it has not been responded to adequately.

As we design a new system of regulation in this new era of regulation, we should want open conversations to take place between the regulator and the regulated as to how best to counter harms. Anything that discourages platforms and their directors from doing so may make the system we are designing work less well in promoting safety online. The approach that I think the Government will now consider is unlikely to do that.

Let me say one final thing. As my hon. Friend the Member for Gosport (Dame Caroline Dinenage) said, I have been involved in the progress of this Bill almost from the start, and I am delighted to see present my right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May), at whose instruction I started doing it. It has been tortuous progress, no doubt—to some extent that was inevitable because of the difficulty of the Bill and the territory in which we seek to legislate—but the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman), who speaks for the SNP and for whom I have a good deal of respect, was probably a little grudging in suggesting that as it stands the Bill does only slightly better than the status quo. It does a lot more than that.

If we send the Bill to the other place this evening, as I hope we do, and if the other place considers it again with some thoroughness and seeks to improve it further, as I know it will, we will make the internet not a safe place—I do not believe that is achievable—but a significantly safer place. If we can do that, it will be the most important thing that most of us in this place have ever done.

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In conclusion, I thank the Culture Secretary and the Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton and Cheam (Paul Scully), for their engagement to date and for the commitment made in the written ministerial statement to strengthen the Bill in relation to the prevention of modern slavery and illegal immigration, including for the protection of children. On that basis, I confirm that I will not be moving amendment 82 later today.

[Sir William Cash]

In a nutshell, we must be able to threaten tech bosses with jail. There is precedent for that—jail sentences for senior managers are commonplace for breaches of duties across a great range of UK legislation. That is absolutely and completely clear, and as a former shadow Attorney General, I know exactly what the law is on this subject. I can say this: we must protect our children and grandchildren from predatory platforms operating for financial gain on the internet. It is endemic throughout the world and in the UK, inducing suicide, self-harm and sexual abuse, and it is an assault on the minds of our young children and on those who are affected by it, including the families and such people as Ian Russell. He has shown great courage in coming out with the tragedy of his small child of 14 years old committing suicide as a result of such activities, as the coroner made clear. It is unthinkable that we will not deal with that. We are dealing with it now, and I thank the Secretary of State and the Minister for responding with constructive dialogue in the short space of time since we have got to grips with this issue.

The written ministerial statement is crystal clear. It says that

“where senior managers, or those purporting to act in that capacity, have consented or connived in ignoring enforceable requirements, risking serious harm to children. The criminal penalties, including imprisonment and fines, will be commensurate with similar offences.”

We can make a comparison, as the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) made clear, with financial penalties in the financial services sector, which is also international. There is also the construction industry, as my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) just said. Those penalties are already on our statute book.

I do not care what the European Union is doing in its legislation. I am glad to know that the Irish legislation, which has been passed and is an Act, has been through different permutations and examinations. The Irish have come up with something that includes similar severe penalties. It can be done. But this is our legislation in this House. We will do it the way that we want to do it to protect our children and families. I am just about fed up with listening to the mealy-mouthed remarks from those who say, “You can’t do it. It’s not quite appropriate.” To hell with that. We are talking about our children.

On past record, which I just mentioned, in 1977-78, a great friend of mine, Cyril Townsend, the Member for Bexleyheath, introduced the first Protection of Children Bill. He asked me to help him, and I did. We got it through. That was incredibly difficult at the time. You have no idea, Mr Deputy Speaker, how much resistance was put up by certain Members of this House, including Ministers. I spoke to Jim Callaghan—I have been in this House so long that I was here with him after he had been Prime Minister—and asked, “How did you give us so much time to get the Bill through?” He said, “It’s very simple. I was sitting in bed with my wife in the flat upstairs at No. 10. She wasn’t talking to me. I said, ‘What’s wrong, darling?’ She replied, ‘If you don’t get that Protection of Children Bill through, I won’t speak to you for six months.’” And it went through, so there you go. There is a message there for all Secretaries of State, and even Prime Ministers.

I raised this issue with the Prime Minister in December in a question at the Liaison Committee. I invited him to consider it, and I am so glad that we have come to this point after very constructive discussion and dialogue. It needed that. It is a matter not of chariots of fire but of chariots on fire, because we have done all this in three weeks. I am extremely grateful to the 51 MPs who stood firm. I know the realities of this House, having been involved in one or two discussions in the past. As a rule, it is only when you have the numbers that the results start to come. I pay tribute to the Minister for the constructive dialogue.

The Irish legislation will provide a model, but this will be our legislation. It will be modelled on some of the things that have already enacted there, but it is not simply a matter of their legislation being transformed into ours. It will be our legislation. In the European Parliament—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Nigel Evans)]

Order.

[Sir William Cash]

I know my time is up; I just want to say this.

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[Miriam Cates (Penistone and Stocksbridge) (Con)]

I too rise to speak to new clause 2, which seeks to introduce senior manager criminal liability to the Bill. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) set out, we will not push it to a vote as a result of the very welcome commitments that the Minister has made to introduce a similar amendment in the other place.

Protecting children is not just the role of parents but the responsibility of the whole of society, including our institutions and businesses that wish to trade here. That is the primary aim of this Bill, which I wholeheartedly support: to keep children safe online from horrendous and unspeakable harms, many of which were mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Northamptonshire (Dame Andrea Leadsom).

We look back in horror at children being forced to work down mines or neglected in Victorian orphanages, but I believe we will look back with similar outrage at online harms. What greater violation could there be of childhood than to entice a child to collaborate in their own sexual abuse in the privacy and supposed safety of their own bedroom? Yet this is one of the many crimes that are occurring on an industrial scale every day. Past horrors such as children down mines were tackled by robust legislation, and the Online Safety Bill must continue our Parliament’s proud tradition of taking on vested interests to defend the welfare of children.

The Bill must succeed in its mission, but in its present form, it does not have sufficient teeth to drive the determination that is needed in tech boardrooms to tackle the systemic issue of the malevolent algorithms that drive this sickening content to our children. There is no doubt that the potential fines in the Bill are significant, but many of these companies have deep pockets, and the only criminal sanctions are for failure to share data with Ofcom. The inquest following the tragic death of Molly Russell was an example of this, as no one could be held personally responsible for what happened to her. I pay tribute to Ian Russell, Molly’s father, whose courage in the face of such personal tragedy has made an enormous difference in bringing to light the extent of online harms.

Only personal criminal liability will drive proactive change, and we have seen this in other areas such as the financial services industry and the construction industry. I am delighted that the Government have recognised the necessity of senior manager liability for tech bosses, after much campaigning across the House, and committed to introducing it in the other place. I thank the Secretary of State and her team for the very constructive and positive way in which they have engaged with supporters of this measure.

[Sir William Cash]

Would my hon. Friend not also like to say that the NSPCC has been magnificent in supporting us?

[Miriam Cates]

I was coming on to that—absolutely.

The advantage of introducing this measure in the other place is that we can widen the scope to all appropriate child safety duties beyond clause 11 and perhaps tackle pornography and child sexual abuse material as well. We will have a groundbreaking Bill that will hold to account powerful executives who knowingly allow our children to be harmed.

There are those who say—not least the tech companies —that we should not be seeking to criminalise tech directors. There are those who worry that this will reduce tech investment, but that has not happened in Ireland. There are those who say that the senior manager liability amendment will put a great burden on tech companies to comply, to which I say, “Great!” There are those who are worried that this will set an international precedent, to which I say, “Even better!”

Nothing should cause greater outrage in our society than the harming of innocent children. In a just society founded on the rule of law, those who harm children or allow children to be harmed should expect to be punished by the law. That is what new clause 2 seeks to do, and I look forward to working with the Secretary of State and others to bring forward a suitable amendment in the other place.

I offer my sincere thanks to the NSPCC, especially Rich Collard, and the outstanding Charles Hymas of The Telegraph, who have so effectively supported this campaign. I also pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash); without his determination, knowledge and experience, it would not have been possible to achieve this change. He has been known as Mr Brexit, but as he said, even before he was Mr Brexit, he was Mr Child Protection, having been involved with the Protection of Children Act 1978. It is certainly advantageous in negotiations to work with someone who knows vastly more about legislation than pretty much anyone else involved. He sat through the debate in December on the amendment tabled by the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), and while the vote was taking place, he said, “I think we can do this.” He spent the next week in the Public Bill Office and most of his recess buried in legislation. I pay tribute to him for his outstanding work. Once again, I thank the Secretary of State for her commitment to this, and I think this will continue our Parliament’s proud history of protecting children.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir William Cash]

Does my hon. Friend agree that it is an assault not just on the physical person, but on their minds? That is what is going on, and it is destroying them.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dean Russell (Watford) (Con)]

I rise to talk broadly about new clause 2, which I am pleased that the Government are engaging on. My right hon. and hon. Friends have done incredible work to make that happen. I share their elation. As—I think—the only Member who was on the Joint Committee under the fantastic Chair, my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), and on both Committees, I have seen the Bill’s passage over the past year or so and been happy with how the Government have engaged with it. That includes on Zach’s law, which will ensure that trolls cannot send flashing images to people with epilepsy. I shared my colleagues’ elation with my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Suzanne Webb) when we were successful in convincing the Government to make that happen.

May I reiterate the learnings from the Joint Committee and from the Committee earlier last year? When we took evidence from the tech giants—they are giants—it was clear that, as giants do, they could not see the damage underfoot and the harm that they were doing because they are so big. They were also blind to the damage they were doing because they chose not to see it. I remember challenging a witness from one of the big tech giants about whether they had followed the Committee on the harms that they were causing to vulnerable children and adults. I was fascinated by how the witnesses just did not care. Their responses were, “Well, we are doing enough already. We are already trying. We are putting billions of pounds into supporting people who are being harmed.” They did not see the reality on the ground of young people being damaged.

When I interviewed my namesake, Ian Russell, I was heartbroken because we had children of a similar age. I just could not imagine having the conversations he must have had with his family and friends throughout that terrible tragedy.

[Sir William Cash]

Is my hon. Friend aware that Ian Russell has pointed out that 26% of young people who present at hospital with self-harm and suicide attempts have accessed such predatory, irresponsible and wilful online content?

[Dean Russell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. One of the real horrors is that, as I understand it, Facebook was not going to release—I do not want to break any rules here—the content that his daughter had being viewing, to help with the process of healing.

If I may, I want to touch on another point that has not been raised today, which is the role of a future Committee. I appreciate that is not part of the Bill, but I feel strongly that this House should have a separate new Committee for the Online Safety Bill. The internet and the world of social media is changing dramatically. The metaverse is approaching very rapidly, and we are seeing the rise of virtual reality and augmented reality. Artificial intelligence is even changing the way we believe what we see online and at a rate that we cannot imagine. I have a few predictions. I anticipate that in the next few years we will probably have the first No. 1 book and song written by AI. We can now hear online fake voices and impersonations of people by AI. We will have songs and so on created in ways that fool us and fool children even more. I have no doubt that in the coming months and years we will see the rise of children suing their parents for sharing content of them when they were younger without permission. We will see a changing dynamic in the way that young people engage with new content and what they anticipate from it.

Online Safety Bill

William Cash Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 5th December 2022 Commons Chamber

As I say, we should come back to this area time and time again, because this Bill will not be the last shot at it. People have talked about the “grey area”. How do we assess a grey area? Do I trust Whitehall to do it? No, I do not; good Minister though we have, he will not always be there and another Minister will be in place. We may have the British equivalent of Trump one day, who knows, and we do not want to leave this provision in that context. We want this House, and the public scrutiny that this Chamber gets, to be in control of it.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Many years ago, in the 1970s, I was much involved in the Protection of Children Bill, which was one of the first steps in condemning and making illegal explicit imagery of children and their involvement in the making of such films. We then had the broadcasting Acts and the video Acts, and I was very much involved at that time in saying that we ought to prohibit such things in videos and so on. I got an enormous amount of flack for that. We have now moved right the way forward and it is tremendous to see not only the Government but the Opposition co-operating together on this theme. I very much sympathise with not only what my right hon. Friend has just said—I am very inclined to support his new clause for that reason— but with what the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) said. I was deeply impressed by the way in which she presented the argument about the personal liability of directors. We cannot distinguish between a company and the people who run it, and I am interested to hear what the Government have to say in reply to that.

[Mr Davis]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend on that. He and I have been allies in the past—and sometimes opponents—and he has often been far ahead of other people. I am afraid that I do not remember the example from the 1970s, as that was before even my time here, but I remember the intervention he made in the 1990s and the fuss it caused. From that point of view, I absolutely agree with him. My new clause is clearly worded and I hope the House will give it proper consideration. It is important that we put something in the Bill on this issue, even if the Government, quite properly, amend it later.

I wish to raise one last point, which has come up as we have talked through these issues. I refer to the question of individual responsibility. One or two hon. Ladies on the Opposition Benches have cited algorithmic outcomes. As I said to the right hon. Member for Barking, I am worried about how we place the responsibility, and how it would lead the courts to behave, and so on. We will debate that in the next few days and when the Bill comes back again.

There is one other issue that nothing in this Bill covers, and I am not entirely sure why. Much of the behaviour pattern is algorithmic and it is algorithmic with an explicit design. As a number of people have said, it is designed as clickbait; it is designed to bring people back. We may get to a point, particularly if we come back to this year after year, of saying, “There are going to be rules about your algorithms, so you have to write it into the algorithm. You will not use certain sorts of content, pornographic content and so on, as clickbait.” We need to think about that in a sophisticated and subtle way. I am looking at my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Damian Collins), the ex-Chairman of the Select Committee, on this issue. If we are going to be the innovators—and we are the digital world innovators— we have to get this right.

--- Later in debate ---

[Miriam Cates]

I really wish it was fantasy land, but I am in contact with parents each and every day who tell me stories of their children being drawn into this. Yes, in this country it is thankfully very difficult to get a double mastectomy when you are under 18, but it is incredibly easy to buy testosterone illegally online and to inject it, egged on by adults in other countries. Once a girl has injected testosterone during puberty, she will have a deep voice and facial hair for life and male-pattern baldness, and she will be infertile. That is a permanent change, it is self-harm and it should be criminalised under this Bill, whether through this clause or through the Government’s new plans. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Neale Hanvey) is absolutely right: this is happening every day and it should be classed as self-harm.

Going back to my comments about the effect on children of viewing pornography, I absolutely support the idea of putting children’s experience at the heart of the Bill but it needs to be about children’s welfare and not about what children want. One impact of the internet has been to blur the boundary between adults and children. As adults, we need to be able to say, “This is the evidence of what is harmful to children, and this is what children should not be seeing.” Of course children will say that they want free access to all content, just like they want unlimited sweets and unlimited chocolate, but as adults we need to be able to say what is harmful for children and to protect them from seeing it.

This bring me to Government new clause 11, which deals with making sure that child sexual abuse material is taken offline. There is a clear link between the epidemic of pornography and the epidemic of child sexual abuse material. The way the algorithms on porn sites work is to draw users deeper and deeper into more and more extreme content—other Members have mentioned this in relation to other areas of the internet—so someone might go on to what they think is a mainstream pornography site and be drawn into more and more explicit, extreme and violent criminal pornography. At the end of this, normal people are drawn into watching children being abused, often in real time and often in other countries. There is a clear link between the epidemic of porn and the child sexual abuse material that is so prevalent online.

Last week in the Home Affairs Committee we heard from Professor Alexis Jay, who led the independent inquiry into child sexual abuse. Her report is harrowing, and it has been written over seven years. Sadly, its conclusion is that seven years later, there are now even more opportunities for people to abuse children because of the internet, so making sure that providers have a duty to remove any child sexual abuse material that they find is crucial. Many Members have referred to the Internet Watch Foundation. One incredibly terrifying statistic is that in 2021, the IWF removed 252,194 web pages containing child sexual abuse material and an unknown number of images. New clause 11 is really important, because it would put the onus on the tech platforms to remove those images when they are found.

It is right to put the onus on the tech companies. All the way through the writing of this Bill, at all the consultation meetings we have been to, we have heard the tech companies say, “It’s too hard; it’s not possible because of privacy, data, security and cost.” I am sure that is what the mine owners said in the 19th century when they were told by the Government to stop sending children down the mines. It is not good enough. These are the richest, most powerful companies in the world. They are more powerful than an awful lot of countries, yet they have no democratic accountability. If they can employ real-time facial recognition at airports, they can find a way to remove child abuse images from the internet.

This leads me on to new clause 17, tabled by the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge), which would introduce individual director liability for non-compliance. I completely support that sentiment and I agree that this is likely to be the only way we will inject some urgency into the process of compliance. Why should directors who are profiting from the platforms not be responsible if children suffer harm as a result of using their products? That is certainly the case in many other industries. The right hon. Lady used the example of the building trade. Of course there will always be accidents, but if individual directors face the prospect of personal liability, they will act to address the systemic issues, the problems with the processes and the malevolent algorithms that deliberately draw users towards harm.

[Sir William Cash]

My hon. Friend knows that I too take a great interest in this, and I am glad that the Government have agreed to continue discussions on this question. Is she aware that the personal criminal liability for directors flows from the corporate criminal liability in the company of which they are a director, and that their link to the criminal act itself, even if the company has not been or is not being prosecuted, means that the matter has to be made clear in the legislation, so that we do not have any uncertainty about the relationship of the company director and the company of which he is a director?

[Miriam Cates]

I was not aware of that, but I am now. I thank my hon. Friend for that information. This is a crucial point. We need the accountability of the named director associated with the company, the platform and the product in order to introduce the necessary accountability. I do not know whether the Minister will accept this new clause today, but I very much hope that we will look further at how we can make this possible, perhaps in another place.

I very much support the Bill. We need to get it on the statute book, although it will probably need further work, and I support the Government amendments. However, given the link between children viewing pornography and child sexual abuse, I hope that when the Bill goes through the other place, their lordships will consider how regulations around pornographic content can be strengthened, in order to drastically reduce the number of children viewing porn and eventually being drawn into criminal activities themselves. In particular, I would like their lordships to look at tightening and accelerating the age verification and giving equal treatment to all pornography, whether it is on a porn site or a user-to-user service and whether it is online or offline. Porn is harmful to children in whatever form it comes, so the liability on directors and the criminality must be exactly the same. I support the Bill and the amendments in the Government’s name, but it needs to go further when it goes to the other place.

--- Later in debate ---

The Government do not believe it would be proportionate or effective to expand the scope of individual liability under this Bill, for a number of reasons. There is a real risk of damaging the UK’s attractiveness as a place to start and grow a digital business. It might also lead to unintended consequences, such as tech executives driving an over-zealous approach to content take-down, for fear of going to prison for a regulatory failing.

[Sir William Cash]

I have raised this on a number of occasions in the past few hours, as have my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone and Stocksbridge (Miriam Cates) and the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge). Will the Minister be good enough to ensure that this matter is thoroughly looked at and, furthermore, that the needed clarification is thought through?

[Paul Scully]

I was going to come to my hon. Friend in two seconds.

In the absence of clearly defined offences, the changes we are making to the Bill mean that it is likely to be almost impossible to take enforcement action against individuals. We are confident that Ofcom will have all the tools necessary to drive the necessary culture change in the sector, from the boardroom down.

This is not the last stage of the Bill. It will be considered in Committee—assuming it is recommitted today—and will come back on Report and Third Reading before going to the House of Lords, so there is plenty of time further to discuss this and to give my hon. Friend the clarification he needs.

Oral Answers to Questions

William Cash Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

The UK prides itself on its leadership within the international system and it discharges its international obligations in good faith. We have a proud history of providing protection to those who need it and to migrants who have a lawful basis to be here. My personal background is one such case of reference. Let me just say this. I have acted for the Government in court on several immigration and asylum cases—many, many of them—and I can tell the House that our asylum system is broken. Our Bill fixes it and it is a shame that the hon. Gentleman voted against it.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Does the Attorney General agree that it would not be practical or possible in law for international law to condone illegal immigration?

BBC: Dyson Report

William Cash Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

The hon. Gentleman speaks with experience, as a former employee of the BBC, and he raises extremely valid questions. As I say, the BBC is conducting an urgent investigation into the circumstances of the employment of Martin Bashir, but if questions remain following that, I have no doubt that the hon. Gentleman, as a member of the Select Committee, will not be reticent in putting them to the BBC.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con) [V]]

Will my right hon. Friend make it clear that both the BBC and Ofcom must understand that, following next year’s mid-term review, the Government propose to vary the charter and to make the guidelines, impartiality rules and complaints procedures subject to parliamentary approval, without any so-called independent editorial standards board, which is the same old BBC dodge of waiting until things die down and then carrying on as before that we witnessed after the Jimmy Savile affair in relation to whistleblowing, when it committed to deal with it, and it did not?

[Mr Whittingdale]

I do not want to pre-empt either the BBC’s review of editorial oversight or the mid-term review, which we are only just beginning to work on, but my hon. Friend makes some extremely valid points. We placed impartiality in the first line of the BBC’s public purposes at the time of charter renewal, and we will wish to be satisfied that the BBC is delivering that, but I know that the new chair and the director-general take that very seriously.

Free TV Licences: Over-75s

William Cash Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Wright]

No, I am not careering anywhere and I have not admitted any such thing. What I said was that when this deal was made, both sides—the Government and the BBC—ought to have known what they were doing. As I indicated, the BBC made it clear at the time that it believed the settlement reached in 2015 was, overall, a fair settlement. The consequences of that arrangement and the Digital Economy Act 2017 mean that the BBC has to make a judgment about what to do with the BBC licence fee concession. It has made that judgment. We are all entitled to say what we think of it, but in the end it was its judgment to make from the point at which that 2017 legislation was passed.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State accept that the BBC’s income is about £5.5 billion a year? That is where the perspective needs to be presented. It is outrageous that this decision has been made in the manner in which it has been made. It is not necessary. Furthermore, I believe that the Government, under a new Prime Minister, must review the situation. Does the Secretary of State agree that the BBC does not give value for money and requires radical reform?

[Jeremy Wright]

No, I cannot entirely agree with my hon. Friend on that. I think that the BBC presents huge benefits to our society and to the nation beyond our shores. It is right that the BBC receives substantial income—I should say in the BBC’s defence that it has important responsibilities to carry out with that income and we expect it to do so—but it is also right that we expect the BBC to use its imagination and work hard to find ways to supplement what it has now agreed to do in the interests of older people, about whom we are all concerned.

Oral Answers to Questions

William Cash Excerpts

Thursday 11th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

I find myself in total agreement with what the hon. Lady has said. I will share them with my colleagues. We are not in any way going to permit our departure from the EU to detract from our firm and unshakeable commitment to human rights in this country and to the rule of law.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

In that context, and given the December resolution of the House regarding publication of the Law Officers’ opinions, will my right hon. and learned Friend be good enough to tell the House whether his advice was sought on these vital matters of time extensions before critical decisions were taken, as required by the ministerial code? Will he publish that advice?

[The Attorney General]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for the question. He knows that I am acutely conscious of his desire to have the maximum transparency upon the legal advice I give to the Government. He also knows that I am bound by a long-standing convention relating to Law Officers’ advice to disclose neither the fact nor the content of it. Within those constraints, I consider constantly to what extent I can make available to the House all the information it needs to take the important decisions that theses times require.

Oral Answers to Questions

William Cash Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney General]

The plans for next week are not mine to decide, but what I can tell the hon. Gentleman is this: we are discussing detailed, coherent, careful proposals, and we are discussing text with the European Union. I am surprised to hear the comments that have emerged over the last 48 hours that the proposals are not clear; they are as clear as day, and we are continuing to discuss them.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Will my right hon. and learned Friend give Parliament 48 hours’ notice or, at any rate, properly full notice of the outcome of his discussions with the EU? Will he provide to Parliament a draft of the withdrawal and implementation Bill, so that my European Scrutiny Committee, and others in Parliament and others outside, can assess how the withdrawal agreement will be enacted in domestic law, as obliged by article 4 of the withdrawal agreement; how the Bill would ensure the statutory manner in which the express repeal of the European Communities Act 1972 will be dealt with; and how the question of disapplication by the courts—by the Supreme Court—will be handled under that enactment?

[The Attorney General]

We will endeavour to give as much notice as we possibly can. Of course those discussions are running. They will resume very shortly and continue almost certainly through the weekend. We will endeavour to give the House notice as early as we can, if and when we have something to report. My hon. Friend made a second point about the Bill. That is not for me to decide, although I will certainly discuss the matter with those who will make that decision. We will endeavour to give the European Scrutiny Committee, and my hon. Friend, the earliest possible notice.

Centenary of the Armistice

William Cash Excerpts

Tuesday 6th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Keith Simpson (Broadland) (Con)]

I begin by offering my warmest congratulations to the Secretary of State and the shadow Secretary of State on two very thoughtful and moving speeches in this important debate. I also welcome the new Minister, who will be winding up. I am sure that she will understand if I say that it is with sorrow that I recognise that her predecessor had to resign.

Like a number of colleagues, I am haunted by the first world war. I am of an age to not have had to fight a war—I was too young for national service during the cold war—but my father and uncles served in the second world war, as did those of many hon. Members, and both my grandfathers served in the first world war.

I am by training a military historian. I have written books on the British Army in the first world war, and I interviewed dozens of survivors in the 1970s, but the question in my mind is that which my son, aged 27, put to me. He is interested in history, but he said, “Why do we continue to put so much emphasis and effort into commemorating the first world war and the Armistice, which are as far away from my generation as the battle of Waterloo and the Peninsular war were from that generation?” That is a crucial question. As the Secretary of State said, through the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, a lot of effort has been put into involving young people—much younger than my son—in understanding what the first world war was about.

I have been privileged to serve on two organisations as a parliamentary representative: the Prime Minister’s advisory committee on commemorating the first world war and, along with the right hon. Member for North Durham (Mr Jones), the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. Both of us finish in December. I will have done 10 years. The commission is an amazing organisation, as the shadow Secretary of State said. Formed in 1917 as the Imperial War Graves Commission, it owed its organisation and purpose for the next 20 years to a remarkable man, Fabian Ware. He was not a soldier—he was too old in 1914—but he organised a Red Cross unit that went out to France. In 1915, he was conscious of the question of what would happen to the thousands of men who were killed. In previous battles, that had been limited. Often the private soldiers had merely been dumped in a great pit and, if they were lucky, a single cross had been put over it.

Many wealthier parents, usually of officers, brought their sons home, and, indeed, a number of families tried to do so in 1914, but it was going to be on such a scale that Ware persuaded GHQ in France that another organisation had to be set up. The first was the Graves Registration Commission, which attempted to find out the names and the units of the men who had been killed; and, of course, in thousands of cases, it knew not where their bodies were. As a result of Ware’s determination, the Imperial War Graves Commission obtained its royal charter in 1917, although not without a great deal of opposition on the part of many people who, understandably, wanted to bring their husbands, fathers and sons home. Ware was also determined that there should be absolute equality in terms of the sites in which men were buried: that the aristocrat would lie next to the pauper, and the officer next to the lance corporal.

What we all see today in the gardens of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission—which also looks after the men who died in the second world war—is worldwide. The biggest number who are commemorated are not in Belgium and France, but here in the United Kingdom. Those who visit the south coast, by the old hospitals, will see many War Graves Commission cemeteries where lie the men who were brought back wounded from Belgium and France in two world wars, but who then died.

This is a Commonwealth War Graves Commission, and, as other Members have rightly pointed out, we need to continue to emphasise the role of what we then called the British empire. We did not fight the war on our own. We suffered horrendous casualties, but without the active participation of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the colonies in west Africa and, above all, the Indian empire, we would not have been able to fight the first world war. We went through the motions of recognising how important they had been, but I think that it is only in the past 20 years that we have given them the full recognition that they deserve.

The Australians and New Zealanders have, of course, concentrated on their role at Gallipoli, rather brushing aside the fact that they lost more men in Belgium and France. The Canadians are the unsung heroes of the two world wars. Canada put in so many troops: in the second world war, about a third of the Royal Canadian Navy was fighting the battle of the Atlantic. We could not have fought with our infantry battalions in Normandy and Germany in 1944-45 without what were called “Canloan officers” and non-commissioned officers. So in considering the Armistice, we should bear in mind the role of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech, and drawing attention to incredibly important matters. May I take the opportunity to say how grateful I am personally for the fact that my own father, who was killed in Normandy in 1944, is buried in one of those cemeteries? May I also take the opportunity to commemorate all those people from my constituency and from the whole of Staffordshire? I know that my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) concurs with me in that. I want to commemorate, as we will on Remembrance Day next weekend, the bravery of the people to whom my right hon. Friend has already referred, and I should be most grateful if he would be good enough to accept that as my congratulations to him on a very fine speech.

[Mr Simpson]

I thank my hon. Friend. He and I have spoken before about the tragic death of his father and about what that meant to him. I am always conscious, as I know we all are, of the impact that losses had in war, on families but on friends as well. One of the memories in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission archives, which are now being put on its website, is contained in the letters—the desperate letters—that the commission received from relatives trying to find their husbands, sons and brothers who had been killed.

I do not have to remind this House that some of the biggest memorials for which the Commonwealth War Graves Commission is responsible are to those who have no grave: the Menin Gate, Tyne Cot at Passchendaele, Thiepval and quite rightly—I know the Secretary of State mentioned this—the memorials at Portsmouth, Plymouth and London to members of the Royal Navy and the merchant navy who were lost at sea, which at the time must have been totally and utterly devastating.

The Armistice did not end the first world war; the first world war was concluded at the peace conference in 1919, but, as other Members have mentioned, the conflict continued. The British Army was demobilised, but it was maintaining peace and order, as it saw it, in Egypt and Palestine and through the First British Army of the Rhine, and I would argue that the first world war did not really end until 1922 and the Chanak incident when we backed down over Turkey: Lloyd George had backed the Greeks; the coalition Government fell; and the rest is history.

I would like to leave the House with just one quote, if Members will allow an old military historian. I am holding the diary of Brigadier General Jack, which was edited by John Terraine in the early 1960s. Jack was born in 1880 and died in 1962. He was a conservative Scottish officer—a rather shy man. He was 33 in 1914, a platoon commander in the 1st Cameronians, the Scottish Rifles. He survived all that. He became a company commander and then became the commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion, the West Yorkshire Regiment. He was wounded in late 1917 and had nearly four months out of the line. He became a staff officer and was then put back into the line in 1918 to become the commanding officer of the 1st Cameronians, and in September 1918, he was made a brigade commander, commanding about 1,300 men. And off and on, he kept a meticulous diary.

The short quote I want to read out is from 11 November 1918, and it is his final reflections:

“At last I lie down tired and very happy, but sleep is elusive. How far away is that 22nd August 1914, when I heard with a shudder, as a platoon commander at Valenciennes, that real live German troops, armed to the teeth, were close at hand—one has been hardened since then. Incidents flash through the memory: the battles of the first four months; the awful winters in waterlogged trenches, cold and miserable; the terrible trench-war assaults and shell fire of the next three years; loss of friends, exhaustion and wounds; the stupendous victories of the last few months; our enemies all beaten to their knees.

Thank God! The end of a frightful four years, thirty-four months of them at the front with the infantry, whose company officers, rank and file, together with other front-line units, have suffered bravely, patiently and unselfishly, hardships and perils beyond even the imagination of those, including soldiers, who have not shared them.”

And most of us did not share it either.

Passchendaele

William Cash Excerpts

Thursday 13th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Glen]

That day also saw the death of the Irish poet Francis Ledwidge. It is important to remember that many of those who fought at Passchendaele were conscripts and that the war had already led to huge changes around these islands. Women were already playing a vital role in the war effort, particularly in the production of munition for the artillery, which was so critical to the outcome of the fighting. For many of us, Passchendaele has come to epitomise the horrors of trench warfare on the western front.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I think my hon. Friend knows what I am about to say, but does he recall that, through him and the Wiltshire Regiment, I presented the city of Salisbury with a bugle that was used by the 1st Wiltshire Regiment? I understand that it is now in the museum as a recognition and a memory of the brave people who fought in that wonderful battle.

[John Glen]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for reminding me and the House of that kind gift. It represents a whole plethora of gifts and memories concerning the first and second world wars that many Members of this House and many of constituents have in their families. It is important that we put those exhibits out there so that the next generation can fully grasp what happened during this period of our history.

--- Later in debate ---

[Paul Flynn (Newport West) (Lab)]

Each time we have these debates, they get nearer to the reality of the first world war. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan) quoted Eisteddfod y Gadair Ddu, which is renowned in Wales as commemorating Hedd Wyn and that touching symbol he used:

“A’u gwaed yn gymysg efo’r glaw”—

their blood mixed with the rain. We could see that in the imagery presented by the right hon. Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) in the two poems he quoted. We must see the lesson of this terrible event from the first world war and learn from it.

There has been one visual aid this afternoon, and the picture I have here shows my father—Machine Gunner James Flynn. He was not a distinguished soldier, but one who volunteered because he was a great patriot. He had soaked up all the propaganda that was around at the time, and he went there to sort out the Hun. He went as a volunteer at the age of 15; he lied about his age. He went through the whole lot—the Somme and Passchendaele. Eventually he was captured by the Germans, to his great relief, because he was dying after being hit by a mortar; he was in a shell hole and could not get out of it. He was eternally grateful to the Germans for the rest of his life—he lived to 43—because of the care they gave him. They carried him across no man’s land after the breakthrough by the Germans in 1918 and saved his life. He went out there to kill Germans, and he came back as a great admirer of the Germans who saved his life.

I was struck by a poem that the right hon. Member for Broadland (Mr Simpson) quoted in a previous debate, because it illustrates the truth of the first world war. It is one brief stanza by Rudyard Kipling, who was of course a great cheerleader for the war and all patriotic causes—so much so that he managed to pull a few strings to make sure that his son, who had defective eyesight, could pass the test to get in to become a soldier and then lost his life. Rudyard Kipling had a picture of what would happen when he died and went to heaven, and was forced to see the people he had encouraged to go to war and lose their lives. He said:

“I could not dig: I dared not rob:

Therefore I lied to please the mob.

Now all my lies are proved untrue

And I must face the men I slew.

What tale shall serve me here among

Mine angry and defrauded young?”

The youth of that generation were defrauded by the senior generation of officers and politicians. Although they were not wicked people, they had all kinds of heroic delusions.

We must not see Passchendaele through the fog of a belief in a false idea of heroism: it was not like that. It rapidly became a terrible scene of slaughter where men died like cattle and lives were not counted, with 16 million deaths. What is our lesson, and have we learned it yet? I doubt if we have, because today we have heard the word “wonderful” used about that battle. What it can mean, I have no idea. There is no way that anyone can describe the first world war as anything other than a terrible, terrible mistake and a series of tragedies.

[Sir William Cash]

The use of the word “wonderful” in this context is about admiration for the heroism and for the courage. My hon. Friend the Member for South West Wiltshire (Dr Murrison) used the word “wonder” with regard to how we feel when we look at what happened. Today happens to be the anniversary of my own father’s death in the battle of Hill 112, shortly after Maltot, on 13 July 1944. I have personal experience of this; I know that the hon. Gentleman has referred to his father. The word “wonderful” in this context is about admiration for the heroism and for the courage, and I am not going to resile from that.

[Paul Flynn]

I think it is entirely true to say that there is a nobility in the soldier’s craft and the soldier’s sacrifice, and we are grateful for that to this day. We see in Kosovo and Sierra Leone, with the humanitarian work that was done there, acts that are absolutely defensible and in which we can take a great pride. We have had a marvellous military history, and much of it showed the best of human nature. I do not disagree with the hon. Gentleman on that.

But what are we learning today? We should look at what happened in this Chamber in 2006, when a decision was made to send troops into Helmand at a time when only half a dozen of our soldiers had been killed there. We had already been there for nearly six years, since 2001. We went in in the belief that not a shot would be fired. The result was that 450 of our soldiers died there. We have yet to face up to the reality of that. Was it a mistake by us? The Chilcot report came out. A year later, Lord Chilcot has had to repeat some of the lessons that he drew from it, because those lessons have been glossed over. There has been a spinning of the reality of his conclusions. That is partly because so many people in this Chamber at the time were part of a mistake in our joining the Iraq war. We could not stop the war happening, but we could have stopped Britain’s involvement in it, which would have avoided the deaths of 179 of our soldiers.

[Sir William Cash]

I would like to slightly pursue this point with the hon. Gentleman, because there is probably not much difference between us in terms of the sentiments that lie behind his reasons for advancing rather different arguments. I simply make the point that although the pity of war, as it was so aptly put, is a terrible thing, we have to reflect on the fact that sometimes it is necessary. Unprovoked aggression, as indeed we experienced in the second world war, does lead to our having to fight back, and that necessarily involves the cost of people’s lives, like my father and others. When defining the boundaries of this matter, we must be very careful to ensure that we do not go overboard in suggesting that somehow the whole war is in itself unacceptable, because unfortunately it is a fact of life. We do have to fight back and respect and admire the heroism of those who take part.

[Paul Flynn]

There really is no difference between us. I never suggested that there were not entirely justifiable wars.

We should be recalling what lessons we have learned from Passchendaele and the rest of the first world war in the decisions we take in this House now. I once had five weeks’ enforced absence from this House for saying what I am about to say, although I will say it in a rather more delicate way. I said that Ministers of all kinds were mistaken in the claim they were making to potential soldiers that they could go to Afghanistan and thereby reduce the threat of terrorism in this country. I think that was an untruth, because the only reason the Taliban were killing our soldiers in Afghanistan was that we were there. Other people had an interest in terrorism here, but there was never any interest among the Taliban. Soldiers were called on to go there for that purpose, but it was not true. I believe we are still in a position where politicians lie and soldiers die. Unless we can be frank with them, we are going to find that a generation will reject war.

It was interesting that General Dannatt said recently—a matter of days ago—that he did not want people to believe what Chilcot was saying because it would suggest to those who had lost loved ones in Iraq that they died in vain. But sadly that is probably the truth, because we had nothing to gain, unlike in the first world war. The main result of the first world war was the second world war; it was a terrible error. We have a duty to look at the opinions of the soldiers who fought at the time. None of them is alive now. The last one who died left us a message when he said that he thought that war was legalised murder. There are many other soldiers whose lives were destroyed by that war. Lives were shortened.

I feel particular pain in the case of my own father. His life was ruined by the war, and he could never do what he called a proper man’s job again. In 1935, his pension was reduced by the Government, who said that his health problems—he went out there as a perfectly fit 15-year-old—were not attributable to his war wounds but were aggravated by them. That was a cheat by the Government, and he died a short time later. We do not have a record of treating our soldiers with gratitude, and that remains the case. The essence of this debate is that we should remember the truth of the first world war. We should never again repeat the old lie that it is sweet and decorous to die for the country. That is not true. It is an old lie to which, sadly, new people would like to give new credence.